jrex Posted July 14, 2012 Posted July 14, 2012 (edited) Trip: Alpine Lakes Dragontail Peak - Serpentine Arete Date: 7/12/2012 Trip Report: My buddy Joe and I went for a jaunt up the Serpentine Arete. We took off Wednesday after work at 8pm, got to the parking lot by 1am, and took a quick snooze. At 5am we started on the trail. The start of the route is across a 2 foot moat but jugs and cracks in the morning got me smiling early. The first couple pitches have some snow that give it a nice feel. We got to the crux pitches that provided some sweet climbing. The next couple pitches were really fun then we went right instead of left. The crux for me on this route was route finding. I was following polished rock but ended up on several pitches that had me wondering where the easy ledges and scrambling were. We climbed way too high and right before getting left towards the summit. This mistake cost us several hours. Summit was achieved at 8pm and the descent was going to be a bitch. Joe's headlamp was mia so the race was on to get down before dark. We got through the steep stuff but as we got to the alder patches it was black out. The one headlamp in bushwhacking central was classic comedy. I would move 3 feet then light the path for Joe. We finally got to the trail and made our way back to the car by 2am, 21 hours, not as quick as I was hoping. We slept a couple hours and headed home feeling beat up and stoked for an epic climb....Only other climber we saw that day was a solo climber on the Colchuck Glacier. Gear Notes: Alpine rack going up crampons and ax going down... Approach Notes: Follow the trail. Edited July 15, 2012 by jrex Quote
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