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Trip: Dragontail Peak - Dragons of Eden Trip Date: 07/19/2019 Trip Report: Sean and I have been having too much success lately. So we decided to step it up a little bit and give DOE a go yesterday. We promptly got our asses handed to us, but made it up in reasonable time. Taking our time on the approach due to a nice morning rain, we made it to the base in 3ish hours. I will say that this route has one of the shortest approaches in the range. The first pitch is properly dirty and harder than it looks. Looks like 5.8, feels like 10- dirty. The second pitch is so sweet! but like the rest of the route, needs some more traffic to make it even more enjoyable. There is a guillotine flake at the start that looks bad, but is solid, this is kind of a theme of the route. I linked this into the 5.9 pitch and belayed from below the crux on a big fat ledge. Sean coming up to the pitch 2 belay in the sun! This wall is COLD and doesn't get any real sun until late in the day. This was the only sun we got all day. From there we rested up and Sean gave the crux a solid effort, no send but that pitch is really fun and you're more likely to hit the pedestal as the follower unless your belayer isn't paying attention. Looking up at me on the headwall. The whole headwall seems to be comprised of scary hollow sounding tombstone flakes. They are solid for now, but it still made it feel pretty heads up for me. The position is all time exposed if you build a belay in the middle of the pitch, which is what we did. The second headwall pitch is hard and scruffy. Still a little crumbly, but takes great gear. I can't believe that Jens onsighted that pitch before it was properly cleaned, so awesome! Sean trying to untie his knot. Psyched on life and ready to start the scramble up to the summit. Can you spot Sean in his granite colored jacket? We soloed the NE buttress until this spot. I had read in Steph's TR about how loose the notch was, It is indeed absolutely horrible. The first hold that Sean grabbed in the gulley proper tore loose and triggered a big slide below him. To get around it he went up and right, then down-climbed to the rap station. We flicked the rope down and I TR'd directly up the notch. I can't stress how gross the rock is, but I guess it could be worse. We brought a tagline to bail and haul a pack. This allowed us to make one full 60m rap down the other side. Still more loose rock but a pretty straightforward rappel. From where the route drops you, you don't need snow gear to get down. Some fun scree and snow skiing took us down to Aasgard and the usual jarring hike down the pass brought us back to our packs. Overall it's a great route! Too hard for me to give a good RP attempt from the car right now, but I now have something to train for. Like others have said, with some more traffic this route would clean up well! I even think the average 10+ climber with some alpine aiders and a slightly bigger rack could have fun on it. Next time I come back I will probably rap the route. It was cool for both of us to top out since it was our first route on D-tail, but the NE-Butt is mostly just exposed loose walking and not a good route. Gear Notes: Doubles .3-3 and Triples .4-1 12 alpine draws Small set of nuts 60m 6mm Tagline Approach Notes: Around the lake and up to the base of the waterfall, then right over the waterfall and up some loose 4th class to the base. If you're gonna leave gear at the base, hide it under a boulder before you cross the waterfall.

Trip: Glacier Peak Wilderness - Dakobed Range Circumnavigation Trip Date: 07/13/2019 Trip Report: Did a nice two day solo circumnavigation of the Dakobed Range. Started at the White River TH, went up the Indian Creek Trail (completely overgrown, nearly impossible to follow) and took the PCT to White Pass. Then went into the Whitechuck Basin, over Kololo Peaks, down the Honeycomb Glacier, beneath Tenpeak into the Napeequa Valley. Bivied this pass before tagging Neyah Point in the morning. Took the brushy trail through the Napeequa and up over Boulder Pass and back to the trailhead. It totaled about 50 miles and 12k ft gain. All but four miles (PCT section) of this route were either off trail or on brushy trail, so the mileage was a little more difficult than one might think. The terrain from Kololo Peaks to the Napeequa was pure magic, some of the most remote, stunning scenery I have ever seen in the Cascades. Nothing about this route is too difficult, but there is substantial low angle glacier travel and a bit of tiring side hilling beneath Tenpeak. https://climberkyle.com/2019/07/13/dakobed-range-circumnavigation/ The off trail section of my route. 8 ft tall brush on the Indian Creek "Trail". Deer near the PCT. Nearing White Pass. Tarn in the Whitechuck Basin. On the Whitechuck Glacier. Honeycomb Glacier. Honeycomb Lake. Tenpeak Tarn. Butterfly Lake and Neyah Point. My bivy at Butterfly Pass. Sunset on Glacier peak and Butterfly Lake. Marine layer flowing over Butterfly Pass into the Napeequa. Dakobed and Tenpeak from Neyah Point. Following the stream into the Napeequa. Cirque of the Butterflies - a truly magical place. The Napeequa River. Grassy meadows don't tell the truth... slide alder! Boulder Basin. Gear Notes: Trail runners and poles. You might want crampons, ice axe, helmet, glacier gear depending on conditions and your safety levels. Approach Notes: Terrible, terrible bushwachking. The Indian Creek Trail was miserable.

