We had a grand tour planned for our first visit to the Stuart Range, taking Monday as a vacation day ""just in case"" we didn't make it out Sunday night. Trudging up Ingalls Way, we encountered only one blowdown, but I can't complain about it because by Monday someone had sawed it away! Just below Ingalls Pass the trail becomes snow covered, but there are plenty of tracks. My first view of Stuart gave me a nervous stomach, but I couldn't look away from it's craggy gendarmes and spooky black rock. We camped at a flat basin below the pass, and set off to climb Ingalls Peak via the South Ridge. The climb was great, but clouds rushed overhead in a screaming wind. We shoved ourselves into rocky corners on the summit like enterprising parasites, determined to have a relaxed 1 hour stay. Three rappels and downclimbing barely kept us warm until reaching the sheltered basin. With such terrible weather, we cancelled our next-day climb of the West Ridge on Stuart. Sleeping in, we lazily woke at 7 am to clear skies. Doh! We crashed down into the valley and up the other side to the base of the route, just east of Stuart Pass. Climbing some steep snow, we decided to go for the climb at the last minute. Wonderful scrambling followed, and our view of the mountain broke up into a series of towers, ridges and cliffs as we wound our way up and across. This was by far the biggest thing we'd ever tackled, and our apprehension gnawed at us as the sun travelled quickly across the sky. Finally I belayed Steve up the last steep pitch, and we walked 20 feet to the summit and a breathtaking sunset. With tears of happiness I signed the register, and we began descending. We only got as far as the false summit and huddled for warmth, sharing our last pieces of fruit leather. Happy to be moving at first light, the mountain heaved up more obstacles: steep icy snow to downclimb, an endless descent on blocks and scree, finally vertical bushwhacking in slide alder. Ok, back to trailtalk: The Ingalls Creek trail was, and snowfree up to a pretty meadow just below Lake Ingalls. I mostly zoned along, waking up for the occasional blowdown, but my eyes ever wandered to the imposing ridges and lonely towers of a great and terrible giant.

We drove up the Teanaway road, now drivable to the trailhead and hiked up to Long's Pass. This route still has plenty of snow on it (roughly half the trail). Then we descended down towards Ingall's Creek. We completely lost the trail in the snow, but it isn't difficult except for some creek crossings. Fortunately we stumbled onto a great log across Ingall's Creek. The campsite just under Mt. Stuart is about half dirt/half snow. Every dirt site had a tent on it on this popular weekend. The next day we diverged from our plan to climb Mt. Stuart. Instead, we hiked up Ingall's creek to Ingall's Lake. Much of this route is bare trail with lots of blowdowns, but by 5500' it is nearly all snow covered. Cross-country travel was nice in the perfect weather and consolidated snow. We ended up climbing high on S. Ingall's Peak and enjoyed watching rock climbers on Ingall's Peak. (OK, enough ""Ingall's"" for now...) A great glissade and a snowy traverse to Ingall's Pass (oops, had to toss in just one more ""Ingall's"") and some good ol' bare dirt trail and soon we were back to the trailhead. Nice loop!

We hiked in 12 miles, the trail had just been cleared of logs for the first 10 miles. The snow started at mile 10. Was a nice hike and 3 day campout.

Ingalls Creek (GT Mt. Stuart, Liberty) With the lingering snow in the high Teanaway Country, I was forced to reroute a June backpack to Ingalls Creek. It was good choice for an early season backpack. The flowers were blooming in abundance and the snow was melting rapidly. The trail was busy this weekend, with Icicle Creek Road access being blocked by a huge mudslide. There were two large horse parties sharing the trail with us, but all were congenial. Our trip was Naturalist-oriented, so we tried to identify as many flowers as we could. There was a rare type of mountain orchid (fairy slipper) and lots of calypsos. Further up the trail where areas were only recently snowfree, the trillium, yellow violets and early lilies were making a lovely show. Plus several shrubs, such as serviceberry, red-twig dogwood, bitter and chokecherry, and ceanothus were also blooming. There was lots of lupine and some late arrowleaf balsamroot, larkspur, mariposa lily, luina, penstemon and even a nice bunch of Lewisia columbiana. And roses. We hiked up to about 1.5 miles beyond Falls Creek Camp. There was some old avalanche snow on the trail on both sides of the camp, plus scratchy brush. We encountered several downed trees. Boots and hoofs are beginning to create bypasses to get around the larger trees. When we set up camp, we took a short dayhike further up the valley. There is another nice camp at the junction of Cascade Creek trail. There was not much snow on the south slopes of the Stuarts, just some lingering in gullies. The north-facing southern slopes of the canyon were bright green with young subalpine larches. We got a good views of the western slopes of Navaho. Not much snow there on the bare rock. We hit more snow patches beyond the junction, lingering in the cool forest.

Weather was wonderful, like a breath of fresh air! We went as far as the avalanche debris at about 5 miles. I was able to count 14 different wildflowers and there were more that I could not identify. Very enjoyable hike!