Ruth Mountain — Friday, Sep. 15, 2023

We did an overnight Friday 9/15 on the northern arm of Ruth. We saw many trail runners--reading joejoezz's trip report for the same day we must have seen him! I wanted to leave a report to note that crampons are no longer necessary to summit, and joejoezz's report covers that. He also summarized the best route up: hugging the "left" (east) side of the glacier as long as possible and then after passing the huge "ship's prow" rock, traversing south before finding a good scramble line up to the summit ridge. As is obvious from the photos in joejoezz's report, the glacier is not safe to traverse at this point of the season--huge crevasses and massive hollowed-out caves. Only thing I would add for those interested in overnighting is that the best water option before hitting the glacier is the stream at Hannegan Camp. The melt runoff from the glacier is running so steadily that the glacier provides a good second watering spot. No need to melt snow or ice at this point of the season. We filled up at Hannegan Camp as a precaution but you could easily spare yourself the extra weight haul (especially up "the gully," which is as gnarly as advertised) and instead fill up at the glacier. We considered bivying at the summit and the bivy spots are excellent, but we weren't quite intrepid enough to carry full packs up around the glacier.