Trip: Mountain Loop - Mile High Club Trip Date: 07/20/2019 Trip Report: Finally made it out to climb Mile High Club, and it was a super fun and awesome route!! The update is that it appears that perhaps the intermediate rap station on pitch 3 was hit by rockfall; the chain and rap ring were gone, and one of the bolts is a bit bent and sticking out about a half inch. We were able to use a hefty tree and a boulder to the right to easily downclimb to the big unexposed ledge after coming off rappel, and walking over to the next rap station felt completely fine to us. Views of Glacier and Baker were awesome. The water in the gully is still flowing well. No other parties on the route (unexpected but awesome). Thanks a ton, @Rad and @dberdinka for a super fun route with such a short approach! My partner's knee limited our options to short mileage and elevation gain, and this route was perfect to allow us to do a multipitch to a little summit in an awesome setting ☺ (oh yeah, and it was his first multipitch alpine/alpine-esque route!) I hope more people get on this. Lots of really fun moves! Leading evens or odds, you'll get good climbing! Gear Notes: I appreciated how well-bolted this was. We brought 12 QDs and 3 alpine draws, and that seemed to work well. 70m rope! Approach Notes: Easy

Trip: Forbidden Peak - West Ridge Trip Date: 07/22/2019 Trip Report: Myself and my climbing partner climbed Forbidden Peak via the West Ridge on Sat/Sun. We ascended through the snow couloir, which seems like it will still be in for at least another week and maybe more. The couloir isn't as steep as I expected, and can be ascended using a normal glacier ice axe. We wore approach shoes with crampons, and that was fine (another team said they used micro spikes for the snow couloir and wished they had crampons). That was the route we descended and it was fast and easy. It took us a while to ascend/descend the ridge because we took an extra cautious approach and belay climbed the ascent (vs simul climbing) and rope rappelled the descent (vs down climbing or simul climbing). We left a few slings for rappels where there wasn't already a belay station setup on the ridge, and let an ascending party know the gear was new and theirs if they wanted it. A few folks at camp reported marmots chewing on tents and packs while people climbed, so we packed up on camp before we left in the morning and covered it all with descent size rocks. To pick up a backcountry permit for Boston Basin, we arrived at the ranger station at 6:25am (opens at 7:00). We were the second group in line and by 6:35am there were another 10-12 parties in line. Make sure you arrive early. Timing Wake-up: 3:00am Leave: 4:00am Arrive at ridge: 7:30am Arrive at summit: 12:30pm Leave Summit: 1:00am Arrive at camp: 7:30pm Arrive at car: 9:30pm Gear Notes: 70 meter rope (long rope helpful for rappels) Cams: .3, .4, .75, 1, 2 Nuts: Standard Slings: 8 singles, 3 doubles (I would do 5 singles and 6 doubles to have more extended clips to reduce rope drag) Crampons Carabiners: Carabiner for each cam and sling, plus 3 for nuts. Harness: I wore my BD couloir. It was great for the ascent and light to pack in. A bit uncomfortable for the rappels, but worth it. Approach Notes: To get from camp to the snow couloir we went climbers right (based on recommendation from another climber at camp), but you have to put on crampons pretty early for a steeper snow section. In hindsight, I would have ascended a little left of the middle, right up the rock slaps.