Alisse

@Chris_H glad this inspired you to join CC hope you'll post some TRs! No, unfortunately we did not get any pics of you two climbing the face. Sorry!

Trip: Argonaut - South Face Trip Date: 08/14/2022 Trip Report: I've been out to the Teanaway (Teanaways?) several times this summer and it's been pretty awesome to become better acquainted with the area! For this trip, D and I decided to haul gear up to Argonaut's south face for a supposed "5.3" route. "What is the difference between 5.3 and 5.6?" I asked myself... We hiked in via Beverly Creek then over Fourth of July Pass on Saturday late afternoon and camped at Ingalls Creek. In the parking lot, we met Jennifer and Chris, also heading to do the same route! In the early evening, two climbers came down back to their camp at Ingalls Creek from Argonaut and gave us some approach beta, said that there's a legit "climber's trail," and shared that it took them 3 hours from camp to summit (via the 4th class scramble route; they soloed everything/didn't rap). Wow, we thought! Maybe we will be out of here way earlier than we expected! We set off from camp a bit past 7am and quickly found a solid trail up through the scrubby open-ish eastside forest. Very unfortunately, it did not last forever, and some B2ish schwack ensued between pieces of game trail until we got into more open meadow with sandy trails. OK, all good. Not my favorite part of the approach: A much more scenic part of the approach: At this point, we aren't sure what happened, but we clearly did not pay enough attention to the navigation/GPS and we crossed into a gully too far east, thinking it was the main gully, and started ascending. We realized our mistake a bit on the later side and tried to carefully poke out a way to traverse west into the gully that we wanted, but after some 4th class stuff ("accidents often happen when people are off-route..."), we decided to go back, down, and around. Welp, that was fun exploratory bonus el! Up and up the gully, D and I being careful not to trundle things onto each other, then finally at the base of the south face. We used a Mountain Project photo overlay to locate the start the 5.3 route, and it really looked like the picture.. but anyway, that first pitch we ended up calling 5.8. Lots and lots of options on the face, lots of cool features (some chicken knobs, crystally ledges, etc), cracks, and good pro. Definitely plenty of lichen and lots of loose and jumbled blocks in cracks, as expected. I ended the first pitch at a small alcove with a giant block that was slung that I stumbled upon (the sling looked kinda old). I apologized a bunch to D for clearly getting us off-route, but she was grateful we were getting up it and safely. Very nice of her The second pitch was much easier -- I did go around a chimney feature due to the pile of microwave blocks sitting in it and then I traversed right at the top, all to keep the rope from dislodging rocks onto D. I chatted a bit with Jennifer and Chris, who had started where we did but had followed cracks trending to climber's left and had topped out a bit before us. Bringing D up to the top of the second/last pitch: Anyway, we scrambled to the top, got cool, up-close views of Colchuck and Sherpa plus FOUR volcanoes, and then we scrambled down to the rap station for the 50-foot 4th class gully. One of the amazing views from the summit: Some photos of the face, from below after rappelling: Descending the gully: As the talus gully became meadow and then forest and stripes of slide alder, we started on solid trails and then...very unfortunately, had a hell of a time finding our way down to the main trail. Time is meaningless when you're trying to be zen in slide alder, but this was some of the more memorable schwacking I've done in awhile.. and on the east side! Oh, but we did come across what I think were some bones of a mountain goat? Skull: Finally made it down to camp, apparently our friends hadn't fared much better than us on the descent. Our 6-ish mile hike out went very quickly due to D's blazing speed and pace-setting which I was so grateful for! Good bye, Argonaut, I am glad to tick you off my list. I wish I could get a ride up and just play around on that south face, but I probably won't be going up there again (at least until this memory fades). Jennifer and Chris, it was lovely chatting with you two throughout the weekend and it was very sweet of you to wait until my Civic cleared that washout/rut on the forest road before driving off on Sunday night. Thank you! Gear Notes: 60m rope, single light rack, rock shoes, fully engaged trail-ish senses, fully engaged quiet feet Approach Notes: up, down, up, up, up...I'm sure you're better than me at finding those trails!

