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After our recent success on Mount Buckskin, kicking the difficulty up a notch seemed in order for our next outing. Starting at 7:30 a.m. at the Silver Dollar Lake TH, we followed the gentle and well-packed Naylor Lake Road on snowshoes until we saw our trail sign to head slightly southwest. We ended up higher than desired above Naylor Lake (photo of Argentine from this perspective on right). We made our way down through deep snow toward the southern shoreline. This route would have been a nightmare without snowshoes. Mount Wilcox looked very close and easily attainable from the lake, though we had much to accomplish first.
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We used the ice on the shore to traverse the lake, which made the snowshoe crampons very convenient. On the left is a photo of Erin, Ryan, and Kurt standing on the upper ice flow from the creek into the lake. Our next objective was to get above the nasty willows and onto solid ground. This didn't take too long, and we happily put away our snowshoes. Traversing the slopes of Wilcox, we made our way to the Argentine/Wilcox saddle. Argentine was a little over a mile and a half away from where we began traversing the slope. Great views of Squaretop and the Sawtooth appeared as we ascended.
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We avoided a few snow gullies and traversed some others, arriving at the saddle around 10:45. On the right is a view of the remaining route up Argentine from near the saddle. We made quick work of the East Shoulder/Ridge and were having another perfect weather day. The crest of Argentine was heavily corniced, which made for interesting aesthetics. We ascended an easier portion of the snowbank, which was well consolidated, after which we followed sastrugi almost the entire way to the summit. It was around 11:30 when we summited, and we were all feeling pretty good.
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I was hesitant to make the traverse to Edwards because of the four-mile round trip back to Argentine, and also because I had done Edwards before. On the other hand, I thought it would be nice to get a better workout and another winter centennial (Kurt was also persuasive with the classic quote "It'll be so easy"). After abandoning our packs in hopes to speed the traverse, we headed over lump after lump and finally down to the 13,150' saddle. I was beginning to feel the effects of the day about halfway up from the saddle to Edwards - heart pounding in my head and about to become a serious headache. It took the better part of two hours to reach Edward's summit, and I was not enthusiastic about the gain required back over Argentine with the headache only aggravated by increases in heart rate.
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Finally up Argentine at around 3:15, I was confident that Wilcox was out of the picture for me. After some discussion, albeit brief due to my unwillingness to try Wilcox, I decided to meet everyone on the Eastern Slope of Wilcox by traversing around it. I started to feel a little better after traversing flat gound for about an hour before we all met up on the grassy slopes. The sun was setting, and we needed to get down to the road. Time for the snowshoes again once we reached one of the last slopes before tackling willows again. To intersect the road again, we would need to travel south for about a half-mile based on my GPS, buskwhacking through the trees. Our headlamps came on about the time we made it to the trees, and the snowshoeing was difficult at times, with thigh-deep snow up and down fallen tree and willow debris. We spotted snowshoe tracks at about the area the road should appear and soon we found the road, which was quite a relief. One more mile of easy snowshoeing and we were at Kurt's vehicle. It was one of my tougher days, at 13.7 miles and close to 5,000 gross elevation gain, the kicker was a headache for six of the nearly eleven hours of hiking.
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