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I had definitive plans to meet a friend at the Vesper trailhead Saturday morning (8/19) but he never showed up, and haven't heard from him since Thursday. He's not the type to bail, does a lot of solo hiking / climbing, and lives on the road. If you see a car with New Mexico plates parked at a Washington trailhead (most likely in the mountain loop highway area), please message me! He appears to have done Glacier Peak earlier in the week. Thanks.

Trip: Dragontail Peak - Serpentine Arete Date: 7/3/2014 Trip Report: My friend from college, Sean, was passing through the cascades and we decided to go up Serpentine Arete. We met at Stuart Lake TH at 6:15am. Rough timeline: 03:45 - wake up in Seattle 04:00 - on the road to Leavenworth 06:30 - start hiking 10:15 - start climbing 18:30 - summit 00:45 - back at car (Sean was already asleep in his car for over 2.5 hours) 04:00 - back in Seattle (after a 1 hour power nap somewhere off of highway 2) We pitched out everything through the crux pitch at the "black tower". From there we simul-climbed for an hour until we untied from the rope for the remaining 3rd of the climb. This part was a scramble on very loose rock. We spent 30 minutes at the top and then started the descent. Approaching the start of the route: Sean in yellow at the base of the climb: Sean leading the first pitch: We met 3 nice guys from the east coast at the summit. We didn't see them the whole route except when we got to the loose scramble at the top third. They did a great job of not kicking down rocks on us! Here is Sean taking a picture of them: Great views from the summit: Sean with the enchantments in the background on the descent: Gear Notes: 50m rope and single rack with doubles between .4 and 1. This seemed like a good amount for us. I brought crampons and an ice axe. Only used the crampons on the approach since the snow was still firm, but could have gotten away without them. Ice axe was nice for the descent to the top of asgard pass.