Matt, Carla, Yana and I went in with the fine
forecast with the intention of climbing this 8600' summit next to
Stuart. The East Ridge is supposedly the easier route but the dearth of
beta made route-finding up high interesting. Also, a loose and not
particularly aesthetic route.
The trail up to Longs Pass went quickly and is still completely
snow-covered for 500-700' down the other side. Good log crossing just
upstream from the trail crossing. Then headed down the Ingalls Creek
trail to the Beverly Turnpike junction. The climbers "path" to Sherpa
is 30' before the junction. This is no path, but an excellent trail
headed up the hill, all the way to the first gully where it ends. This
gully has a waterfall higher up; we followed it up and exited below the
waterfall to the right and ran the ridge to decent bivy sites at
6500'. Interesting note: the ridge above was extensively cairned and
marks what appears to be good route to continue on to scrambling
Stuart, as this route would avoid the Cascadian Couloir scree-fest
since it seems it would join the couloir at its head.
Tuesday morning we dropped down the slope on the east side to the
basin (or large gully) and crossed it aiming for a Y-shaped couloir
east of the summit block. Entered it at ~7000' and climbed it and then part
way up the right-hand fork, then exited scrambling up and to the right
to the East Ridge. Scrambled this a ways until encountering a small,
narrow gully with slings which had been placed for aid to exit it.
Doing so, we dropped axes and crampons and continued easy scrambling
west, first along the ridge a short ways then to the left onto the
South Face. Then, blocked by an obvious wall, we climbed up from a
large bench and over to the North Face where the actual pitched
climbing began.
The first pitch is an airy, exposed low-5th class traverse of ~200'
across downsloping slabs, then blocks. We decided to belay the leader
and last and tie off a line for the middle climbers to prusik across. We then scrambled up to ~100' below the Balanced Rock trying
to find a route. No go on the ridge between the Rock and the summit.
None of the visible gullies appeared to offer other than high 5th class
climbing either. After a bit of exploration, Matt decided on a somewhat
exposed and occasionally loose 3rd class traverse across the face to
the farthest visible gully, which ran all the way up to the West Ridge
just west of the summit. This gully is 4th class; Matt free climbed it
and set up a line for the rest of us to tie a safety prusik to.
Summit was now only a 50' pitch away. This pitch had two airy steps across gaps on downsloping slabs, the second harder
than the first. Yana led out. After tying
off the line, Carla and I prusiked over and then Matt was belayed.
Summit register was placed by Mike Fitzpatrick and Paul Michelson in
June of 1985. According to the register, Sherpa saw a total of only
seven ascents last year.
Returning we belayed/prusiked the summit pitch and rapped the
gully. Repeated our climbing back to the end of the first traverse,
then rapped down to the bench on the South Face. We also rapped the
small gully, setting up a good rap station above the the aid sling
boulders. Considering the amount of lichen on the route, it doesn't get done much--not a place to be if it's wet. All in all, a lot of work for a not-so-classic route.
Eric Johnson