[Jake Robinson]

Stuart Range Traverse 8/31-9/2/2018 Trace and I climbed Sherpa, Stuart, Argonaut, Colchuck, Dragontail, Witches Tower, Little Annapurna, Enchantment, Cannon, and McClellan in three days starting from the Esmerelda Basin TH and ending at the Snow Lakes TH. Didn't take many pictures and those I took were with my phone, sorry about that. I guess this could be considered a climbing report though 99% of this trip was class 1-2 hiking.

Our route. Stats were 49 miles, 20k gain, 3 long days.

Day 1: Sherpa and Stuart We hiked up over Longs Pass and made camp at the base of the Sherpa climbers trail, then climbed Sherpa via the east ridge. This route is described well in TRs from Yana and Matt, Puzzlr, and Fletcher. I found this route to be very fun, with lots of class 3/4 on solid rock. There are a few fifth class moves here and there but the rock is always good and the holds are always positive. Trace had the key piece of information for getting around the balanced rock - we went around the right side (climbers right), and when we seemed to be faced with an exposed and scary downclimb, we looked left and found a hidden foothold that allowed us to make a short class 4 downclimb to easier class 2 terrain below. Class 2 ledges led us to one more low 5th class corner pitch (look for Fletcher's stuck cam here to mark the beginning of the pitch), and then awkward slabs to the top. Sherpa is a very cool summit.

Mount Stuart from below Longs Pass

Looking up to Sherpa

Climbed this gully to get to the east ridge

Trace on the east ridge

Trace climbing

Trace about to make the class 4 downclimb, looking for the hidden hold

Summit with balanced rock

Summit (photo by Trace)

Rapping off Sherpa

Stole these photos from Fletcher's report, but I drew the lines

Awkward class 4 chockstone gully at the beginning of the route

After climbing the chockstone gully and then hiking up and left over a rib, we came to this class 4 chimney thing

After the chimney, we climbed this short pitch to get up to the balanced rock. I'd call it about 5.3.

The balanced rock from the other side (the side closer to the summit). Hidden foothold and class 4 downclimb is visible here.

We made three raps and then downclimbed the chockstone gully. A 30m rope is sufficient for every rap but just barely makes it to scramble terrain on the first rap. We descended the way we came until 8200', then found a great class 3 traverse beneath the south face of Sherpa. The lowest we had to go was about 7950' to access the key gully next to the black pillar mentioned by Puzzlr. From there we dropped to 7800' in the basin between Sherpa and Stuart, traversed for a bit, and aimed for the false summit of Stuart. Some dirty class 3 scrambling got us to the top part of the Cascadian Couloir route on Stuart and we continued the rest of the way to the summit. We descended back to camp and went to bed at sunset.

A sandy gully we climbed to access the Cascadian Couloir

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Looking back at Sherpa and the traverse

Summit of Stuart

Day 2: Argonaut, Colchuck, Dragontail The next morning we climbed Argonaut via the standard south route. Following summitpost, we were able to find a completely alder-free line. Leaving the Ingalls Creek trail ~100' east of the Fourth Creek junction, we went directly uphill, mostly following game trails, deviating left at 5100' to avoid alder, then back to the right at 5700' to enter the gully. We took the left fork of the gully at 7000' then climbed class 2/3 to the summit block. The little chockstone gully felt like fifth class to me, we should have brought the rope up with us to rap it. Our 30m rope would have worked fine. This late in the year there was no water anywhere on Argonaut, I was glad to have hauled up 3L from Ingalls Creek.

Above the brush on Argonaut

The gully I wish I had the rope for (photo by Trace)

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Where we're going

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Where we were

We dropped to 6250' then made a slightly rising traverse over easy terrain to pt. 6737'. We found a good access point to Porcupine Basin at about 6700'. We loaded up on water at Porcupine Creek then headed up to Colchuck Col. The Colchuck Glacier looked like it was mostly bare ice with a large bergschrund spanning its entire width near the top. After hiking up Colchuck, we scrambled up through Pandora's Box (class 3/4 at the beginning, easing off to easy choss at the top), tagged Dragontail, then made camp outside the permit zone about halfway between Dragontail and Little Annapurna.

Dragontail Peak above Porcupine Basin

Porcupine Basin access point

Colchuck Glacier and Colchuck Lake from the col

Top of Colchuck (photo by Trace)

Sunset from our bivy (photo by Trace)

Day 3: Witches Tower, Little Annapurna, Enchantment, Cannon, McClellan, Snow Creek exit The next morning we scrambled up Witches tower, hiked up Little Annapurna's NW slopes, crossed the basin, then climbed Enchantment via the class 3 shortcut route described by b00 here. From there we descended to Prusik Pass, slogged out to Cannon and back, made our way to the lakes at 7000' NNW of McClellan, and climbed directly up class 2/3 slabs to the Prong gully and the summit of McClellan. From there it was 9 or so miles of rough and crowded trail out to the car at the Snow Lakes TH. We finished just before headlamp time and made the long drive back to pick up the other car.

Core Enchantments from Witches Tower (photo by Trace)

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Prusik Pass from near Enchantment Pk. (photo by Trace)

Heading out to Cannon (photo by Trace)

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Looking back on our route from the Druid Plateau (photo by Trace)

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Enchantments from McClellan

Our exit route from McClellan

[DadFly]

Great TR! The pics are great!

[awilsondc]

Awesome! Cool to see you posting some of your epic trips from this summer. The way you described day 3 made it sound almost trivial, when I'm sure it was very tough. Sounds like a hard trip! I don't think many have done the full traverse like this. Well done!

[Schenk]

I have done all of those a few times, and connecting them all in 3 days is pretty stout! Nicely done. Snow lake looks real low!

[ozzy]

Good God! Thats one awesome traverse yall did! Sherpa is the only one i haven't done, it looks like alotta fun for sure. That chockstone on Argonaut still looks rather intimidating lol! Badass guys! Cheers!

[puzzlr]

Very impressive! I have yet to get to a lot of those peaks in the central Enchantments. You really knocked out a lot in one trip. Congrats.

[raising3hikers]

excellent way to combine all those peaks on the same trip, that's a lot of work

[Brushbuffalo]

Excellent detail.You guys are motivated and just plain tough. Good going!

[Gimpilator]

It's amazing to get all those peaks in one go like that. And only 3 days. Wow

[Matt Lemke]

This is interesting! Nice work. I ended up doing just about every single one of the 10 Stuart Range Peaks as separate trips, only actually combining Cannon and Enchantment Peak as a day trip. They were all earlier in my climbing career before I realized what was truly possible.

[Midnight Slogger]

Inspiring route--and excellent detail. I appreciate your follow-through on TR's, even if they're a tad late!