NW Face ice couloir/1984 route / “the Eighties Testpiece”
Always on the look out for great alpine ice climbs, I was hoping the elements for this route on Stuart were in place. first the route must be in shape, and the road should be open to the trailhead. A trip report on Cascadeclimbers settled these issues for me, all that was left was to find a willing participant or two. Tom and Daniel were looking forward to extending their ice season. None of us could believe a big ice climb could still be in in mid June. Heavy packs were loaded with every weapon in the arsenal. Snowshoes were handy getting us to the only dry place to sleep,: a large boulder . A cold night led to a 3:00 am wake -up. It was going to be a full day of exciting mountaineering. The start of the climb didnt quite connect. It took a long reach to connect to some pretty unstable ice ribbons. After that the traverse right was exciting ,ending in a steep , short chimney. The other interesting leads were the pitch to get around the Great Gendarme, and the spicy mixed top out around the summit cornice. It ended up being an awesome outing. We did the climb in 4 blocks with some looong simo-soloing. We reveled in the stellar climbing, exposure and ultimately stunning summit. This is a route that should see much more traffic. It is a gem.
Special thanks to Jim Nelson of Pro Mt Sports for beta and gear
Wayne's site 
Nice job and great pictures..sunrise was very cool…solo climber
Nice to run into a daring soloist Glen!
Kick axe!
Nice to see this route getting repeated!