Captain panther Posted July 29, 2011 Posted July 29, 2011 (edited) Trip: Dragontail - Chasin Tail FA Date: 7/24/2011 Trip Report: Jens and I were all set to go climb the girth pillar, something ive been looking at for a few years now, and had been talking to Jens about for a few weeks. I was super stoked to finally go get on this beautiful line, especially with a ropegun like Jens. However, when Jens called me up and asked if I'd like to try a first ascent on dtail instead, of course the answer was an emphatic "fuck yeah"! We met up in Ltown sat night after i got off work and hit up the new ducks and drakes to plan an attack. I have to say i much prefered the old venue, they had a way better view there. Originally we were going to climb with our buddy Sol as well, but he had car trouble and had to bail out. We decided to get up at 3 am and head out the next morning just the two of us. 3 am came way too fast after a few beers and staying up all night filled with excitement. We hit the trailhead at around 430 and were climbing by about 7:30 or 8. The route is located between DOE and Dragontail Madness, starting below and left of the massive white rock scar. The first part Jens lead in two blocks, through some super sketchy loose blocks and sandy gullies. We headed right toward the scar and two roofs located on its upper left corner. From these roofs the rock quality greatly increased and the climbing became a lot more fun! There was a nice splitter leading around the roof, which revealed more quality rock heading up to the headwall where we would try to gain the NE ridge. We ended up taking the easiest way to the top that we could find, in light of a building cloud layer and dirty cracks. I love me some dirty cracks, but usually back down in town at reggae night. We finally topped out on the ridge at about 4pm, then summited around 630. A few short raps later, we were down to the snow and running down aasgard pass. We took a nice break at the bottom of aasgard and thought someone had stolen our cached gear, however we eventually found it after much looking. After realizing neither of us had any food for dinner, and that everything in Lworth shuts down at 11pm, we ran back to the car, arriving at 10 and hauling ass back to mcdonalds and safeway for some hot burgers and cold beer. Overall the route was a shitload of fun, and Jens is a great partner! I cant thank him enough for leading the horrorshow chossy bits. With all the sweet potential I saw up there, Im sure I’ll be back soon, and hopefully with Jens. We’re calling it a 5.10 A1, as we pulled on gear through a few roofs. It'll go free for sure, go get it! heres a few pictures, sorry we both forgot our cameras and all i had was my shitty cell phone camera! not sure whats going on with the pictures, ill try to figure that out soon Gear Notes: two ropes just in case we needed to bail. a double set .4-3 c4s and one number 4, which was useful. a set of nuts. 12 single slings, 2 doubles Approach Notes: stuart lake trailhead Edited July 29, 2011 by jon Quote
Captain panther Posted July 29, 2011 Author Posted July 29, 2011 i have no idea whats up with the picture uploader thing. it loads the pics to the galleries then as soon as i select them to put them in the tr or a reply, the just show up as little boxes with and X in the corner. any suggestions on how to fix that? Quote
John Frieh Posted July 29, 2011 Posted July 29, 2011 Nice work guys. Really enjoyed Jens write up in his blog also Quote
Captain panther Posted July 30, 2011 Author Posted July 30, 2011 yeah jens did an awesome job on the write up! Quote
Andy Craig Posted July 30, 2011 Posted July 30, 2011 Glad to see you're fixed up and going after it again! Although, that hernia belt was such a style factor it probably would help you climb a whole grade higher cause it looks so good on you. Quote
Pete_H Posted July 31, 2011 Posted July 31, 2011 Would be cool to see a photo of the N Face of Dtail with where your route goes in comparison to the other routes there. Sounds and looks like its further looker's right of the other rock routes on that face. Quote
Captain panther Posted July 31, 2011 Author Posted July 31, 2011 the only picture i have with a route overlay is dtail in winter conditions. I'll hound jens about getting me a good summer photo with an overlay. @ andy, i call it mountain-chic Quote
Blake Posted July 31, 2011 Posted July 31, 2011 did it cross over that long pterodactyl ledge reached by Dragonfly, Dragons of Eden, Pete/Eric's route, etc? Or were you right of all those cracks? Quote
Captain panther Posted August 2, 2011 Author Posted August 2, 2011 heres the best route overlay i have Quote
JensHolsten Posted August 2, 2011 Posted August 2, 2011 Chasin' Tail is way right of DOE etc... on a totally different part of the wall. I know we shared one pitch with Dragontail Madness, but the rest was new I believe. I really wanted to push the top of the line through incredible steep corners above the prominent rock scar seen in the above photo (just right of the red line, mid face, but ended up taking the path of least resistance in the end. The corners above the rock scar would present some of the steepest, raddest climbing in the range...you just got to get there (shitty!). I am working on getting a better route overlay shot up on my blog. I will post it here also when I figure out how to draw a line in a picture! Also, just got home after a beautiful climb of Gorrillas in the Mist with a 4.5 pitch direct finish that makes this classic climb way more classic! Forget this pile and go climb GITM Direct...soooo good!!!! I'll try to get some info up on my blog about that adventure soon. Can't say it enough: GITM Direct is one of the best routes I've been on anywhere. Simply amazing. Quote
JensHolsten Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Got a route overlay pic up on the blog. jensholsten.blogspot.com Quote
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