Dragontail Peak - Serpentine Arete 6/30/2008
Trip: Dragontail Peak - Serpentine Arete
Date: 6/30/2008
Trip Report:Friday, Scheissami and I left to do a few days of cragging in Leavenworth before tackling Serpentine on Monday. We arived around noon, and it was fucking hot. After wandering around private property for a while looking for poison ivy crack, we decided that our brains would melt if we tried to climb this south-facing shit, so we headed up to pearly gates instead. Scheissami led Dog Ate My Topo. We were going to finish up with that second slabby pitch above it (Scene is clean?) but we decided we'd rather get punched in the dick than do more slab climbing, so we went over and I led Loaves of Fun, where I managed to find a way to totally gumby up the top of the climb, trying to avoid the 5 feet of protected slabby moves by traversing over and up some shitty grass-infested choss to a higher anchor
Scheissami took the next lead on Celestial Groove, where he fell off the bouldery start onto a yellow camalot. He failed in his attempt to land on his head thanks to the vigilance of his extremely talented and attractive belayer, and after a few more tries we decided that it was too hot for anymore of this bullshit, so we went into town and had beer and german food at Adreas Keller and retired to the nearly full dirtbag lot -- thank god we had reservations!
The next day we woke up early and climbed around Barney's Rubble (in the shade) until it got too hot, so we went to sleep until the evening when we ventured out again to alphabet rock where Scheissami styled dogleg crack. We TRd that 10-ish sport climb to the right of dogleg, and then TRd meatgrinder. I belayed Scheissami on a TR lap of z-crack and then we went for beer at Ducks and Drakes, where Scheissami was hit on by a crazy woman.
The next morning we woke up early-ish and lapped classic crack a few times until the sun peaked over the trees, and then went into town and watched Germany lose to Spain. We figured we couldn't put it off anymore, so we packed up and headed up to Colchuck Lake in the afternoon, where we set up camp in the boulder field near the moraine.
Up early the next morning, we sauntered our way up the moraine to the base of Serpentine when the coffee started doing it's magic. Take it from me, there is a new cairn near-abouts with a special little surpise inside. I wouldn't kick it apart if I were you.
We found the start of the climb allright but had some route-finding trouble lower on the route, on our way to the top of the pillar. "How far off route do we have to be before it's a FA?" I asked, as I scoped out a lichen-covered slab above me. Scheissami has posited "wandering retards" as the name for our new variation.
From there, things went smoother. The crux pitch fell to Scheissami, who styled it. I freaked out a little bit on the easy friction traverse over the the start of the thin 5.7 cracks (you all know how much I LOVE friction climbing), where I panicked and put in too much gear down low and had to run out the last 20 or 30 feet of facey climbing to the belay. We simul-climbed most of the rest of the route, stopping every so often to belay the occasional mid-fifth step, which gave us an opportunity to re-rack gear and drink water. Tons of fun scrambling on this route, with huge positive edges and blocks to pull up on.
About 2/3rds of the way up, the thunder clouds came, which really put the pressure on us to haul ass. Luckily, they stayed a few miles out, and we never had any rain or nearby lightning. Climbing to the sound of thunder kind of sucks.
I ran out of water, which is a near-disaster for my body, and started bonking. Scheissami led the last 5.7-ish variation to the summit, where we celebrated with candy and photos, and booted our way down to aasgaard pass. I stopped at a tarn to drink deep of the watery goodness.
Booting down the rubble that is Aasgaard Pass sucks ass. We ended up hitting the moraine at nightfall, and wandered around for a few hours trying to find our tent, which we had cleverly positioned behind a boulder, sheltered from wind and from view. We were pretty beat when we finally found camp, so we ate some food we stashed earlier, and crashed out. We hiked out the next morning and picked up a few double helis at heidelburger and bathed in icicle creek. We drove out to WA Pass later that night for more fun and games.
Gear Notes:DEET
Approach Notes:Hide your tent behind a boulder.
