Mount Stuart (Ice Cliff Glacier is in the center with the north ridge to the right)

We started out on the nice trail with snow right away; there were only a few patches here and there of dry ground.  For the most part, the hike up was pretty easy.  At the turn off to Colchuck Lake, the trail became much dirtier featuring lots of post holes.  At one point I was crossing, what looked like a solid crossing over a creek when the bridge broke and soaked my left boot.  A few moments later we arrived at the lake with the fabled fantastic views of Dragontail and Colchuck Peaks.  Pictures never do the mountains justice and Dragontail looked a whole lot bigger than I had imagined it from the various pictures I'd seen.

Dragontail Peak (Colchuck on the right in clouds) from Colchuck Lake

At the lake, we stopped for a brief lunch.  Of course, at this moment, the clouds moved in and covered the tops of the peaks.  A wind picked up and it started snowing.  The food buoyed our spirits though and we headed off across Colchuck Lake to the base of the Colchuck glacier.  The view was so stupendous that I asked Michael to take a picture of me.  Michael wasn't able to take the picture so I asked him to unlock the camera and advance the film.  Well, he'd done all that.  Unfortunately, my fully manual camera had locked up!  It hadn't done this in a long time, don't start now!  To make a long camera story short, I finally figured out how to make it work, I had to either breathe on it for a while or generate friction heat by locking and unlocking the shutter, then slamming the button with my finger to take the picture.  I'm sad to say, that though this worked, my pictures *stunk* for this trip!  All my high altitude extreme shots had a dark band through them.  Bleeh!  What to do...

Argonaut Peak

We began the long long slog up to the top of Colchuck Glacier.  I don't recall how long this took but it was at least a couple of hours.  We didn't move that slowly either though I did frequently stop and fiddle with my camera (I hadn't unravelled the mystery at this point).  At the top of the Dragontail-Colchuck col we had to descend a few hundred feet and then ascend that distance back up to the Argonaut-Colchuck col.  Argonaut was pretty impressive from this angle although it kept fading in and out of clouds.  The snow was swirling around us as well adding to the fantastic alpine mood.  I was pretty beat at this point.  In fact, at the Dragontail-Colchuck col, I nearly napped while leaning on a rock!  Finally, we made it up to the second col and we were really excited to see the fantistic views.  The top of Mount Stuart peeked out above the highest clouds.  It seemed so high and far away.  We were actually very close to the summit of Argonaut from our camp directly on the ridge.  We just needed to climb the east face to climb most directly to the summit, but our route was the more ambitious Northwest Arete.

Our campsite at the Argonaut-Colchuck col

We set up Michael's new tent - a lightweight job consisting of no floor!  We used my trekking poles for tent poles and ice axes and Michaels poles for stakes.  It was a bit tricky to get up in our confined location but we got creative and worked it out.  Then it was on to checking out the route and getting food going.  Our route required us to downclimb steep snow for 1000 feet and then climb up another steep slope to the northwest arete.  It was really cold up here so it was good to get inside the tent with the warm tent stove.  My old tired gloves with the duct tape weren't doing a great job of keeping my fingers warm.  Can't blame 'em really.  However, for your information, those gloves have now been honorably discharged - they were the first pieces of technical clothing gear that I ever bought!  After a hot meal, we turned in.  We talked for a while but I was fading fast.  Pretty soon, my responses to Michael's commentary was "Mmm hmm", "Uh huh" and so on.  As soon as we stopped talking, I was out - I think it took about a minute...literally!  We both slept great!

The next morning was not unlike the previous day - unsettled clouds with a light wind.  We started out down the ridge a ways before finding a slightly less steep place to get onto the primary slope that would lead us down to the bowl.  The climbing was indeed steep but nothing too extreme or strenuous.  At the bowl, we angled back up the steep snow field that hugged the base of Argonaut Peak.  We took turns kicking steps through shin to knee deep snow.  My water, though inside my pack, had frozen already.  I was able to break the ice seal on the top but it was so cold and ice that it was hard to drink any decent quantity.  At the top of the col, we were able to nestle next to a small gendarme and set up the rope.  Michael led out first around the corner where it was very hard to hear him.  Both of our voices suffered from echoes and we had to speak very slowly in order to be understood.  It took a while for us to get our bearings but eventually I felt Michael tugging the rope and putting me on belay.

The northwest arete.  Our route headed right around the gendarme in the foreground.

I headed around the corner and, to my shock, saw the rope ascending a vertical chimney.  Hey, I'm wearing crampons and a large backpack here!  And my legs are cold since I've been belaying for the past few minutes!  Anyway, I started up...this was really hard stuff!  What would be comfortable and enjoyable 5.6 climbing in summer was a serious proposition with snow all over the route.  I hooked my crampons on small nubbings and pushed my way up.  After pulling out a cam I arrived at a tight hex placement.  The damn thing wouldn't come out and both my foot holds were on crampon points.  I tugged hard and it came out hard...straight into my forehead.  I yelled disgustingly, not out of pain but out of...frustration.  OK, so then I headed up again.  My face felt a little "itchy", sort of we, so I rubbed it with my glove.  Taking the glove away, I notieced the happy red stains on it.  So, I closed an eye and looked inward and saw blood streaming down my face.  Great.  Then I popped out and gave Michael a bit of a scare but I let him know what happend and that I was OK...no pain, just an annoyance.  But, I wondered how big the cut was.  I figured if the rest of the pitches weren't as hard as that damn chimney, then this would be doable.  But that chimney was damn hard...I was panting for breath at the top.  The second pitch was easier, taken as a whole, but also featured a tough move that required the camming of our ice axes to get up.  Jeez...ok, what's next? 

A forbidding view of Sherpa Peak.  A connecting ridge leads off to Mount Stuart in the background, which was completely engulfed in clouds.

The next pitch was even harder.  It featured an exposed, snow-covered slab, then an extremely difficult move to get into another hard chimney.  Michael was taking a while to figure this out and I was starting to get pretty cold.  It didn't help to have blood all over my face either.  When Michael tried one way and couldn't make it work, he tried traversing over a mossy, snowy slab.  That didn't work either.  At this point he was forced to make an aid move with a sling and a nut.  At this point, my instincts were telling me to call it quits.  Eventually, Michael asked me what I thought and I frankly replied, "I think we should turn back".  We did.  It was definitely the right thing to do for it also had started to snow quite hard as well and as we rappelled, it snowed even harder.  We backed off some and were able to see most of the rest of the route - it looked hard, if not harder, the rest of the way up.  1000 feet below in the snow bowl, we were faced with the tedious climb back up to our camp.  We were reassured again as the snow and wind picked up.  Up on the ridge, we noted spindrift avalanches pouring off of Argonaut's north face.  We got back to camp and had a little more food, packed up, caught a second wind and headed out.  The climb back up to the Dragontail col wasn't bad at all...we even spotted a white ferret on the way up!  He popped out to see if it were really spring yet.  No, not yet, back in the hole!

We had a great glissade back down to the lake.  Well not quite to the lake.  The last 100 feet consisted of some serious postholes in the late afternoon melting snow.  I got lodged pretty good at one point and had to dig my boot out.  I felt pretty good though beginning the climb back down Mountaineer Creek.  The hike down, however, sapped my energy as we postholed and slipped our way down.  Finally, at the creek, we shared a stupendous ham sandwich.  With that jolt of food, we marched really fast back to the car...record time according to Michael.

Well, there was no summit for us this weekend.  But there was 8100 feet of elevation...I guess that's good!  No, this was a great trip...a lot of fun and some great experience!  Thanks for the suggestion, Michael!