[TR] Dragontail- Serpentine Arete 6/27/2004

[ivan]

Climb: Dragontail-Serpentine Arete

 

Date of Climb: 6/27/2004

 

Trip Report:

fahqloads of folks climb this one so my take on the route must stem from others. ultimately i thought this one uninspiring and mostly disinteresting, only a few enjoyable pitches down low followed by a long damn way of brutish climbing amongst granitic debris. still, no mean way to spend a saturday.

 

camped at colchuck lake after hiking in and climbing jaberwocky tower the day before. got an offish start at 8 a.m., slogged up the moraine immediately behind camp. me in running shoes was happy to have a mad boot-clad iranian (mister Aarash Yusefzadeh Nagh Sofla) at the fore-front to kick big steps on the steep snow tongue leading above the moraine to the recess between backbone and serpentine ridges. an exciting hop over the thin moat and into easy scrambling up and right, over ground both wet and strewn w/ mangled rock.

 

the only pitch of distinction was the the 5.8 thang to the right of the "pillar," which serves as the focal point of beckey's description, but which i thought rather un-pillar-like in appearance. we were unsure enough that we were about to climb something entirely different on the left side of the pillar before i explored further around the corner. beckey shows 4 seperate pitches in his topo here but the wacky persian did it as one lead, requiring me to break down the anchor and climb the first 5 feet of the finger crack w/ an annoyingly heavy pack (as i carried both our axes and boots). the crack was not-continious and the route a bit rambling. given the pack and the fact that i finally emerged into the warm sun w/ my gore-tex on after chilling for a while in the shadowed cold, i was more than a bit flushed after finishing the long pitch, feeling rather as if i hadn't properly enjoyed it. the fun parts were over unfortunately though and the route from there was just a monotonous grind up uninspiring ground. the party working on backbone ridge opposite us appeared to be having far more adventure on the fin. we topped out sometime before 4 p.m.

 

the last note of interest was the actual summit, were the axis of ambiguity had a chance encounter w/ wayne wallace and colin, who we'd watched dispatch backbone. they had left the fuk'n stuart lake trailhead the same time we'd left camp and nearly beat us to the summit! at any rate, amidst bullshiting over wardrobe malfunction (i did the whole trip w/ just one pantleg for my convertible pants, and colin appeared to have most of his simple long underwear outfit in tatters) an amusing event transpired. in theory, aarash and i were to meet up w/ josh the next day to head off to terra incognita; but in conversation w/ our random co-summiters we became amused to discover that wayne had essentially the same plan w/ the same person for essentially the same dates. feeling something like a jilted prom date, i did what all such teenagers do, smoked a bowl and talked some shit. mountaineers, some of Bog's own...

 

the trip down asgard was unpleasnetly wet in the deep snow w/ running shoes...aarash nearly killed himself on the scree portion when he slipped and fell in such a way that his axe was trapped between two rocks and his voice box violently struck by the shaft. i adjusted my rate and volume of voice-fire to compensate that evening

 

Gear Notes:

brought a full rack, but probably coulda reduced it to 6-7 cams, a handful of larger nuts, and 8 2-4 foot runners

 

Approach Notes:

frightful lack of fine female flesh along the way

[Gary_Yngve]

When we did Serpentine last year, I climbed the left side of the pillar. The pillar forms a corner with the main face, and the crack behind the pillar is offwidth, but an inner crack lets you protect with finger-size to hand-size pro. The belay atop the pillar is quite dramatic. One more pitch leads you to the crest and gentler terrain.

 

I thought the rock on Serpentine was, for the most part, better than the rock on WR Stuart.

 

[cman]

you should do the backbone. it has a bunch of chossy pitches in the middle but there is a couple good pitches low down and four nice pitches to finish it off.

[fourteenfour]

had this route on the list for a while...