Awesome! Sounds like a grand adventure. Yes, we are so very lucky to have the Cascades. 100% agree with @Rad on the slinging blocks vs. cams. An alpine mentor once advised that cams go in "cracks of the earth".. in other words, that rock better be *solid* if you're putting a cam in there. @aaronohn and I climbed these peaks in August 2020. I called it the Snoqualmie Slam 🙂 We climbed Kendall and Thomson the first day, schwacked down and camped at Joe Lake, and then climbed Huckleberry (E Ridge) and and Alaska on the way out. One of the more memorable parts of that trip was that we came across an unopened bag of fruit snacks (!) on the W ridge of Thomson, and I remember eating tons of those V. deliciosum huckleberries (that's Latin for "Very delicious"). I also remember the rap anchor on top of Huckleberry being pretty minimal, as you noted, and backing it up for the first rappel-er. Stay stoked and safe!

Congratulations!

Awesome! After hiking Section K of the PCT, I got quite interested in that route but never made it happen. Sounds like you hit conditions just right, sounds so fun! Thanks for posting about it!

Found some, thank you!

Adding some nori or chopped dried shiitake really ups the tuna-ramen game 💯 Nice work!

🤣 I think that rock you're holding looks like a dinosaur tooth.

Five on the summit, dang! Thanks for sharing your adventure with us 🙂

Beautiful photos as always, @JasonG! I've been avoiding that closure and I'm wondering how you guys decided to say to hell with it? And the trailhead is closed too, right? So...extra road walking at the end, or ?

Anyone in/around Seattle have anything? Needs heel welt/groove. Thanks!

Does anyone have any recent information on how far one can go on the Depot Creek Rd near Chilliwack Lake? I found this: https://governmentofbc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a42873895b3d4ca084ea9730212cacb1 and when I click on Depot Creek Rd, it says this. I've never been in the area and I'm looking for corroboration here, I guess: Forest Service Road: DEPOT File ID: 5127 Section: 22 Name: DEPOT Type: Forest Service Road District: Chilliwack Natural Resource District Location: CHILLIWACK RIVER Road Type: BRANCH Road Use: Wilderness 4WD, Seasonally Deactivated Road Channel: RR-12 Channel Location: CHILLIWACK RIVER Road Description No access. Brushed in Thank you in advance!

Reading this makes me a little nauseous. Glad you had the skills and head to keep it together and make it down safely!

Hell yeah! Congrats!

Awesome! Thanks for all your reports -- your website has definitely been a source of stoke for me over the years

For anyone reading this: Reading about the route more, I think the crux 5.8 is the part that we skipped/bypassed by heading left off the ridge -- not the chimney. Oops!

Hey, I have to admit we didn't have much discussion about the pros and cons of the two different approaches. I don't think I came across (and I think Micah said he didn't, either) one TR that described the west ridge notch route. But we weren't looking too hard, either. It seemed like the few things I saw said something akin to "you *can* do the west ridge notch, but who knows, expect the worst." Mountainproject, for example, says " Most parties seem to opt for the Sharkfin Col approach, which is longer at 6-7 hours (versus ~4), but less hazardous and requires only one rope." -- Not that it's the authority, but... However, from our bivy, looking at the west ridge notch approach, Micah commented that it looked pretty straightforward. We could see a long ramp/gully that looked non-5th class, the rock is well-featured, and the snow was so high that it didn't seem like a whole lot of raps to get from the notch down onto snow. It would definitely be the direct route! I hope someone goes this way very soon and posts about it Pics Micah took that show the notch and that approach:

