Was feeling lazy but people are asking for some beta and I should prolly be less lazy so here it is. This is the summer of getting Asher into alpine climbing so a great objective for us would be a traverse from ingalls to sherpa. One might think to go further but past sherpa it gets much more sloggy and less climby. When I climbed the North Ridge of Sherpa and tried to go over to the col, we hated it so much we bailed down to the creek. I also hadn’t climbed Ingalls or the W. Ridge of Stuart so it would be new but easy terrain for both of us. This would be my first real big trip without an equally experienced partner but given it was commonly climbed easy terrain, I felt it would make perfect sense.
Asher was with friends in leavenworth so I soloed up black peak on friday before making the drive down. We started on Saturday around 5, hitting snow at Ingalls pass. We didn’t bring any foot traction since microspikes are lame. This would end up being the crux of the trip. Anyways, by 9 we were at the base of the route and a nice simul pitch got us to the top by 9:40. We got back down by 10:15 and were quickly moving back down towards lake Ingalls.
We slogged along the ridge for a while until reaching the talus below the W. Ridge at 1 and with so much time, took a half hour break to fill up water from a tiny trickle, worried that it would be the last running water of the trip. Sadly for our dumb asses we found a great faucet just 15 minutes after moving again. Anyways, we scrambled up the gully for a while, never roping up. There was definitely snow but it was bypassable, often by going into the moat or just climbing around it. Didn’t feel as classic of a climb as I expected, given the amount of gully time for the thing, I think a more suitable name would be the SW chutes of Stuart. Anyways, I’ll stop the hate. Asher was getting tired so at 3pm we decided to stop at the bivy sites below Long Johns Tower. I still had energy so went over to the mandatory snow patch and kicked in some steps while the snow was warm. We threw in a nut to stash our food bag for the night and enjoyed a very long afternoon.
Day 2 started at 6:30ish. We found a downloaded GPX super helpful. We appreciated the steps in the morning but getting up to long johns tower. I think we went too far climbers left and had a mountain goat kick a microwave sized rock over our heads. That was a bit scary. Eventually we found our way up but this began the even trickier section of snow. With only approach shoes and very steep snow, we had probably 25 meters(???) of steep snow. I took the lead and many chopped steps later with my adze, we were back on rock. From here it was just that big gully traverse to the west ridge notch, where we summited around 12:30. Took a short break before moving over to the cascadian. There was obviously snow on the face up to the false summit, so a rappel and even more step chopping got us to a more used track.
From here we enjoyed a nice traverse over to sherpa including a rappel, though it seemed it could’ve been avoided with some super airy downclimbing over the sherpa glacier. We reached the base of Sherpa’s W. Ridge at 4 but routefinding errors took lots of time and by 5:15, Asher was tapped out on that flat section below the true summit. I found a way climbers left and soloed to the top, summiting at 5:40. I descended back down to asher and we made a few rappels back to the Col. given it was Ashers first big alpine climb, he just wanted to get down to flat ground so we descended to around 6200 where we found a nice bivy on a boulder and played MnM chess.
The next day was just a nice hike out. We were able to avoid snow up to longs pass. We had a 3 course meal of brats, crepes, and ice cream in leavy. Twas a fun little trip. Nice to have some time to relax in the alpine.
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