[TR] Dragontail - Serpentine Arete 6/26/2010

[Drederek]

Trip: Dragontail - Serpentine Arete

 

Date: 6/26/2010

 

Trip Report:

After a nice sleep in the back of my truck at the Stuart Lake TH, JRCO and I started up the trail a bit before 4:30. It wasn't dark for long. After a coupla hours we were at Colchuk lake

After losing a pound, filling water bottles and donning crampons we made a rising traverse on mostly solid snow to the base of the route.

While JRCO shivered on the snow I wandered around looking for a 5.6 way up thru the first pitch, getting sidetracked by some gear someone must have bailed off of. After downclimbing that and bootying the nut + biner I finally found an easy way upwards. Not a great start but we were on our way. After that we meandered our way up and right to the side of the obvious pillar and found this sweet crack.

 

The crux pitches were solid and great fun, not much snow amd the temps were slowly rising. Soon we ere eating sandwiches and enjoying the sunshine and the views.

We laughed, unroped and speculated on whether it would take us one hour or two to hike to the top.

 

After a few hundred feet we decided to rope up to negotiate the not so perfect rock around the snopatches covering the 4th class bits. Two things had quickly become apparent: We were going to remain roped up and it was going to be more than a couple hours to the top. As the we had plenty of time and it was such a nice day this just fine with us. We stuck with rock shoes till we final 2 pitches. The last pitch took some great gear in the exposed ribs and went easily

 

We were greeted on the summit by a half dozen peeps who had come up other routes. We were soon sliding down, pretty much nonstop to the lake, 15 minutes down to where we were 9 hours before. Dinner at Gustav's by eight .

 

Gear Notes:

1 each green thru blue camalots

set of nuts

3 draws

6 slings

axe n pons

 

Approach Notes:

No snow till Colchuk lake

[mzvarner]

SWEET!

[Pilchuck71]

Nice!

Thanks for sharing and bootie is always good.

[mountainsloth]

i have very similar pics of that same route. Half way up the views up and down made me feel like i was on another planet.

Thanks for giving me flashbacks!

[spotly]

How were the feet on the crux pitches? I was planning on doing the route on the 16th but a lingering toe injury has kept me from getting in much climbing the last few months. Smears and little left toe placements still hurt!

[kevino]

Spotly,

 

The lower section of that pitch you can climb some twin cracks which have easy feet. The upper hand crack require some foot jams and maybe a litter smearing.

 

The pitch above that you are climbing chicken heads and smearing a shallow corner...At least thats how I remember it from last year!

 

Hand crack:

 

Start of next pitch:

 

/end overly details response

[spotly]

Hmmm. I'll have to wander out to the crag to see how the jams feel. Mainly an issue with putting weight on the big toe like that last picture shows lol. Thanks.

[denalidave]

i have very similar pics of that same route. Half way up the views up and down made me feel like i was on another planet.

Thanks for giving me flashbacks!

Second that...

 

 

More Pics Here

[Drederek]

Hard to believe there was no snow at the base of the climb in your shots, it looked at least twenty or thirty feet deep to us. I definitely needed rock shoes for the crux lead, as one foot was generally smearing the whole time.