Stuart Glacier Couloir on Mount Stuart Car to Car

April 12, 2014

A few weeks ago, Goran and I climbed the Ice Cliff Glacier on Mount Stuart. Upon arriving at camp on the night before our climb, we ran into two climbers coming down to their tent after successfully climbing the Stuart Glacier Couloir. They spoke of rime, pin-banging, steep snow, and an epic adventure. At that point, it was clear to me that I'd climb SGC sometime soon.

With a solid forecast and low avalanche danger, Goran and I formulated a plan. We knew the road would still be closed, but that at least half of it would be melted out by this point, so we were prepared with trail runners and micro spikes. We went in light and fast, bringing only 4 cams, 6 nuts, 6 pins, 2 ice screws, 2 pickets, and a 30 meter rope for the climb. We brought one sleeping bag and one pad for the two of us in addition to a stove and a shovel. Beyond that, we only brought some warm clothes, a bunch of food, and water.

The result was a speedy approach and fresh legs for the climb. We slept in the car for a few hours on Friday night, woke at 1am, and made it from the gate on the road to the flat area below the North Ridge in about 4.5 hours. The sun rose as we removed our trail runners and put on our boots. We left our shoes and back-up dinners there and headed up the glacier, taking about 2 hours to get to the base of the couloir.

We quickly encountered the constriction, which was a mix of verglas, solid ice, and dense snow. We simul-climbed through it and I placed one screw in each step. Above the constriction, the couloir stayed steep and was pretty exhausting, due to the snow being a bit softer. We took short pulls on the front until reaching the West Ridge notch just shy of 9:30am. We took the opportunity to rest a bit, sitting on the ridge rest I'd brought and huddling under Goran's sleeping bag. It was magical.

Moving through mixed terrain on the West Ridge

The first pitch or two of the West Ridge was pretty easy and straightforward traversing and down-climbing on rime-covered ledges. From there, we headed up to the left of a large block onto the North Face and then back to a small notch on the ridge. Our 30m rope was a little short for the first bit, so we simul-climbed the finish, but the rest of the pitches worked out pretty well with that rope length. From there, we went up a steeper crack system at M4/5, did another pitch of M4/5, and gained the ridge crest again. We gingerly down-climbed with a rappel back-up on the nut left by our friends a few weeks earlier, traversed a bit, and climbed two more short pitches of M4/5 and bare rock to gain the summit just shy of 3pm.

It was perfectly calm and sunny at the top and we'd been on the move for about 14.5 hours, so it was nap time. We laid out the ridge rest, melted some water, had a nap, and made ourselves a little coffee. So good. Just as we were finishing the nap, a few skiers came up and explained their plan to ski Ullrich's Couloir. It looked steeper than I'd ski!

The descent was without incident, but was exceptionally long. We punctuated it with rests, but there was enough post-holing and slipping around that things were pretty painful. The last 4 miles out on the road were especially bad. My knees were smoked and my feet were hurting pretty badly, but we finished up after a total of 21.5 hours to a very comfortable-looking Honda Fit with cookies in it. Booyah!

Ice Cliff Glacier on Mount Stuart

March 23, 2014

After much discussion and research on Friday evening with Goran after work, we decided to change our focus from Mount Hood's North Face to Mount Stuart in hopes of reducing the avalanche danger as well as guaranteeing the conditions to climb some ice. Despite spending a bunch of time up around Colchuck Lake, I'd never had to skin the road and I'd also never approached Stuart from the North before, so the whole adventure was pretty novel.

We left Seattle around 8am, made some necessary stops for caffeine and fat-laden salami, and hit the trailhead around 11am to start the skin. It was about an hour and a quarter up the road and the sun was beating down on us, so we sweated our way up with pant legs unzipped and rolled up. The trail was a welcome relief as we continued at a fast pace through the shady woods, eventually breaking off from the main trail and heading for Stuart Lake.

Not long after that point, we'd successfully gained most of our elevation and continued skinning across some meadows and low-angle forest toward and past Mountaineers Ridge. Another pair had set a skin track for us, so we followed their path as it meandered circuitously across streams and over downed trees. We eventually cut across the final steep section to gain a wide-open area where we set up camp while staring up at the impressive North Ridge and our objective: The Ice Cliff Glacier.

After a chicken-supplemented, freeze-dried meal, we conked out with an alarm for 3:45am.

The beginning of the climb was a rude awakening when we started moving before 5am under a starry sky. New snow had fallen over the night and we were climbing in our AT boots, which really don't do well on terrain that isn't very steep. We gained the moraine and rode it up to the base of the North Ridge where we cut hard left and traversed under the ice cliff. From there, we roped up and skirted the left side on steep snow until hitting the cliff itself.

The ice was steep, but short lived—probably something around AI 3 for 30 feet or so, before traversing right on steep snow and over the lip of the cliff. Once we were over the lip, we could see that there was still quite a bit of climbing to be done. We traversed to the right side of the gully and began the wallowing.

To this point, the snow had been reasonably firm and relatively easy to boot up, but it was here where the snow changed to unconsolidated and knee to hip deep. We took turns cursing and throwing ourselves at the slope until across a number of crevasses and the bergschrund, at which point things moved to only knee deep and we started moving much more quickly, hugging the left side of the gully until a fork, taking the right fork, and cruising up to the cornice.

As Goran said later when reflecting on the route, the cornice was the steepest snow he'd ever climbed before. It was a bit loose and pretty tricky, involving some serious ice tool maneuvering and beached-whale moves. Great success! We pulled over the lip into a different world, with the spring sun washing over us and a beautiful view towards Rainier and Adams.

