Jefferson's Birds and Climbing Journal

I've been interested in ice climbing for a while, but it's a tricky thing to get started with. The gear is expensive, there's a lot of essential knowledge, and it's honestly kinda dangerous. So when my friend Spencer told me about the Lillooet Ice Fest and asked if I wanted to come, I didn't take much convincing.

This past summer, me and my climbing partner Forest had the itch to climb something big. We had both been trad climbing a lot lately and wanted to push ourselves in the alpine, so we settled on Mt. Stuart as a good objective. The complete north ridge is a sick line up the north face of the mountain. It's about 3000 feet of climbing with a 5.9+ crux low and another 5.9 on the gendarme close to the summit. It also holds a spot on the 50 Classic Climbs of North America, so with all that it felt like the obvious choice. We also wanted to do the direct start, which added about 800' of climbing to the abbreviated route. I thought it'd be cooler to climb the full ridge anyway.