Mount Cruiser/Southwest Corner

Road to Staircase is fine, seems like it's less rutted out than last year.

Friday after work - Staircase to Flapjack in 4 hours.  Bear wire and pit toilets, there was plenty of room for our camp.

Saturday - Did not rush the start to allow for recovery from late approach Friday night.  Boots on trail for around 7.  You will not see Needle Pass on your right until you're almost at Gladys Divide (1.3 of the 1.4 miles to the Divide).  Pick a path over boulders and up scree to a chute still filled with snow and ascend up to the pass.  From the pass, up and over Beta cheating to climbers left on ascent and climbers right on descent, generally remaining on the ridge all the while.

Pro or slings useful to build your anchor at the bottom of Cruiser's climb.  On the climb, I was able to place a OP #11 stopper on the route and at a good interval after the bolt.   This was about it for pro.  Anchor station on the summit block looked great and held three people.  There is a good horn or two up top to take slings and make a fixed line to the true summit from anchor station.

We left a few extra slings to reinforce some of the rappels.  There were three off of Cruiser; and we did three off of Beta and down Needle Pass, finding some of the downclimbing to be a bit much.

Even with a strong group that kept moving it was a twelve + hour day for us.  I attribute this mostly to needing to facilitate two separate pairs up to the summit, and all the rappelling.

Sunday - Hike out took three and a half hours.

What a climb...