Every so often, a classic route in the Cascades becomes the flavor-of-the-month on cascadeclimbers.com. It takes the right combination of conditions: a few pioneering souls post trip reports on the site, then follows a wave of requests for beta, followed by a few more trip reports, and then finally everyone and their dog is going up the route. A glowing writeup in one of the Selected Climbs books helps, too. This spring, it was the North Buttress Couloir on Colchuck Peak, along with the perennial winner, Triple Couloirs on Dragontail. This summer, all the gapers and gumbies jumped on the wagon train headed to Stuart's North Ridge. When Jay asked me if I'd like to hop aboard with him, I immediately agreed.

I was certainly intimidated by the route and had promised myself, in my conservative fashion, that I'd climb the easier West Ridge first to get a feel for the mountain and to put another longer (for me) route under my belt. The North Ridge would be the longest rock climb I'd done yet. Once I agreed to do it, though, everything fell into place. The weather was forecast to be perfect and I was confident that Jay was a safety-conscious guy, so I knew that we had a relatively large margin of safety. And the more I thought about it, the more excited I got at the prospect of climbing such a long, beautiful route that so many before me had raved about.

We were a bit dismayed to see a nearly-full parking lot at the Ingalls Lake trailhead. The wagon train was encamped all about us. I envisioned jockeying for position on the trail only to get passed on the route. In fact, we met only one other party bound for the North Ridge. We passed them, moving slowly in the heat under their heavy packs, at Ingalls Lake and didn't see them the rest of the trip.

The approach was hot with a biting pest here and there. I ran out of water quickly. We crossed the Stuart Glacier in approach shoes and crampons, then up the gully on a fin of snow. The bivy notch on the ridge was all ours! We didn't see anyone else the whole rest of the day. There was still plenty of daylight left, so we lazed around, took photos, melted water from the snowpatch on the ledge. Jay explored the first part of the route while I listened to ice and rock crash down the Ice Cliff Glacier. No bugs and no rodents up here, mirabile dictu. Surely this is the perfect bivy. It finally got dark, so I crawled into my new (used) light down bag. Only now did the skeeters come out, so I smeared my face with lemony bug dope, wearing a hat despite the balmy evening to keep the bloodsuckers off my scalp. The wind blew harder as night grew deeper, buffeting me to sleep.

Morning brought a cold wind and clouds darkened Mt. Daniel to the west. So much for our perfect forecast, I thought, with a little dread. Stuart sticks up pretty high and seems to catch the last of whatever unpleasant weather makes it over the Cascade crest. Jay and I started up as some white wisps moved in. We cruised up to the first bit of difficulty, a short 5.7 step onto the ridgecrest. I followed Jay's lead, having to stop uncomfortably right in the middle of the step as Jay placed gear out of sight ahead of me. I gained the crest into the face of a cloud whipping past me.

A few hundred feet higher, the clouds were clearing off and I was finally getting into the flow of things. Jay ended our first pitch at a broad slab below some blocks and I took the rack for the next simulclimbing pitch. Many handfuls of delicious granite later, I espied the Great Gendarme beyond a cracked slab. I was hootin' with joy, wishing the slab would go on just a little bit longer. This was good stuff. Nearly out of slings (we had brought 15 or so), I ran it out a bit to the belay at the base of the Gendarme.

Our lunch break was interrupted by a friendly encounter with a soloist. He was flying up the ridge, having a great time. Down to the easier ledge variation he went, while we started up the Gendarme. It was Jay's turn to lead. We planned on hauling both packs, which cost us a lot of time. In fact, it took us about as long to climb both Gendarme pitches as it did to get to the Gendarme from the notch. Standing on the pedestal above the first pitch, I slowly froze in the shade while Jay hauled. A party of two, climbing quickly, had joined us at the pedestal. The leader was not pleased when I confirmed that we were hauling both packs. I finally thrutched up the offwidth to warm up, glad I had wussed out and "offered" Jay the lead again.

The Gendarme is awesome, by the way. Just climb it and see.

Jay chatted with the other party, who passed us quickly while spewing expletives at each other in a friendly way. We took another snack break at the base of the 5.8 step and dispatched this final bit of difficulty, both with our packs on. Screw hauling. I took the gear and led with impatience up the mess of clean white blocks toward the summit. Somehow the path of least resistance took me there, but not without much cursing and rope drag, even on a doubled 60m rope. I was tired and glad to be done.

As usual, the day was only half over. A couple of soloists emerged from the West Ridge. We had a friendly conversation and they offered to lead the way for us on the descent, since they'd done it before. Naturally, we got off course, but it was good fun to get lost with a group. Fearing that we'd go too far up the Ingalls Creek valley and miss the trail forking up to Long's Pass, Jay and I split briefly off to crash through blueberry brush straight downhill. Happily, a trail appeared. We called back up to our mates and they abandoned their talus-hopping to join us. I was really feeling the long day's effort on the way up to Long's Pass, but we all pushed each other steadily upward. The wind cooled us at the pass just as the sun went out. We held out on using headlamps until shortly before reaching the parking lot at almost 11pm.

Our descent partners brewed us up some coffee in their French presses at a Cle Elum gas station. Jay's caffeine high ended before North Bend, though, so we stopped once more for a Red Bull.

I'd come back to this route anytime, especially to lead the Gendarme pitches. Flavor-of-the-month for good reason, the North Ridge of Stuart was a real classic. Cheers to Jay for inviting me along.