Girth Pillar: Perfect Alpine Rock on Mt. Stewart

Grade V, 5.11b - Glacier and Alpine Rock Route

Story by Kevin Newell

 

Kevin starts the second pitch of the Girth Pillar. Eric Wehrly

 

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High on the second pitch of the Girth Pillar, I am 100% immersed in the fingerlocks and toeholds that make this route barely possible when KABOOM! The sound of exploding, thundering ice blocks tumbling down the face to the right of me rips me out of my concentration. It sounds like a jet is taking off. As the debris settles, I see that the blocks fell along the exact path that Eric and I crossed earlier this morning. I am a bit rattled, but mostly reminded of the amazing roll Eric and I seem to be on today - there seems to be a theme of "good timing" building; so far, every part of this climb has worked out perfectly. Somehow I knew this trend would continue throughout the day.

 

The Girth Pillar is an alpine rock route on Mt. Stuart, which is in the North Cascades of Washington State. It's first ascent was in 1984 by Kit Lewis and Jim Nelson, who described it as a ".... strenuous route featuring 5.11 crack climbing on clean granite in an uncommonly wild setting, with awesome views down steep walls into a high glacial cirque and steep icefall." The pillar itself sticks out from the rest of Stuart's northeast face and hangs over the Ice Cliff Glacier. It is the most classic and technically the hardest of Stuart's many routes.

 

You ask, so if it's so good, then why don't more people climb it? Well, there are a few reasons ... one is that it has the hardest, most sustained rock climbing on the mountain. Second, it's known as a "guarded" climb in that justgetting tothe route requires some complicated maneuvers, like scaling the terminus of the aptly named Ice Cliff Glacier. The need to pack both rock and ice climbing equipment makes for a heavy pack and the prerequisite of a versatile skill set. As I said, the route is too complicated for most - a bother and effort not worth the good climbing.

When I was 18 years old (thirteen years ago), I was just starting to get interested in alpine rock climbing. The easier routes on Snow Creek Wall in Leavenworth and on South Early Winter Spire at Washington Pass were great introductions and whetted my appetite for more. I bought the book, Selected Climbs in the Cascades: Volume 1, and when I read the description of the Girth Pillar, I was instantly intrigued and knew that I would someday do this climb.

This last summer (2007), my friend, Eric Wehrly, and I decided to give it a go. We had climbed a lot together on routes that gave us good looks at the Girth Pillar (including doing Stuart's North Ridge in a day), and we developed a game plan. We shared the common ideal of going fast and light. For the Girth Pillar, we decided, we would have to make the complicated approach less complicated - in our mind, this meant doing away with the ice climbing. On our climb of Stuart's North Ridge two years earlier, we had seen what we thought might be a way around the Ice Cliff Glacier. By climbing halfway up the lower North Ridge, then descending what looked to be a mellow ramp, it appeared that you could gain the upper Ice Cliff Glacier without having to tackle the difficult "ice cliff" lower down. Two years later, we wished we had looked more closely as our memories of the essential ramp seemed vague, but we decided to try it anyway.

Mt. Stuart, with the Girth Pillar pointed out by the black line. Our ascent route is the right dotted line, and our descent is the left dotted line. The red triangle shows were we camped. Kevin Newell

 

Indian Paintbrush in early morning light, with Stuart's North Ridge
and northeast face in the background. Kevin Newell

In the name of our "fast and light" plan, we decided to pack minimally. Because we knew we ould have to cross a section of potentially broken-up glacier (the upper Ice Cliff Glacier, above the steep technical ice lower down), we each brought a lightweight ice tool (the Petzl Aztarex) and aluminum strap-on crampons that we could fasten over our approach shoes (see my gear notes below). We of course packed a full alpine rock rack, though we did use our lightest biners, draws, and slings. One water bottle each, some snacks, and the bare necessities for clothing, and we were set.

We drove to the trailhead one late afternoon in July and hiked up the Mountaineer Creek Trail, shaded from the low, sinking sun, and arrived at our campsite, which was set idyllically beneath the Sherpa Glacier and amidst house-sized boulders. We had just enough time to pitch our tent, check out the route and descent, and eat dinner before going to sleep. At 3:30am, the alarm went off and we brewed some coffee before setting out at 4:30am, heading up the moraine just above camp. It took us about 45 minutes to reach the base of the lower North Ridge. Everything around us was bathed in the light of dawn and was all glowy - it was quite beautiful.

The Approach:
We had six pitches (up to 5.9) to do on the lower North Ridge. We moved quickly together over this part, pitching out half of the section and simul-climbing the rest. Near the end of these six pitches, we had to keep our eyes out for the mystical ramp that would lead us safely and quickly to the upper Ice Cliff Glacier. We had seen hints from pictures showing a line of snow on an otherwise unbroken face (a sign of a ledge) and had seen a potential route from camp, but we still weren't sure we'd find something.

When the ramp appeared in front of us, we were elated - it was a perfect, short, mellow ramp that led right down to the ice without the need for any rappelling, downclimbing, or even scrambling. We stepped right onto the ice (no moat or anything) and realized we were hours ahead of our schedule. We filled our water bottles from a glacier drip, chugged a bottle each, then filled up again before donning our crampons, grabbing our ice tool, and heading up the glacier.

