Revenge of the Corn

Mt. Stuart is the monarch of the East Central Cascades, rising high above any other peak. I have come to experience this mountain from all sides, climbing the scrambly West Ridge, ultra classic North Ridge, and more rarely visited Ice Cliff Glacier. But I had yet to truly ski on Mt. Stuart. The south side is a maze of gullies. One line, Ulrich’s Couloir, had been on my radar for many years, but I never got a good window to ski it.

Skiing the south side of Stuart is a timing challenge. If you do not have a sled, then Stuart is basically inaccessible in the winter. The road starts melting out early in the spring, but the problem is that the south facing lines melt out even faster. Stuart is in the dry part of the Cascades, and the southern aspects melt very fast once the strong spring sun arrives. After watching many years of melt-out and missed windows, I eventually decided that I would have to accept a little road walk if I wanted to ski Stuart. A little road walk never hurt nobody.

John, Chris, Logan, Wyatt, and met up around 5 AM on the Teananway River Road. We were surprised to drive about a mile further than reports from earlier in the week. The nature of the melt-out is very inconsistent – large sections might be dry, but a random snow patch might block you. We stopped when we encountered a section of snow deeper than about 8 inches. We could have driven over it in firm morning conditions, but that’s a good way to get stuck on the way out when the snow is soft in the afternoon.

We hiked in trail runners on mostly dry road for nearly three miles, and then switched to skinning for the final mile of road, totaling four miles. Snow coverage became good about 0.25 miles past the summer trailhead. From there, we skinned firm, frozen snow up to Long’s Pass.

From Longs Pass, we had a clear view of Ulrich’s Couloir. After confirming that the line appeared to still be in, we kept moving. the wind was blustery at the pass, and even down in the trees. We hoped that the wind would die down by the time we got high on Stuart.

The descent down Longs Pass towards Ingalls Creek was a mixed bag of firm snow, corny snow, and breakable crust. Coverage was low towards the creek, but we made it down without taking our skis off. We navigated straight to the summer log crossing.

Once we started climbing up the south side of Stuart, we encountered the full effect of the dry climate and hot sun. A few hundred feet near the bottom was completely melted out, so we booted up dry dirt and rocks, generally following the summer path up the western variation of the Cascadian Couloir. Hopefully we would not have to come down this way!

Once we got out of the bushes, the snow surface was firm and we made good time. I turned on some “booter tunes” and we settled in for a 4500 ft grind to the summit.

It was a bit anxiety inducing to boot up perfect corn in the upper Cascadian Couloir. But we reminded ourselves that the Cascadian is more east facing than Ulrich’s, and this snowpack had been through a few weeks of freeze thaw, so the corn should be more forgiving than we are used to.

The final slope to the false summit was steep snow, possibly a hair over 45 degrees. John and Chris led the way on the booter.

From the false summit, we still had to traverse to the true summit. There were some rocky steps here and there, but mostly it was on snow. However, we frequently punched through to rocks below.

We reached the summit in just about 7 hours, right on schedule! The skies were a bit hazy from prescribed burns, but we could still see five volcanoes and all of the Central Cascades. Incredibly, it was peakbagger Wyatt’s first Stuart summit. I asked him what he thought, and he said, “too high, not enough glaciers.” John’s hot take is that we should raze the Teanaway to the ground and have Stuart rise 7,000 ft from the plains, like Washington’s version of the Grand Teton.

Incredibly, we were the only ones on Stuart all day. It was a gorgeous sunny weekend, but I guess the Highway 20 opening was a powerful decoy!

Around 1 PM, we started our descent. The first few turns were the steepest, maybe slightly over 45 degrees. But the snow was plenty soft and any feeling of intimidation quickly went away.

The upper slopes were steep and sweet, perched thousands of feet above the rest of the Cascades.

The couloir narrows and curves more to the south and west as it descends. Thus, the snow actually became a little firmer than the upper headwall, which tilts east every so slightly. Outside of some avalanche debris to avoid, the skiing was excellent. It was cool to ski between such large granite cliffs, and sometimes on what was visibly just thin snow on top of rock slab.

The traditional line continues to 6800 ft before traversing out skier’s right to avoid a waterfall. While that exit looked perfectly doable, John had spotted a different couloir skier’s left that held a much cleaner fall line to the valley floor. At 7200 ft, we traversed out of Ulrich’s Couloir to see if we could jump into the next one. With a very brief boot around the ridge, it went smoothly!

The snow finally started to get sticky around 6k ft, but it never even got that bad. We had to do just a tiny bit of “dry skiing”, but we never took off our skis all the way back to the Ingalls Creek bridge!

Down at the river, we rehydrated before a warm slog back up to Long’s Pass. The climb back to Longs Pass is a rite of passage after nearly any Stuart summit. It was nice to do it in daylight this time!

We took a break in the dry sand at Long’s Pass under the shade of an ancient Whitebark Pine. It felt satisfying to look back on such an incredible mountain and all the formidable experiences I have had on it. While some of my past trips pushed me physically and emotionally, this one felt remarkably chill. It wasn’t easy, but everything went smoothly, making for a fun day of spring skiing with the boys.

Ulrich’s Couloir was worth the wait. After many consecutive springs of bad weather and inconsistent corn, it felt great to finally get this elusive line in good conditions. Ulrich’s Couloir is the full package – engaging but not too scary, 4500 ft of descent, aesthetic position, and right off the true summit of an iconic peak! It really is one of my favorite ski lines in the entire Cascades.

Notes:

• We were able to drive until about 4 miles from the trailhead. From there, it measured 18 miles and 9k ft gain roundtrip.
• I would not go really much later than the conditions we encountered. The bottom will be a lot more annoying in the coming weeks, and even some of the constrictions might start melting down to rock slab. On a normal year, prime time is probably late April to early May.
• Ascending the Cascadian Couloir worked well. I don’t think there is any reason to climb Ulrich’s Couloir, because you can see if it is in from Longs Pass.
• The Cascadian Couloir, with the western variation we ascended, would have also made for a fun descent! The upper headwall of the Cascadian is actually a similar steepness to the top of Ulrich’s, but the rest is not as sustained as Ulrich’s. The bottom was less continuous though.
• You want to be confident the upper headwall will soften if you go for Ulrich’s. Those first few turns are pretty steep!