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Trip: Colchuck - Broken Thumb Direct Trip Date: 06/25/2022 Trip Report: I'm not getting any younger, but luckily neither is @Juan or @Bronco. They would point out that even though my thumb is broken, at least it has 3 pins in it. And so it goes.... In my efforts to not let my infirmities get the best of me this summer, both of these kind gents were game for a slog up Colchuck a couple weeks ago. It had been a long time since I've been up there in the spring and how times have changed. I seem to remember the peaks as pretty busy 20 years ago but the trail relatively quiet. No longer! Several hundred people swarmed the trail to Colchuck Lake but somehow we had the peak to ourselves?! I was a bit in disbelief, but certainly didn't complain....about that. I was sure to complain about my stupid thumb and how I better not fall and bend the pins. As the nurse admonished me a few days before, " bent pins don't really come out very well." Thankfully, I didn't put that theory to the test....yet. There is always next weekend! I still have two weeks until the pins come out. Gear Notes: One pole, crampons. An axe if you have two hands Approach Notes: Follow the hordes to the lake, then your nose

Trip: Crystal Lake Tower - SW Rib Trip Date: 07/03/2022 Trip Report: We two Seattle climbers made a pleasant 3-day outing to Crystal Lake Tower. Having climbed Whitehorse Mtn. with Kellie McBee the previous week, I imagined we'd be in shape for this. After gleaning details of the route from trip reports here, and, of course, Fred's Cascade Alpine Guide, we carried out the trip without any trouble. A leisurely hike up Ingalls Creek for 7.7 miles brought us to Crystal Creek. A ribbon on a log marks a spot to turn uphill. Blowdowns made the boot-track hard to follow at first, but we soon picked it up. It goes into big boulders on the way into the tarn basin, where I somehow had my camera out for this shot: Camp was found in some trees near the tarn, where we could see the objective of tomorrow's climb: Under clear dawn skies we made our way around the left side of the tarn to the left side of the route's toe. I have long been enchanted by the Nightmare Needles, having climbed Little Snowpatch with Mark Landreville in 1989, so I took some shots along the way: Easy simul-climbing starts the route, and here is Kellie coming up: Little Annapurna is just across the creek: We knew to aim for a large-looking white headwall and pass it on its left side. My partner expertly scoped it out: Wonderful, improbable ramps curve around the final block of stone to the summit. The obligatory summits shots were made: The Enchantment Lakes were still snowy in a mellow late-season way. Crystal Lake is bottom left: I once climbed McClellan Peak while trying for Argonaut in a whiteout, by myself, so I enjoyed the view of where I once stood: It was with relief I walked the easy descent along goat tracks to the area of Enchantment Pass. The snow was soft and giving, with no need for crampons, though we had brought axes for balance in case of ice. I had stashed my big pack at the base of the route, so I had to hike back up for retrieval while Kellie waited. Exhausted, camping was a relief until it began to rain. I had just finished boiling water for dinner and dashed into the tent with it while Kellie cooked hers. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled in the night, rain came and went in alternation with perfectly clear, starry sky. Next morning we abolished breakfast time and got out of there fast. It rained hard for a bit, we soaked up the water in the bush, slipped on lichened rock, tumbled over logs, slipped on roots and ferns, fell backward and forward, and hit the Ingalls Creek trail with gratitude. An easy seven miles to the car, hooray! Gear Notes: Single rack to 3", one 60m rope, ice axes Approach Notes: Legendary

