We arrived at the trailhead on Sunday afternoon. Evelyn is all smiles. We spent the night in the van for an early morning start. The road was washed out further up so we had an extra mile and a half walk in and out.
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We woke to the alarm at 3:30 am and ate breakfast. This is the moon not the sun.
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The trailhead is at 4,150 feet and we climbed to Long's Pass at 6,200 feet. This picture was taken on the way out as the one in the early morning had no sun on it. I placed it here because this is the first close-up view Evelyn had of the mountain. It is daunting. The valley floor is at 4,700 feet and the summit is at 9,415 feet. That is 4,715 feet of local relief. Ulrich's Couloir is to the center and Evelyn chickened out on it so we attempted the Cascadian Couloir to the right of it. Not nearly as steep.
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This is looking up at the couloir from the base.
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Evelyn is still all smiles and eager to start the climb. At this point we have climbed up Long's Pass and have gained 2,150 feet and then decended down to 4,700 feet.
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The flowers are all in full bloom.
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We enter the couloir proper.
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And up and up we go.
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Evelyn doing a small pitch. Normally you don't use an ice ax on rock but we had them so employed them at times.
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Above the ridge behind us allowing us to see in the distance. That is Mt. Rainier near the center.
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A telephoto view of Mt. Rainier. This is as high as we went, elevation 7,200, still 2,215 feet short of the 9,415 summit. We ran out of time as our 2 pm turnaround time was on us and we had already gained 4,650 feet counting Long's Pass, and we still had to climb back over it to get out. It is tempting to keep climbing but it meant coming down with flashlights. Evelyn was not up to the task as this was her real first mountaineering adventure. Mt. Stuart is a real mountain and can bite you if you let it.
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A not so happy Evelyn coming down. She was going really slow and was not mentally prepared. But this was just a shakedown climb and in my last post I said we didn't have a snowballs chance. The next full moon in August will find us back in the same place, except we will take three full days.
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I walked across the log both in and out but Evelyn couldn't do it on her feet.
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We got back to the van where we ate dinner and slept for a couple hours before the three hour drive back home. All in all we gained 6,150 feet going over the pass, up Stuart and then back over the pass and out.
