I answered Jon Jantz's call for a climbing partner for his week "off" between trips to the Canuckian Rockies and Alaska. We thought Triumph might have some rock, so I met Jon at his current place of residence to sort gear. After selecting a "small alpine rack to 2.5 inches" that included 18 pieces and my #4 Clog cam, I waited around for Jon to pack up. I went to get lunch. I came back. Jon was still packing.

Eventually, we rolled out onto I-5 in Jon's Toyota monster truck. In Darrington, we got some snacks, and snarfed down three fudge popsicles each before reaching the Thornton Lakes trailhead around 4pm. After another half-hour of packing, we hit the trail.

Our packs weren't too heavy and the trail was mellow. The mosquitoes and black flies flew in manageable swarms. We crossed the stream between the first two lakes and Jon was much chagrined to fall in. "Normally, I mack all the stream crossings," spake Jon. I led us up the grassy slopes above the second, partially-frozen lake into the gully and we reached the col at 5800' an hour or so before dark (about 4 hours approach time).

Triumph looked sweet from our vantage point just above the glacier, and the Pickets stood just across the valley to the northeast. We only fully appreciated the grand setting we were in once we reached the summit. Our tent, sans rain fly, barely fit in a worn grassy spot at the col. It was a nice camp, but we would have been faster the next day had we made it across the glacier and onto the ridge, where there are some flat spots to bivy.

We fired up the stove for Jon's big pasta dinner while I ate cold yummy leftovers from dinner the night before. We hung the food in a tree, but I lay awake for a few paranoid minutes imagining a herd of snafflehounds gnawing through my packstraps.

Thankfully, the pale light of dawn illuminated whole and sturdy packstraps. We strapped on the 'pons, mine to my hiking boots and Jon's to his sneakers, and dropped down onto the glacier. A short time later, we reached a slabby gully leading to the ridge and dumped snow gear. The second would carry my pack full of water, food, a 30m half-rope, and clothes. The leader would climb on Jon's almost-30-meter section of single rope with a tiny pack containing Jon's camera and more water. We agreed from the outset to simulclimb the whole thing if we could.

I led the first bit and we swung leads the whole way, climbing until we ran out of gear and then belaying the second up to re-rack. The climbing was easy and routefinding was a no-brainer (duh, it's a ridge). At one point, the ridge flattens out and narrows sharply, with some exciting exposure on either side. We listened to seracs crashing onto the slabs below glaciers left and right. At the top of the second step, the ridge gradually rose and looked pretty intimidating. The hardest climbing (but still pretty easy) was on this last long rock step, where we took a prominent crack up a few feet, then moved out onto the face and a few spicy moves on flexible flakes to a small ledge.

After a scramble to the right around a short knob, I reached a rubbly fault which led out to the loose slopes above the east face. Nelson says something about "steep, intimidating heather" for this last 200-foot scramble to the summit. We had left our heather pitons in the car, but managed not to trundle ourselves into oblivion, reaching the summit sometime after 2pm, after about six hours on the route.

By now, I had been wearing my rock shoes for at least four hours without a break, and my poor feet were making me hate life. Jon and I basked in the perfect sunlight, boggled at the Pickets, and took many photos. I ate most of the rest of my food, leaving only a cheese sandwich for the rest of the day. Oops.

The descent was long. We rappeled twice down the 3rd-class heather (!) and started a long series of downclimbs and rappels. With almost 60m of rope we had no trouble, and rap anchors were plentiful and easy to find. Moving fairly efficiently and without rope hangups, we were at the notch and my blessedly comfortable hiking boots just as darkness set in.

Jon had scoped a line across the glacier while we still had light, so he led off (after much repacking) across the slippery snow. Going was stressful, since I was tired, hungry, and thirsty. Our rising traverse rose a little too much, and we ended up on 45-degree snow for a short while. Jon had me sink the shaft of my axe into the snow on two occasions as he kicked steps in his running shoes on a downward traverse.

I bummed a packet of ramen from Jon to supplement my pitiful half-a-cheese-sandwich dinner, then quickly collapsed in my sleeping bag. It was a long day for me, and I appreciate a little more what "grade III" might mean. I had hoped to get back to Seattle in the early morning after a night-hike out, but neither of us wanted to descend the gully in the dark, especially since Jon's headlamp burned out halfway across the glacier.

I roused Jon early for another marathon packing session, during which I bounced around to shake off the morning chill. The descent was uneventful, with only one marmot sighting. We took a much better route around the second lake this time, walking on talus near the shore instead of the grass up higher. Past the lakes, we ran into a lot of people, including two guys who'd had an epic experience on Johannesberg the weekend before. They were headed up to do the same route as us, so we gave them the lowdown and complained about Fred Beckey sandbagging the approach time. Back at the truck, I devoured a can of chips, my only food since Jon's sympathetically-donated granola bar late that morning. We barreled down the road and stopped just before Newhalem, where we espied the Pickets yet again. I called Betsy from the (206) phone in Newhalem and told her I'd miss rehearsal that day, which was scheduled in twenty minutes back in Seattle. Lunch was fish and chips at the Buffalo Run in Marblemount. Sated and tired, I nodded off riding from Darrington to Everett.

Climbing with Jon was always entertaining, and Triumph did indeed have some rock. It was a memorable trip, and I learned quite a lot about climbing in the alpine. I even sat down and made a list of the things I learned. An excerpt:

• Tight sporto rock shoes hurt after twelve hours!
• Bring. More. Food. It's worth the weight.
• One of Fred Beckey's slide shows once involved a woman climbing while doing a striptease.