[TR] Argnaut SE Ridge - August 9-10, 2008

[lazyalpinist]

Earlier this month Julie and I set about to climb the SE Ridge of Argonaut. A small paragraph in Beckey is about the only beta on the route. (Some additional stuff on Summitpost.org is mostly a repeat of what the CAG states.) Didn't seem too difficult, but who knows?

 

Route is upper right skyline

 

 

Because of limited beta we figured on a 2-day climb. Saturday was spent hiking in over Long's pass and down to the Fourth Creek intersection with the Ingall's Creek Trail. The afternoon was spent scouting an approach. This involved leaving the trail north about 12 minutes east of the Fourth Creek trail and following a dry creek bed north for a bit. The dry creek soon became wet and the SE ridge started forming on our left so we gained the ridge. The lower ridge was full of game trails that we scouted to 5000' or so. Satisfied that we had found an appropriate approach, we headed back to camp and dinner.

 

Ridge visible through the trees

 

 

Sunday came and we were at our previous day's high point in less than an hour. Things were moving smoothly. Then there was some 'shwacking, followed by some boulder hopping. Then things got a little 3rd/4th class on us. We roped up for a short pitch only to see we were a touch too far east. We rapped from our location and started scrambling again. The terrain got 4th/5th class on us, so we roped up for 3 full belayed pitches. This is when we got a decent view that we were apparently doing "the complete SE Ridge" and not the 6 pitches to the SE Spire that Beckey describes. Above us we could see the route, and between us and the base of the route still had 2-4 pitches of technical terrain. It was noon. We knew to climb another 10 pitches was going to be putting us in bivyland. We bailed off the ridge to the west (6 raps) and hiked some meadows and 'schwacked our way back to the Ingall's Creek Trail. We got back to the car before dark.

 

Bailing from our high point

 

I've looked at so many photos of this peak since then to get an idea of our route, and have an idea about where we were, just not a great concept of how to start the route that Beckey describes. "~from the east flank take a left trending ramp to gain the ridge..." Does that mean taking the Porcupine Creek drainage up through the slabs to about 7000'? Not sure. Has anyone done this route? Did we miss some easy approach element?

Edited August 26, 2008 by lazyalpinist

[Argus]

From your rap photo, it looks like you started way to early. Like you said, go up the Porcupine drainage through the slabs to around 7,000 (maybe more, maybe less-memory hazy). From there, a left leaning 3rd/4th class ramp gains the ridge. It's a lot of 4th/easy 5th class until the ridge steepens, then a couple of pitches of 5.6ish climbing. You have to rap off the southeast spire to the notch and climb a couple more pitches if you want to hit the true summit.

 

We came in from Beverly Creek/4th Creek trail and I think it may be faster. Also, you probably want to hit the slabs of Porcupine Creek as quickly as possible since the travel in that drainage is much quicker than the stuff to the west.

Edited August 26, 2008 by Argus

[lazyalpinist]

Thanks. Once we arrived out our high point the PC slabs made sense as the approach. I think we were still 2-4 pitches below the ramp up from the slabs though. We'll try again next year.