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Argonaut Peak via south gully

Randy's trip report (http://wta.org/~wta/cgi-bin/wt...) and dsweld's trip report (http://wta.org/~wta/cgi-bin/wt...) do a great job of describing the route Carla and I followed, so I'm just going to highlight three sections that stood out for me.

First the brush. I don't expect brush in this part of the Cascades, but it is on this route. The animal paths through the brush help, but it was still very tiring.

Then the long, granite gully. The route makes a traversing ascent from the west side of the summit, right under the base of the pink summit slab, to the east side of the summit. Much of this traverse was on 3rd class granite and it got old.

Finally the two cruxes. First the 3rd class gully with the 4th class move, we used a hand line when descending this. Second was the summit block where we had some challenging rock scrambling, we found it easiest to pass below the two leaning blocks then ascend the final 20 feet on the west side.

It was a long and challenging trip, and it was very satisfying to finally sit on top of the summit. It is definitely on the high end of scrambles as far as technical difficulty goes.

We camped at the Ingalls Creek trail where it meets the Fourth Creek trail. On the second day we hiked up the Ingalls Creek trail to Lake Ingalls and exited via Ingalls Pass. This was an enjoyable and beautiful way to return.

• Date: 2007/09/22 to 2007/09/23 Trip type: high-end scramble Elevation gain: approx. 8,630 feet USGS quad: Enchantment Lakes In area: Alpine Lakes Wilderness Car-to-car time: 1 day 6 hours 33 minutes 2 hours 5 minutes driving there from Capitol Hill to Lake Ingalls trail head 1 hour 8 minutes ascending from Lake Ingalls trail head to Longs Pass 1 hour 49 minutes descending from Longs Pass to camp (intersection of Ingalls Trail and Fourth Creek Trail) 4 hours 21 minutes ascending from camp (intersection of Ingalls Trail and Fourth Creek Trail) to summit of Argonaut Peak 3 hours 42 minutes descending from summit of Argonaut Peak to camp (intersection of Ingalls Trail and Fourth Creek Trail) 2 hours 26 minutes ascending from camp (intersection of Ingalls Trail and Fourth Creek Trail) to Lake Ingalls 1 hour 12 minutes descending from Lake Ingalls to Ingalls pass 1 hour 11 minutes descending from Ingalls pass to Lake Ingalls trail head References Summitpost.org: Argonaut Peak South Route Summitpost.org: Argonaut Peak Washington Trails Association: Argonaut Peak South Route

• Full sized map

• Descending the crux gully, Carla is right below the 4th class move

• Descending the long, long 3rd class gully

• Argonaut Peak from south gully

• Argonaut Peak from the endless granite south gully

• Not Hinkhouse Peak