Mt. Stuart 9,415ft.: Cascadian Couloir, May 3, 2003
Who: Bill Frans, Jeromy Waddell, Jimmy O'Donnell, Sam Avaiusini
Click here for a map of our route: 
This trip had a long approach that covered two drainages. We left Seattle at about 2:30, Saturday morning and drove to the Teanaway River Road, where we met Jimmy. We finished the drive to the Beverly Creek trailhead and started hiking by 5:30.
The approach had several interesting creek crossings to negotiate but we all managed to keep our feet dry. We reached the base of the couloir by about 10 and by noon we had reached our high point at about 8,400ft. The snow above was starting to get pretty firm and crusty, so we decided to leave our skis at this point and make a quick push for the top.
Then we noticed Bill lying in the fetal position. Bill was "bonking". Apparently he was suffering from a lack of sleep a bit more than the rest of us. At this point, a decision needed to be made: 1. leave Bill hunkered-down here while we go tag the summit, 2. Jimmy offered to Stay with Bill and ski down with him while Jeromy and I went to the top, 3. We stay together and save the top for another day.
In the best interest of the group, we chose option 3 and made the ski descent our primary objective. The snow was a perfect corn consistency and after a couple hundred feet, even Bill was having a blast!
At the base of the couloir, we were faced with the arduous task of skinning back up the Turnpike Creek drainage, which took the better part of 2 hours. We were able to ski to within a mile of the cars and were out before dark. Total trip time: 14 hours, car-to-car.
Click here for a video of our trip (footage courtesy of Jimmy): (Windows Media, 3:11, 10.9MB)
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 | Uhh, which way do we go? |
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 | descending into Turnpike Creek drainage |
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 | photo: Jimmy |
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 | Jimmy vs. the mountain |
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 | Sam and Jeromy climbing out of Turnpike Creek towards the base of the couloir. photo: Jimmy |
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 | Jeromy demonstrates proper technique in the ski javelin event photo: Jimmy |
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 | at the base of Cascadian |
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 | Jeromy and Bill enter the 2nd bottleneck |
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 | Jimmy at the base of the upper snowfield |
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 | Our approach via Turnpike Creek, looking south. We entered through the wooded pass in the upper part of the photo, left of center. |
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 | Bill and Jeromy from our high point at ~8,400ft. |
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 | looking up to the east summit |
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 | Bill vs. Sherpa Peak |
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 | Sam ready to rip.. photo: Jimmy |
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 | Jimmy... |
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 | Bill... |
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 | Jeromy... |
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 | Jimmy gotz 'da tele skilz! |
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 | Jimmy cranking before we enter the final bottleneck. |
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