Despite many trips into the Stuart Range over the years, I hadn’t yet climbed Argonaut or Sherpa. Kelsey and I decided to tackle Argonaut via the Northwest Arete on Sunday as a car-to-car mission. We drove out Saturday night and got a handful of hours of sleep in her van before setting off at 4:30am.
We agreed that it’s nice to bang out the trail in the dark. 45 minutes in, we kept going straight at the Colchuck Lake Trail turnoff. 30 minutes later, we left the Stuart Lake Trail and began moving cross country on a faint trail towards Mountaineer’s Creek. All of my prior trips up this valley had been in the spring and early summer, so it was really nice to be able to follow a trail all the way to the point where we started up for Argonaut.
We ‘schwacked our way up into the bench below Argonaut, crossing the low boulder field towards the South before exiting onto talus and climbing a long ways up to slabs next to a waterfall and then a bit more steep terrain before entering the basin right below the peak about 4 hours after we’d started. At this point, we were pretty psyched to have moved so fast and battled minimal off-trail nastiness. We refilled water, had a snack, and then started up the snow finger towards the notch at the base of the route.
It steepened up and the snow wasn’t continuous on either side of a big rock island. We chose the right and did a slightly sketchy move off the snow, up a loose gully, over dirty rock, and then back onto the steep snow above. A bit more work got us to the top of the snow, then more loose, dirty rock to get to the notch. We slowed considerably here, reaching the notch about 6 hours from the car at 10:30am, and then taking a snack break here.
The first pitch wasn’t perfectly clear. We ascended relatively steep, somewhat loose rock adjacent to the bivy and, in retrospect, it would have been easier to go up closer to the notch. From the crest, it eased up quite a bit and was a fun romp for a ways up to a steeper face. We did a rightward traverse here before cutting straight up to good ledges. Kelsey took a turn, moving the belay over to the left of the ledges before climbing back right on a ramp and doing one tricky move. Up high, the fourth pitch from the description we’d brought involved quite steep climbing on really good holds—it was the most fun of the route.
We then did a short pitch towards the right instead of heading up a very steep, blank looking section, encountering the au cheval flake, then a fun steep move. A final rambling pitch to the right and then back left brought us to the summit ridge where good bivy sites existed. What a gorgeous spot!
A short scramble got us to the summit at 2pm, about 9.5 hours in. We were climbing on a 60m twin rope doubled in half, mainly simul-climbing, but also pitching out where appropriate. The summit views were awesome, looking over to Stuart and Sherpa as well as Colchuck and Dragontail. Glacier and Rainier also made appearances, as well as Daniel.
The scramble was a bit involved, but not too bad. We found a rap anchor near the base of the snowfield on the upper Northeast Face. We did a single rope rap down this and then had some moments of confusion. Scrambling straight down a ways, we found a rap anchor on a tree, but the terrain looked improbably steep and we didn’t want to end up hanging in space with our single rope. Upon further inspection, we discovered that there were rap anchors and more reasonable terrain to skier’s left, staying closer to the Northeast Ridge. After a short scramble and rappel, we cut through a notch to the East Face and found two more rappels down to the base of the face. Whew. Putting the rope and rack away for the day was a nice feeling.
With the time spent figuring out the descent, it took a while. We finished packing up the rope at 4:30pm, 12 hours after starting the day. Since the Colchuck Glacier had looked pretty icy and anemic from our approach views, we decided to descend from the Argonaut-Colchuck col down scree, snow, and talus, back to the waterfall slabs. It was not as bad as I’d imagined, especially with lots of plunge stepping on snow. Kelsey’s less-burly approach shoes didn’t do quite as well on the snow, but we managed. At 6pm, we converged with our ascent path.
Nothing to report on the way out. Lots more talus, some ‘schwacking, some losing of the trail, and a lot of walking, just barely needing a headlamp at the end, reaching the car at about 9:15pm for about a 17-hour day. Oof. We’d hoped to be faster, but were glad we’d stayed safe on the way up in the loose gulleys and on the way down with the raps.
Mostly Type 2 fun, but it had its moments. And it was fun to tick off another summit in the Stuart Range.