 

Coming down the ramp to gain the Ice Cliff Glacier. Kevin Newell
Standing on the Ice Cliff Glacier, with the amazing ramp marked by red dots. Eric Wehrly

 

The glacier was pretty mellow, but we soon noticed one large crevasse that ran the entire width of the glacier that we would have to tackle directly. We found a way over in the middle. Eric went first, climbing down into the crevasse onto a couple big snow blocks that had fallen in and become wedged, then using both his and my ice tool to climb the 15-foot vertical out. I followed suit, and the most cruxy part of the whole thing was catching the ice tools that Eric had to toss down to me!

We then had easy snow walking to the base of the Ice Cliff Couloir. We walked right up to the base of the broken area where the glacier narrows into the couloir, stepped easily onto a rock ledge, and put our ice tools and crampons away. We got the rope out and Eric led one 5.8 pitch, after which we gained a ramp system that took us quickly to the base of the Girth Pillar. We looked at the clock again and realized that we were way ahead of our schedule, so we lounged for a while with our shoes off, had a snack, and got psyched by looking at the amazing rock of the pillar above us - we could see splitter cracks shooting all the way to the top.

 

Kevin climbing out of the crevasse on the Ice Cliff Glacier. Eric Wehrly

Eric leading the first pitch of the Girth Pillar. Kevin Newell

 

Pitch 1:
The Girth Pillar is 400 feet long and goes in 3 pitches. The first pitch starts where the pillar meets the northeast face - you follow cracks just to the left of the inside corner of the pillar. Once we stepped onto the pillar for the first pitch at about 11am, the terrain was consistently steep and challenging. There wasn't a mellow part on the whole thing. The first pitch is 150 feet long and rated 5.10b/c. Eric led, following twin cracks with very technical moves, good protection, and clean rock. Because the rock and the pro were so awesome, both of us could just concentrate on the difficult and strenuous climbing. The pitch ends on a coffee-table-sized ledge.

Pitch 2:
The second pitch starts by walking left along the narrowing ledge until you find yourself balancing your way across the vertical wall, looking hopefully, then desperately, for the start of the crack system. I led this pitch, and was glad to see the soaring finger crack that assured there was a way up the pitch. Intricate finger locks and small footholds lead to a little rest stance where the crack heads right and narrows. This is where we believed the crux to be, and indeed, the footholds disappeared, and the rock became very sheer with just a single fingertip crack to keep myself on the wall. I realized this was my one chance to either onsight this amazing pitch, fall, or worse, resort to using aid. I got some gear in and figured out the moves, moment to moment. It was simply a finger traverse, hand over hand, while pasting my feet to the wall. Just as my energy was seriously waning, I saw a better hold, brought my feet up, and was through the most difficult onsight I had ever done in the mountains.

 

Kevin follows the first pitch, with the Ice Cliff Glacier Cirque far below. Eric Wehrly

Kevin walking out off the ledge and starting the second pitch. Eric Wehrly.

 

Pitch 3:
The third pitch of the Girth Pillar might be the best hand crack I've ever climbed in the mountains. It starts off strenuously through a bulge, then morphs into a beautiful crack where you apply vertical hand jams continuously until you get to another bulge at the end where the crack narrows, the feet disappear, and the hands tighten - all at the end of the route, so you're tired and pumped. It was the physical crux, whereas the difficult part in the second pitch was the technical crux. Eric battled this pitch, I followed, and at about 2pm we were at the top of the Girth Pillar!

The Descent:
We rested and reveled in our success for a while before climbing the last 400 feet of mid-fifth rock to get to the false summit of Stuart. We didn't spend time there because we had empty water bottles and we were now on the sunny south side of the mountain. We put our approach shoes back on and headed east to find the top of the Sherpa Glacier Couloir, the start of our descent route.

The Sherpa Glacier Couloir turned out to be in worse shape than we would have liked; we wouldn't be plunge-stepping down like we had hoped. Instead, it was pretty hard and steep snow/ice. Instead of rappelling down, I wedged myself in the moat between the rock and the ice and inched down carefully. This "moat wiggling" worked out pretty well, and we eventually got to the base of the couloir, where there was one big bergscrund that we had to cross - it was here that we did our one rappel of the day. We didn't have to leave any of our own gear because we cleaned 8 stoppers, 4 biners, and one cordellete on the Girth Pillar. Not a bad haul. We left a cordellete around a solid horn for a rappel anchor and downclimbed the rest of the Sherpa Glacier until we met up with the glacier-polished slabs that were running with water (thank god, as we were pretty thirsty by this point). After filling our bellies with cool water, we downclimbed the slabs and talus and arrived back in camp in the late afternoon.

 

Taking a breather at the false summit. Eric Wehrly

Finishing the descent of the Sherpa Glacier. Eric Wehrly

 

Again, another example of perfect timing: we walked the 3.5 hours out the trail that evening and didn't have to turn on our headlamps until we reached the stream right by the trailhead - and then only to find the two beers we had left chilling.

Drinking a beer that evening after having completed the coolest route we had ever done, Eric and I were feeling pretty good. I recommend the Girth Pillar to anyone - it's like a high quality cragging route in a wild alpine setting with top-notch exposure (and a complicated approach ...). In my opinion, this route has all the ingredients for a perfect alpine rock climb. And because of that short but essential ramp down to the upper Ice Cliff Glacier, you don't have to mess around with serious ice climbing and can focus on the stellar rock climbing. Sounds good to me!

 

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A Few Notes on the Gear We Used

Here's a list of gear that worked perfectly for this climb:

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Other than that, we took a full alpine rack and used neutrino carabiners and quick draws.