Our hike up Ingalls Creek to Stuart Pass was marked by a discussion of pumpkin pies. Dena pointed out that the filling is, in truth, a custard. She noted that The Joy of Cooking recipe refers the reader to the section on custards for the necessary background. One controls the thickness of the custard by varying the number of eggs. Dena chose to use 2 1/2 eggs in her pumpkin pie. The result was a medium custard. She explained that she used the other half egg in the crust. Barb confirmed, in response to my query, that eggs are de rigueur in a custard. Indeed, they may be said to define a custard.
Further discussion ensued regarding the optimal approach to preventing the pie crust from becoming excessively soggy as a consequence of the relatively high liquid content of the filling. The half egg that Dena added is efficacious as is prebaking the crust before adding the filling.
Stuart Pass wouldn't normally appear on a list of mountaineering trips, but our experience puts it into the mild adventure category. We hiked up the Lake Ingalls Trail to the Longs Pass Trail to Longs Pass (6200+'. At Longs Pass, we paused for a brief food break (above) and admired the fine views of Mount Stuart to the north and Esmeralda Peak and Mount Rainier to the south.
Looking east from Longs Pass, the view includes Argonaut Peak (left of center, 8453'), Colchuck Peak (behind and left of Argonaut Peak, 8705'), Little Annapurna (right of center with a gentle north slope, 8440+') and McClellan Peak (right, 8364'). The last two peaks are part of the southern boundary of the Enchantment Lakes Basin.
The climbers route to the Ingalls Creek Trail was fairly easy to follow despite several inches of fresh snow. The first hundred feet of the descent was the most difficult. It was steep and loose in a couple of places, but was second class.
The west ridge of Mount Stuart (9415') is composed of a complex systems of sub-ridges and gendarmes. Some of this complexity is apparent in this view looking east from the ridge west of Stuart Pass.
The trail from Stuart Pass becomes difficult to follow as it approaches Lake Ingalls. Losing the trail, we ascended to the ridge crest although it might have been a bit easier to have continued traversing at a constant elevation until the rocks east of Lake Ingalls are reached. The lake is just begining to freeze in this view looking northwest from the southeast shore of the lake.
Our adventure, such as it was, occurred as we traveled around the south end of Lake Ingalls (6463'). My previous trip to Lake Ingalls was about 1975 and my companions had not previously visited the lake. I climbed a couple of routes on the north summit of Ingalls Peak in recent years and Barb climbed the east ridge of the north summit last year so we were familiar with the area.
Consequently, as we scrambled up the rock ridge at the south end of the lake, we did not anticipate any particular difficulty reaching the trail. However, once on the rock, and misguided by unhelpful cairns, we could not find a straightforward route westward into the gap that leads to the trail. Part of the difficulty was that the fresh snow made otherwise secure ledges uncomfortably slippery.
Late in the afternoon, and cold, we felt some urgency to find a route before darkness fell. Finally, we descended south down slabs and a gully 450' into Headlight Creek and reached a point well below the lower trail. Upon regaining the trail, we hiked over Ingalls Pass (6480+'), and descended to the car without mishap.
The last hour of the hike occurred under a dark sky full of stars. I pointed out the stars of the summer triangle to Dena; Deneb, Vega and Altair. Also, we evaluated Barb's light emitting diode (LED) headlamp. It was strikingly superior to my tungsten filiment headlamp in that the lack of structure in the illumination pattern of the LED headlamp made irregularities in the trail much easier to see.
Unfortunately, one of the goals of the trip, to view the larch in golden fall follage was not well-realized. The larch had already lost many of their needles and were looking a bit drab. Moreover, by the time we reached the larch, where the Lake Ingalls trail crosses Headlight Creek, it was nearly dark. On the other hand, we had an excellent discussion of the theory and practice of baking pumpkin pies. So, all in all, it was a good trip.
This graph summarizes our trip. The horizontal axis is 24 hour Pacific Standard Time. These data were logged by an altimeter watch. Our fastest hours were 1260 ft/hour at 9:00 AM and -1360 ft/hr at 11:25 PM.
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Date created: 2002.11.03
Last modified: 2002.11.16
Copyright © 2002, Walter A. Siegmund
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