Fortunately, we found the boot pack from the descent of a pair we'd met the day before who had climbed the Stuart Glacier Couloir. Unfortunately, their steps didn't help our post holing much and we struggled our way up to the false summit, feeling pretty beat and with cramping legs. The false summit was plastered in rime ice reminiscent of Patagonia and we followed the boot track as it wove past rime-covered spires to the summit ridge. We finally gained the summit at about 12:30am.

Knowing the magnitude of the descent, we quickly snapped some pictures, rested up, and then began the descent, which wove back around the false summit, past our exit point, and down to the Sherpa Glacier. The Sherpa was a super fast descent despite more deep snow and we were down to camp from the summit in no time. With aching legs, we broke camp and donned our packs, ready to slide out as quickly and safely as we could. The ski was as challenging as I expected and involved a good amount of profanity as my tired body tried to pizza wedge down steep, tight sections of the trail, but we were successful in the end.

With feet feeling like hamburger and every major muscle group aching, we easily made the decision to eat brats and drink some celebratory beers in Leavenworth. It was an awesome way to start up the new season with an awesome partner.

Guillot-Conqueugniot Route on Aguja Guillaumet

January 31, 2014

For Dale's take on this adventure, check out his blog:
http://www.daleapgar.com/words/patagonia-2014-part-iv

Coming off the high from our home-to-home success on Mojon Rojo, we wanted to squeak out one more trip into the mountains before having to fly home. Conditions hadn't changed and the weather forecast didn't look terribly inspiring, but we had to give it a shot.

There was much debate about our final objective. Both Dale and I wanted a shot at redemption on Exocet, but the weather did not appear commensurate with the magnitude and commitment of the route. Our other challenge was time—to climb something as far back there as Exocet would have required a nearly continuous output and very short bivy. We eventually settled on a return trip to Aguja Guillaumet.

Our approach day started out better than our previous soirée at Piedra Negra, but quickly caused a little PTSD and flashbacks when sideways snow began to whip our faces on the hike up from Piedra del Fraile. We ended up waiting out the worst of it (or so we thought) with a couple of lovely ladies from Buenos Aires in the last tree-protected area before camp. It was a lovely way to spend an hour that would have otherwise been pretty grim.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't calm down much and we experienced a bunch more whipping wind carrying face-buffing particulates. At times, the gusts would literally push us uphill. We simply had to keep moving our feet forwards and the wind was strong enough to carry us. This awkward and challenging hike finally brought us back to Piedra Negra where we quickly pitched the tent and experienced a wonderful progression of first dinner, a nap, and a second dinner.

To save some weight after lugging heavy packs around for most of the trip, we decided to try sleeping in the tent with just puffy jackets and pants. As we settled in for the night after our second dinner and blood rushing to our stomachs to deal with 1,600 calories of Backpackers' Pantry deliciousness, I was glad that I'd brought an emergency blanket. We tucked ourselves in under our crinkly sheet and shivered our way to sleep, listening to a roaring wind outside and watching ice form on the inside of the tent.

Nearing the top of the couloir.  Photo by Dale Apgar. — Nearing the top of the couloir. Photo by Dale Apgar.

The wind had calmed a bit by our 4am wakeup and we quickly ascended the glacier and scree up to Paso Guillaumet. As we reached the pass, I experienced, for the first time, wind rushing up both sides of a pass, meeting in the middle, and shooting straight up in the air. It was too windy and cold to climb, so we waited for the sunrise; Dale stomping around to keep warm and me donning my puffy pants. Thankfully, the wind subsided a bit after the sun came up and we headed for our route—the Guillot.

The coulor was more consistent than the Amy, maintaining a similar width and set of conditions throughout. There were some steps of steep ice, but most of the climb was steep snow and off-angle ice. We climbed it in about 4 pitches with our 70m rope, topping out on the ridge after a short mixed section. It took a few minutes to confirm our next pitch along the ridge line, which ended up feeling a lot like 5.8 climbing since we were doing it with gloves and mountaineering boots on. Perhaps on a sunny day and with approach shoes, it would have felt much more casual.

The rest of the ridge after that point eased up a bit. There was an easy traverse, followed by one more 5th class section that was less exposed and quite a bit easier. I decided to use one tool and one glove for that section and it seemed to be a much better approach. The wind had kicked up again when we had gained the ridge, and these last two pitches were quite blustery, but still safe. All that stood between us and the summit at that point was a bit of steep snow.

The summit was in a full whiteout, but we could not have been much happier. In our last week, we'd gone from a big goose egg on our summit to a slightly more respectable 2. We didn't hang out for very long, knowing that the wind was only getting stronger and that the weather was moving in. We rappelled the route quickly, got back to the col, and booked it down the scree and snow slopes to camp where we made ourselves a hot lunch and packed things up to get ourselves back to town.

I'm not sure if it was a desire to stop the sand-blasting of my face by the wind, the magic of the whisky we drank, or something inside me that wanted to make the most of my last day in Patagonia, but I ended up moving quickly on the trail back out, propelling my tired legs with my upper body and trekking poles, making it from Piedra Negra to the road at Rio Electrico in 2.5 hours. A bus picked us up minutes after we started hitchhiking and carried us back to El Chalten for a final night of merriment.

During our first two weeks in Patagonia, especially during the second week when the festering really set in, I wasn't sure that I would return to this wind-scoured, wintry, real-deal mountain paradise. After the successes and experiences of our last week and after taking some time to reflect on the trip as a whole, I can say confidently that I'd like to make it back to El Chalten one day.