Inspired by a single 2018 NW hikers trip report and armed with a Stuart zone permit I set off on a slightly more sane 3 day trip circumnavigating Mt Stuart from Esmeralda TH via Mountaineer Ridge and Crystal creek.

Day 1

Starting at 3pm was not great, so I was rushing up to and past lake Ingalls. Overall a beautiful and well maintained trail up to the lake. Traversing around the west side quickly became a moderate boulder scramble, I should have stayed closer to the water or possible attempted the east side. Regardless I didn't have time to explore, but I was now behind.

The trail to Stuart Pass was a little rough with some loose rock and exposure but easily managed. From Stuart pass I followed the climbers trail up the west ridge of Stuart to 7100ft, where a faint trail drops down to the northwest, disappears, crosses a boulder field then reappears below Mountaineer Ridge. I followed the trail down and maintained a rising traverse across the boulder field, attaining the ridge without too much 45 minutes later.

With the sun setting I had to cross a mile of steep scree and boulders over to Horseshoe lake, without any guarantee there was a passible trail. The faint path I followed down from Mountaineer Ridge was a knife edge trail about a foot wide with loose glacial deposits on either side that periodically rained rocks down on the glacier below. At 7100ft the trail flattens I continued down to the north east, following a steep scree fields. At 6600 ft, a small but serviceable bivy site sits just outside the permit zone, there was also a visible water source nearby but I'm not sure now attainable it is.

From the bivy site and based on my previous research, I evaluated that a full traverse across to the lake was impossible at 6600ft so I decided to descend to the tree line and hopefully find a way down there. Following some game paths, I did come to a navigable drainage and was able to descend to 6000ft, then climb back up to the lake just before sunset.

Day 2

The trail down from Horseshoe lake to Stuart lake is decent, however I did lose the trail in a swamp for a bit, but it is there. The rest of the hike to crystal lake is as you could expect in the enchantments on a sunny weekend day in august: beautiful, hot and crowded. 

From crystal lake a path descends along crystal creek into nightmare gorge. It quickly enters a very large boulder field, thought it was surprising well marked with cairns. There were really an incredible amount of cairns, clearly someone is trying to help make this route more navigable. At ~6600 crystal creek dives underground, so theres no water from the next ~1500ft of descent. 

Nightmare gorge is an amazing place, a large flat plain encircled by 2000ft cliffs that is mostly desolate due to avalanche runouts. 

The boulder field gets quite a bit more challenging down to 5400ft where there is a campsite with water at 47.45608, -120.80854. From there down, there is a full path very well marked with cairns, and basically no scrambling to the valley floor. I camped at the first site I found on Ingalls creek trail.

Day 3

The plan was to camp at Ingalls creek camp and summit Mt Stuart, but I decided to save that for another day. The Ingalls creek trail is in a sorry state. With no maintenance  sense the last fire, blowdown crosses the trail every 30ft or so and much of the the trail is entirely overgrown. It was easily the worst part of the whole hike. Once at the camp however, the burn scar ends and the trail improves. The trail up to longs pass was straight forward, although I'd argue the top bit is class 2 due to exposure. The walk down to Esmeralda TH was easy and quick, done before noon. Total distance ~30 miles, gain ~10000ft. 

Overall recommended, though serous scrambling and route finding skills are needed.

Clockwise loop from Ingalls Creek trailhead -> Etienne Creek -> Cascade Creek -> Ingalls. As others have noted, map+compass+GPS are an absolute must for Etienne and Cascade.

Etienne: fine until just past the federal mining claim cabin, then the trail becomes a bushwhack fest, crossing the stream multiple times. Trail was very faint climbing to Old County Line Trail. West of Wrong Turn Peak, the trail narrowed and zig-zagged down an incredibly steep scree field. Even with butt-scooting, I only made it halfway down before I could feel the ground starting to slide out. A tumble would have resulted in permanent injuries or worse, so I turned around and decided to descend Cascade Creek to Ingalls.

Cascade Creek: If the trip report from 2001 described this as "should not be attempted unless experienced", imagine another 24 years of no maintenance added to that. The trail starts innocuously enough, but quickly becomes the route-finding experience of your life. Even with GPS (which was slightly offset north and west from where Gaia said the trail was), I had to turn around multiple times since what I thought was the trail turned into a dead end of brush, cliff, or stream. To be fair, the trail does reappear every now and then, but it's been reduced to a goat trail at best. The descent took almost 2 hours, and I can't even imagine trying to ascend this.

Ingalls: An absolute dream after the other two trails, although certainly lacking their "adventurous" aspect. Encountered two rattlesnakes ~2.5 miles from the trailhead; always be aware and alert!

Trail is in good condition, though it's a little overgrown in places after a couple of miles.

There are some hot sunny stretches and some nice shady parts.

The water feels great on a hot day!

My friend and I went on a peaceful, one night backpacking trip along Ingall's Creek. We found a perfect spot along the river about 2 miles up the path, set down our stuff, and then continued on to hike up the trail.  We heard and saw a few rattlesnakes, one a few feet from the trail, and another one that slithered across the trail and out of the way. It was quite the adrenaline rush! We also saw tons of checkerspot butterflies, a chonky merganser hanging out in the river, and some cute salamanders (?).  It was relatively quiet for a weekend, and will definitely keep this trail in mind for future backpacking adventures. Would love to return and make it all the way to the lake! 

Lovely flowy river trail! Did a trail run 8 miles in + 8 miles back out. The only obstacles were a fair number of locations where the plants on the sides of the trail are overgrown enough to almost cover the trail - in some places dense enough to where you can't see your feet. We questioned a couple times that we were still even on the trail, but if you power through it always opened back up again. A couple nice spots to access the river, which was excellent since we brought a water filter to stay hydrated. Would absolutely do this one again!