Trip: Forbidden Peak - NW Face Trip Date: 07/17/2022 Trip Report: @Hoo and I climbed the NW Face of Forbidden over the weekend. We had a grand alpine adventure with great conditions and we were happy we chose to take the loop overnight version for this climb. Thank you, Micah! On Saturday morning, we got to the ranger station armed with plans A, B, and C, but happily, snagged a permit for our bivy. The forecast for Sunday had deteriorated into a 30% chance of precip at 11am so we were concerned about low vis conditions on our summit and descent day, but we decided that we'd try to get to the higher bivy at the start of the route instead of just the N Ridge notch (our original plan). We had an invigorating uphill bike ride from the Eldo trailhead to the Boston Basin trailhead (road is still gated). Thank you Micah for loaning me your mountain bike for this! Quickly we were poking out into Boston Basin and feeling the alpine awe. The sun was shining behind light clouds and the temperature was great, the snow was soft but not overly so, and we quickly made our way up the Sharkin Col snow gully for the first approach crux in about four hours from the car. We aimed for one notch left of the notch right next to Sharkfin Tower. We scrambled up some loose 4th class to the notch but didn't see any rap stations so we scrambled down a bit and to the next one (climber's left) -- that one did have a rap station and looking down we could see two shrunds but they looked manageable. Micah led this rap and found another rap station hiding inside the shrund. I led the next one down and over/through the convexity toward the next shrund. Luckily it was still pretty filled in and we were able to easily get in and out of it and onto the mighty Boston Glacier! Note to self: change from shorts to pants earlier in the day. I was just reading Karsten's trip report of Ptarmigan Ridge and he spoke of his slogging cortex being overly activated. The amble across the Boston Glacier was so beautiful and enjoyable. "Is this a slog? It's pretty enjoyable for being a slog..." Micah and I discussed. If this had come at the end of the trip, it would have been a slog. Loved seeing Logan, Goode, and then Buckner across the way... Looking around at the amount of snow everywhere, we were cautiously optimistic about how we would get up to the N Ridge notch and onto the Forbidden Glacier. Identifying the notch was straightforward (to the right of the two towers; lowest point in ridge) and we were able to easily move from snow to rock and scamble up with just a short V0 boulder problem above the moat! This is all going too well! Views from the notch were fantastic. To climber's left we found a bivy spot we'd read about and then an exposed 4th class down-scramble led us to a rap station with a LOT of tat. Micah did a good mountain deed and cut out a bunch of trash tat. We made one <30m rap onto the snow and did a short bit of downclimbing before getting onto the flat glacier. We had not come across any water trickles or streams coming off the rocks (last big drips were in the shrunds after Sharkfin Col) but we finally found a real melt-off from rocks that we passed by (with a gaping moat guarding it). Micah was up for a kinda-sketchy moat-rock stem move to fill up our water. It was nice to be water-secure again! We walked over and decided to take the high/direct route around the base of the NW ridge toe. I think you could say we sandbagged ourselves with this routefinding choice, as we ended up climbing from steep soft snow with great feet up into AI2 territory. Luckily Micah felt confident about it and I was able to get a toprope from him (twice). Seracing above giant crevasses in aluminum crampons with just one axe, fun! Thankfully we were able to escape onto softer steep snow and then arc back over to the snow ramp getting us onto the rock/ridge proper. Hurray! We were definitely feeling the 7200' gain, ~8 hours from the car that we'd done according to Micah's watch. We ended up in a great bivy spot just a bit lower than where we got onto the ridge, with great epic-cloud views of Moraine Lake, Klawatti Lake, the Inspiration and Klawatti Glaciers, Primus and Tricouni, and all our best friends out there... the sun never really came out but it was an amazing place to be and relax and rest. We woke up with the brightening day but completely socked in as somewhat expected. We had seen a party at a N Ridge notch (one north of our notch) the evening before we wondered what they were up to. We definitely would not have wanted to cross the Forbidden Glacier with that kind of visibility! After scrambling up and over the tower, we roped up and set off into the clouds for the first simuling section on the knife-edge. So, so fun. I love this kind of easy climbing on ridges! Super fun scrambley, exposed, great rock! So fun. As others have noted, there's a fixed pin right before a hard-looking