Marblemount to Seattle via Barlow Pass Ride

August 9, 2020

Whitehorse Mountain from just north of Darrington

Looking to mix things up from climbing and hiking, I decided to hitch a ride with Erica and Anjuli on their way to Hidden Lake Lookout with my bike in the car and have them drop me in Marblemount with the intention of riding home via the Mountain Loop Highway and Barlow Pass.

They dropped me at 9:30am and I got to work. The first set of ~26 miles from Marblemount to Darrington went quickly (1.5 hours) with relatively little traffic headed South in the morning. It was fun to see Whitehorse Mountain come into view and think back on my climb and ski of the mountain earlier this spring with Kelsey. I stopped at a gas station in Darrington to inhale an ice cream bar, a gatorade, and a coke—a shock to the system, but very much needed in terms of calories and cooling. Then I set off for the adventure part of the ride.

I’d scoped out the Mountain Loop Highway to see how fast folks did the ~14 miles of gravel climbing up to Barlow Pass and decided, despite knowing that I needed to conserve energy for the rest of the ride, that I wanted to push myself on this section to see how I could do. It was fun blasting on well-packed dirt for much of the ride, especially the sections that flattened out. I was on my old road bike with 25mm tires and racing gears, so the steeps and loose sections were especially tough, but the flats were awesome. I nearly kept up with some motorbikes for a while and then finally hit the grind up to Barlow Pass, slowing considerably 50 miles into the ride.

Thankfully, the highway turns to pavement at the pass and leads to a long descent towards Granite Falls, 30 miles down the road. I stopped there for more ice cream and drinks—I must have looked a bit haggard scarfing calories in the gas station parking lot all kitted up.

The ride went smoothly from there. I’d ridden to Granite Falls and back from home earlier this summer, so I knew the way. Snohomish was 100 miles into the ride on the dot. A bit of climbing before Woodinville and I was on the home stretch, riding the Burke Gilman trail around Lake Washington and then finally up Capitol Hill for 133 miles and 5,400 feet of climbing. Really fun to do a point-to-point ride and cover so much ground in the mountains.

NW Arete on Argonaut Peak

August 2, 2020

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.

Blue's Buttress on Poster Peak

July 11, 2020

Having not climbed rock in the gym or outside in over 4 months, Dale and I were excited to meet up and get outside, but wanted to keep the climbing mellow. Blue’s Buttress on Poster Peak looked like a fun romp in a beautiful place. We met at the hairpin at 9:30am, packed up, and left the car at 10am.

The approach went quickly, transitioning to continuous snow near the base of the route, and we were suited up, simul-soloing the lower section at 11:15am. It felt good to move freely on mostly good rock and fun scrambling moves. We had a good conversation going throughout the route as we each made our way upwards. When we hit a more sustained 5th class section about two-thirds of the way up, we put the rope on and simul-climbed from there to the top, where we arrived at 1pm.

We took in the views for a while before heading down loose terrain to the saddle, then gingerly down-climbing a bit of snow before it eased up enough to boot ski big sections. We were back at Dale’s van, enjoying a little happy hour by 3:30pm.

It was a fun route—exactly what we were looking for even if relatively short. We ended up having enough time after shooting the breeze to hike up to the ice box hairpin crag and get on some more technical routes. It felt really good to clip bolts and climb harder, though our forearms were woefully out of shape.

Great day!