Climb: Dragontail-Triple Couloirs
Date of Climb: 4/23/2006
Trip Report: 
Scott Gullberg (scottgg) and I had our eyes set on TC this past weekend. I headed up to Colchuck lake on Saturday under blue skies and warm temps. Unfortunately this meant the snow had softened and I ended up postholing in a few places (I did not bring snowshoes). It also had me worried about the warm trend and its implication for avy danger and snow/ice conditions on the route. The NWAC gave a low rating overnight and early morning and moderate danger late morning and afternoon, especially on sun-exposed and wind-sheltered slopes. I figured that avy danger on TC wouldn't be too bad, as we would be on it early and it doesn't receive any sun. However, I was still concerned about the high freezing level, predicted by NWAC to be 7000 - 8000 feet overnight...that would mean very warm temps at 5400 feet at the lake.
I got to the lake around 3 pm and hung out, enjoying the view:
There was very little avy activity in the surrounding hills that afternoon, an encouraging sign. Some sh!t was falling off of the slopes below cholchuck balanced rock, which recieves full sun all day, but that is about it. I went to bed early as I had nothing much to do and had run out of fuel melting all my drinking water for that night and the next day and cooking my dinner, so I couldn't boil any water for cocoa. shucks! I had thought there would be liquid water in the outlet but everything I saw was frozen solid.
My alarm went off at 4 am. I looked at my thermometer and it read 25 deg F, so I figured that was the overnight low at the lake (5400 ft asl). Very encouraging! The route would be frozen and I was optimistic about the conditions we would encounter. All the snow around my bivy site was very firm and crusty too. At 4:45 I saw a headlamp coming from the trail and it was Scott, who was doing the trip "in a day".
SCOTTS STORY: Scott had arrived at the trailhead about 10 pm took a quick nap and started hiking at 12:30 am, he got to the lake in less than 4 hrs (quick time, he had good firm snow, no postholing!), then spent some time looking for my bivy site. After walking halfway around the lake and back, he found me.
We geared up and left camp at 5:30 am, walked across the frozen lake and up the slopes below the start of the route. AFter donning our crampons etc at the base, we started up the first couloir at 6:30. Conditions were perfect, very firm, we were able to frontpoint through most of it with our tools in dagger position. In some sections the snow was a little softer and we were kicking steps quite easily.
45 mins later we reached the crux ice runnels. Scott led the first pitch traversing left across a slab partially covered in thin ice and then ascending to the base of a steep runnel in 60 m. I then led the crux ice runnel, which was about 20 m of steps interspersed with steep thin ice, exited out onto the second couloir on the bottom left, climbed up and to the right and set up a rock belay in 60 m.
Me leading the crux runnel:
I belayed scott up and we continued simul-climbing above this with scott leading. The runnels ended up being two full-length pitches and took us about an hour.
The second couloir went quickly and scott continued through the rock band into the third couloir. I took over leading and by the time we reached the top we were both tired. From the col, scott led across a snow slope to a ridge, where we unroped and made the final few meters to the summit about 11:30 am, 5 hours after starting the route (6 hours from my bivy site across the lake).
Me following in the second couloir:
The descent was uneventful (good i guess). We replenished our water supply with what we had left at the bivy site, had a bite to eat, packed up, and headed out. WE still had 8.5 miles to hike, snow conditions were getting noticeably softer (we ended up breaking through deep more than a few times), and Scott had been going full on since 12:30 am!!! Luckily Scott had stashed a large can of RockStar 21 (like redbull & vodka, yes it has alcohol in it) at the trailhead, which sustained us the final 4 mi down to the gate at Icicle Creek. We finished at 5:30 pm, a 17 hr car-to-car time for Scott!!!
Gear Notes: 1 stubby ice screw
couple of cams
small nuts + tricams
1-2 pickets
Approach Notes: Firm conditions overnight and morning, soft midday. Gated at Icicle Creek, no snow for first 1.5 - 2 miles. Bridge crossings very sketchy!!!
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