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Trip Report    

Ruth Mountain & Icy Peak Traverse

Climb dates: 7/26-27.
The trail to the bottom of Ruth Glacier was almost free of snow with just a few patches on the traverse around the peak 5930. The climber’s trail up the north slope of the peak 5930 was pretty steep and muddy. However that is the right way so make sure not to follow the trail traversing the peak on the west side as it runs into cliffs and very sketchy gully crossings. We crossed Ruth Glacier (no exposed crevasses) to the col at 6,800 and then descended to a broad flat shoulder at 6,600 where we camped on snow with great views of Shuksan and Icy. We found running water on the west edge of the snow. After dinner we scrambled up the south ridge of Ruth to the summit and walked down the scree on the west ridge back to camp. Next morning we started at 5am and scrambled down the 200ft face (look for cairns on skier’s left, lots of loose rock), crossed a small boulder field and did another short scramble to get down to the saddle between Ruth and Icy. From there we ascended Icy Glacier navigating around a few open crevasses to the col at 6,700 on the west ridge and walked up the ridge to the bottom of the left most summit gully. The gully had lots of large and incredibly loose rock that looked solid but pulled out easily so take every precaution to keep the people waiting below out of the fall line; the best is to ascend one at a time with a hand line. We summited by 9:30am, got back to camp by 1pm and returned to cars by 7:30pm. Given the amount of scrambling over loose rock I support the recommendation of limiting the party size to 6.