Trip: Argonaut Peak - NW Arete Trip Date: 06/18/2022 Trip Report: Approach There is a good amount of beta on the approach, including the bush wack/climbers trail. We stayed on the climbers trail until we hit the bottom of the boulder field/slide alder. We could have gone further right to avoid the alder, but we went through a few (literally) trees to skip the traverse. They're certainly unpleasant, but fine in that quantity. We filled up on water on at the edge of the snowfield, and were able to skip the slab rocks entirely via snow on the left. The finger reading to the notch was in good shape, sluffing a few predictable and small loose wets from the first in our party (4) total. The finger had no notable features, entirely snow. We did make the mistake of veering right near the top rather than left and paid for it with some exposed scrambling to get over to the notch. Climb Pitches are as advertised. Some of the better resources are: tumtum, jamie curtis 2015, jamie curtis 2017, and carl p 2017 which includes an awesome hand drawn route topo sheet! We took Jamie's advice and pushed P1 through the right facing corner to shorten P2. This ended up not quite necessary, we stayed fairly in line with the belayer over the face and the belay was in line (not really any rope drag). I believe our belay was further to climbers L than described, but it lined up great for rope drag and fed into P3 with ease. Unfortunately, I led the last pitch by headlight, so I don't recall too much of what happened on it, but I topped out the gully to an easy natural anchor. 2 in our party cleaned up the bivy sites (chipped ice away) and we went promptly to sleep. Summit The scramble to the summit is straightforward. Descent From the summit, go through the tunnel. Down climb to a notch, then scramble up the other side to the start of the snow field. It was a little steep (about 40deg) for the first few steps and we all put on aluminum crampons since the snow was hard in sections. Take a long, descending traverse down and to the right. From Jamie Curtis, the rap station is at: Lat=47.470342; Long=-120.858916 Rap 1: We did a double rope rappel to solid ground below the rings. Rap 2: We rapped from the tree down the overhanging face. We stopped at the first set of nuts (single rope rap distance) and had to replace the sling. This took some time and a climber above me on the rappel moved (to lookers right) around causing rock fall directly onto the anchor. Watch out for this- I'm fine but I did take a rock to the head. Big thanks to my helmet! Note if you do a double rope rappel, go past this first set of nuts to the second- it's better. Rap 3: Double rope rap down to the snow! (again, doable with single rope rappel, there's a well-placed station for you) The snow is trivial from here to colchuck glacier and down to the lake. Then it's trail to the car! Timeline Planned Actual Diff at step Trailhead 8:00am (0hr) 9:00am (0hr) +1hr Leave trail 9:30am (1.5hr) 10:30pm (1.5hr) 0hr Snow 12:00pm (2.5hr) 1:30pm (3hr) +0.5hr Notch 5:00pm (5hr) 3:30pm (2hr) -3hr Start Climb 5:00am SUN 5:00pm (1.5hr) time spent deciding to go for it n/a End Climb – 10:30pm (5.5hr) n/a Summit 12:00pm (7hr) 9:00am -1.5 for climb Start Rappels 1:00pm (1hr) 11:00am (2hr) +1.hr End Rappels 3:00pm (2hr) 12:45pm (1.75hr) -0.25hr Colchuck Col 4:30pm (1.5hr) 2:30pm (1.75hr) +0.25hr Colchuck Lake 5:15pm (.75hr) 3:15pm (.75hr) 0hr Parking Lot 7:45pm (2.5hr) 8:45pm (5.5hr) +3hr RESCUE Note: below colchuck lake we came across a hiker with a broken ankle and joined some others in carrying her out to the cars, adding a few hours to the descent. Gear Notes: Slings: 8 doubles, 6 singles +anchors Pro: full nut set, single cams 0.3-3 + doubles of 0.5, 0.75. If you can stand the weight, another #1 would have been great for use in anchors. Shoes: I used 3 season mountaineering boots, light crampons, and rock shoes. Pictures Slide Alder- in case you aren't familiar: Our bypass of slab rock: Snow finger: Photo from our P2 top: Where I topped out the route: Summit tunnel: Scrambling down after summit: Notch where we went up to gain the snowfield (just a couple steep steps then mellower): Descending the snow: Top of Rap#2 Walking out the snowfield after rappels: GPX Argonaut-2022-06-19.gpx Argonaut-2022-06-18.gpx