[TR] Dragontail- Backbone Ridge 10/2/2004

[TeleRoss]

Climb: Dragontail-Backbone Ridge

 

Date of Climb: 10/2/2004

 

Trip Report:

Jason and I went in for a weekend extravaganza of Enchantment climbing oct. 1-3. Approach to Colchuck Lake on Friday night, Backbone Ridge on Saturday and south face of Prusik on Sunday.

We hiked to Colchuck Lake on Friday night and made camp among boulders on the south side of the lake. Harrassed by snaffles and an incredibly bright moon, we did not get the best night of rest.

Saturday morning we trudged up the moraine to the base of Backbone Ridge. The first several hundred feet were scrambling and then the 5.6 corner that leads to the ridge crest directly below the infamour offwidth.

Jason led the offwidth by basically sinking himself up to his nutz in the thing and kind of doing a hand stemming, squirming, humping type thing. It was more strenuous than difficult, probably made more so because we were carrying over our overnight gear, and after I followed we were glad to have that thing behind us.

We basically followed near the crest of the ridge from there, and I think we linked up some of the pitches and maybe cut some others short, but we eventually came to the section of the ridge below the fin where there is a few hundred feet of simul-scrambling.

One pitch after that section led up and right on a ramp, and then it was three pitches directly up the fin.

The guide book says 5.8 and 5.9, but it seemed a little easier.

From the crest of the fin, behind the "blocky gendarme" we became a little confused as to the direction we should take. We ended up dropping down into the very top of the third couloir of the Triple Couloirs, where after some nervous moments on some extremely loose crap led do easy scrambling to the notch at the top of the couloir and more easy scrambling to the summit.

We wanted to get fairly close to the base of Prusik Peak that evening so we quickly rapped down to the boulder fields to the N. of the snow creek glaciers.

After much talus hopping we located the trail leading through the Enchantments.

 

 

Gear Notes:

ropes, cams, nutz,

shoulda had a jock strap to protect my boys in the offwidth.

[Alpinfox]

From the crest of the fin, behind the "blocky gendarme" we became a little confused as to the direction we should take. We ended up dropping down into the very top of the third couloir of the Triple Couloirs, where after some nervous moments on some extremely loose crap led do easy scrambling to the notch at the top of the couloir ...

 

Yup. Sounds familiar. I pulled a 40-50lb rock wedged in sand onto my shin in that gulley. Fortunately my foot was not well anchored (sand) so it didn't break my leg. Fun!

 

Nice work!