section right above (I think I read that probably rockfall had hit this section and now it goes at solid 5.8) so Micah took us climber's left and down a bit; there was a nice flake for me to have some terrain protection as I downclimbed the exposed 5th class moves... We continued onward and upward simuling and soon Micah shouted down, "I'm just going to climb through the chimney, it looks easy" (without pitching it out). And lo, it was! I was really surprised; I have found many 5.8 chimneys to be really tough for me. We agreed that it barely deserved to be called a chimney. Nothing physical, just some stemming with big hands and feet. The rock was the worst on the route here, though -- quiet, gentle climbing definitely necessary! Above and out of the chimney, there was a tight corner that was the crux for me but I was able to top rope it cleanly (my only point of pride with my rock climbing these days)! Above that, I took the next simul section and had a blast on easy climbing on mostly great rock, trying to continue trending climber's left toward the face while also not heading into the multiple snow patches that are still up there. Started getting into harder terrain with lichen as I began running out of slings, so when Micah took over again he took us farther left and up and toward the sunshine... And soon enough we were at the summit, above the sea of clouds! I think we must have been looking at Eldo poking out? Our original plan was to descend via the East Ledges but with all the snow, I was concerned about the 4th class ledge being snowy. We also knew that getting down from the East Ridge notch would be slow with such low visibility. We opted for the West Ridge descent, so we downclimbed the entire West Ridge route. I haven't been rock climbing much at all for the past months (and years) so a lot of this felt stressful/mentally taxing for me but soon we were at the notch. From there, we took two rappels down the cat scratch gullies (dry) and onto the steep snow gully skiier's left. Unfortunately, on pulling the rap, our rope got wedged into a notch -- well, we hadn't really had any shenanigans, so it was about time. Happily, it just took some finesse from a different angle to get it unstuck and no ascending the rope was necessary! We downclimbed steep snow and saw that the bergshrund at the bottom was open and couldn't see an obvious way across, so we found a rap station (skiier's left, in the moat, quasi iced-over) and were able to rap across to the other side with no issues. From there, we had a fair bit of downclimbing in soft but supportable snow. Downclimbing downclimbing... finally onto more level snow where Micah was a total show-off with his boot skiing skills. I think this is the part where I began feeling my slog cortex being taxed! But it was short-lived. We said hey to all the fat marmots in the basin on our way out, made our way quickly down the trail, and hopped onto our bikes for an AWESOME speedy ending to a lovely trip. What a way to end things! OK, you've really been waiting for the pics: Woo hoo, bike approach! Coming into Boston Basin Micah on first rap from Sharkin Col variation First rap from Sharkfin Col variation Second rap from Sharkfin Col variation From inside the second shrund Looking back toward Sharkfin Col variation Goddamn the Boston Glacier is so beautiful! Moving from snow to rock right below the N Ridge notch Taking a break before rapping down onto the Forbidden Glacier View showing the ridge toe On our way across the Forbidden Glacier Awww yeahhhh! Primus and Tricouni in the back. Thanks, Micah! Steep but great feet through this section! This is the kinda thing that all the TRs warn about... AI2 for a bit... Woo hoo, almost there! Beautiful views from our bivy.... Time to start climbing! First section on the rock Getting up into the sun! Starting our descent via the West Ridge Downclimb below the cat scratch gullies, above the shrund here Back to plain ol' walking Farewell, Boston Basin! Until next time... Gear Notes: Three-season boots, aluminum pons and axe, one half/twin 60m rope, small-ish rack and lots of slings, BIKES. Approach Notes: Up, over, across, up, over, across, around, up, up, up, down.

Love! The stoke shines through. Rock, water, greenery.. a beautiful adventure.

@mountaingrrrrrl I'll send you a direct message 🙂

I'd check out https://turns-all-year.com/ TRs!

@JasonG voluntold, ha! I'm sorry to hear that it's trying to kill you. I'll help you fend it off with some laughs and summit beers. Do get in touch!

April 16 is my last day of work for a few months! 🥳 Got a taste of the spring last weekend, ski crampons ringing and biting in the cold morning... Looking for fun and adventurous people with weekday availability!

Dang @manninjo you forgot to tell me about you guys going quarter-spelunking in crevasses up there. 😬 Glad your soul was refreshed 😊

F yeah, way to go!!!!