A long day -- over 13 hours out and back. I got up at 4:00, and was on the trail at about 7:15. It's a fairly long drive up there; I guess as far as the Shuksan sulfide glacier trailhead.

It was a beautiful morning: cool and clear, wild flowers everywhere. I would have expected them to be further gone than at Snoqualmie, since it's lower and hotter there, but apparently not. There was frost on the ground in the morning. I stopped several times to take photos; I was deliberately going at a slower pace to conserve energy and try to limit tomorrow's soreness. As I came over the edge of the Long Pass ridge, Mt Stuart loomed before me as big as God -- the view of it is a little like that of Whitehorse: you can see the whole route from there, but man it's a lot more of a mountain!.

Mt. Stuart from the top of Long Pass.

I was worried that there would be no established trail from the rim down to the mountain, but there was. I followed it down, and across the stream (Icicle Creek) to where the trail connected with the Icicle Creek Trail. Eventually I just left the IC trail and headed towards the mountain cross-country. Fortunately, there was only trees for the first 100 feet or less, then it was open fields on the talus slope.

As Beckey says, it's hard to figure out which couloir to take. The standard route it called Cascadia Couloir, and there's another one to the left called Ulrich couloir. I stared up Ulrich before I decided I needed to be more to the south, so I traversed the ridge and got into the next one over, where I saw bootprints, and figured I was home free. Unfortunately, I made a wrong turn, and ended up in a deadend couloir, where I could barely go ahead or back: and I knew if I went up any more that there was no way I could downclimb it. So, I stopped for a lunch break to relax my nerves, and downclimbed to the right couloir, and headed up.

Looking down Ulrich Couloir, Long Pass visible in the background.

A view down Cascadia Couloir, somewhat less steep.

It wasn't as nice as I'd expected; the couloirs are filled with sand and small rocks as well as large ones, so it was kind of messy going up (and a lot worse going down)

There were a surprising number of grasshoppers up there, speckled to blend in with the black-and-white granite. They were pretty high: I saw them as high as 9000' or so.

There was almost no snow, except for a 100 foot snowfield below the false summit. I had brought my ice axe and crampons, and once again had considered caching them somewhere to save weight, but when I needed them, I really needed them. The snow was very steep, and pretty hard, so it would have been dicey to try and make it without them.

Below the false summit, I ran into a group of people from the Mazamas in Portland, and again at the summit. In the group was a guy who was 70, and a woman who was the mother of one of the climbers. She reminded me of my mother. They were doing it in three days, a much more pleasant way to go.

Looking from the false summit to the true summit.

As I approached the summit the weather clouded over a little, light high clouds, and heavier clouds to the north. I couldn't see Shuksan at all, and Glacier Peak was socked in. I saw Mt. Daniel; it looks just like in Beckey's illustrations.

I was surprised to see a number of apparent bivvy spots cleared out on the summit ridge like graves, maybe a dozen of them. It seemed pretty odd to me to deliberately camp way up here. (I've learned since that they're occupied by climbers on the technical routes who are benighted. This happens a lot. I've read someone's account of ascending the top of Stuart as being like hiking through Machu Piccu, and that does kind of capture it.)

I called Heidi from the summit, and then took photos, including taking pictures of the Mazamas, and having them take a picture of me.

Looking down the other side of Stuart. The Stuart Glacier is in poor condition this time of year.

Looking off to Ingalls lake (I think.) I really like this view.

The descent was a little tricky: you descend 100 yards or so, then turn to the right below a tower. Another group of three guys was there, they had climbed the west side. I followed one of them down until it was clear he was well below the tower, so I went right. The other two of them continued on down, way ahead of me, but I ran into them on the trail.

I ran out of water, and so at the bottom I refilled my bottle from the waterfalls at the base of the Ulrich couloir. I was a little worried about the possibility of Giardia, but my mouth was dry clear back to my throat, and I figured it was pretty safe since it was melting snow, so what the heck.

I ran into one of the guys on the trail; I'd told them earlier that the Long Pass trail was to the left of where the couloir joins the Icicle Creek Trail, but the other guy had taken off to the right. So I took off left, and came to the trail joining just about the time I decided I had made a wrong turn.

The trail up to the rim was longer than I remembered coming down, although it looked like a long way from up above too. I passed a marmot, five feet from the trail, who more or less ignored me.

The walk out was beautiful. I was tired, and ready to be home, but it was nice. There’s something about the dry scenery there that is very pleasant. When I left the ridge, after a couple of final photos, I looked for those guys from the West face, but couldn’t see them.

Near the car I passed an older couple. The man said he’d climbed Stuart a couple of times; he had a German accent, like the old Mazama.

It felt pretty nice to get to the car. I changed out of my boots and shirt, and gulped down part of the Snapple I’d brought (awful -- way too sugary!) and fired up the car and headed home. There's nothing like a long, exhausting climb to make you appreciate a dependable car.