[TR] North Face of Dragontail Peak, Enchantments - FA - Left Hand Freeze 4/25/2015

Kirsteng117 · June 3, 2015

Trip: North Face of Dragontail Peak, Enchantments - FA - Left Hand Freeze

Date: 4/25/2015

Trip Report:

Apologies to the Cascade Climbers community members who thrive on alpine ice. This trip report is about a month old and the described route has melted out for the season. But get on it next year - a fun and steep challenge awaits!

On the weekend of April 25/26 Craig Pope and I teamed up to attempt a new route on Dragontail Peak in the Enchantments - Craig's idea. He has started up a variation of what we ended up climbing the weekend prior and was eager to see it through.

Green Line is our approximate route

Our original plan included an alpine start from the trail head to Colchuck Lake on Saturday so we could warm up on Triple Couloirs as this was our first time climbing together. But whiskey and general group merriment won out Friday evening and Saturday was spent leisurely making our way to the far side of Lake Colchuck, thinking about climbing and deciding that messing around on single pitch ice and alpine napping in the sun sounded better. We bivied on exposed rocks below the hike to the base of Triple Couloirs and from there eyed our intended line, following the thickest and most vertical ribbon of ice from above the first step of TC, up a few hundred meters to a head wall that looked questionable. I had never tried a new route and was a bit intimidated though excited at the chance.

Sunday morning we woke by 3:30 AM and departed camp within an hour, getting on route just before 5 am. We elected to share a pack and leave my larger pack behind at the base, which was ultimately a wise choice given some of the squeeze moves later on. We soloed up the first pitch of TC then wallowed up about 60 more meters to the start of our route, heading straight up the North Face of Dragontail on climber's left of the first couloir. Craig offered me the first pitch with the advice of "Just pick the line you want and go with it" and off I went. First pitch is steep out of the gate...probably WI4+ for the entire pitch, perhaps with short sections of WI5 though there are definitely variations to the line...further right of where we climbed the terrain seemed to be a slightly gentler angle in he WI3+-WI4 realm but ice is ever relative and changing.

First pitch took screws pretty well with a few run out sections of thin ice..lots of dainty, quick little kicks to step your way up to stance. Nothing was super thick though so stubbies and 13 cms were key. There was a nice chunk of granite that made a good left foot rest at one point and I paused here to take a breath and assess. I was pretty surprised that I had already climbed about 40 meters, and a little annoyed that I had sewn up the base carefully and now was left with just a few screws till the first seemingly reliable anchor area - about 25 meters away. Another few minutes of sustained climbing that was thick enough for 2 16 cms brought me to a nice crack system in solid rock so I built an anchor and brought Craig up. 1st pitch was about 70 meters, using 8 screws and one small cam until the anchor, which was cams and nuts.

First pitch of Left Hand Freeze - steep out of the gate!

Craig led the second pitch which was steeper and thinner than the first...definitely sustained WI5-5+ climbing. Several times I found myself giving silent thanks that I took the lead on the 1st and not the 2nd pitch. Ice was very, very thin in sections and even slightly overhung for about 12 ft, requiring a good deal of precision and delicateness to send without shattering everything off. At one point I had a bulge dinner plate on me while reaching to remove a screw and ended up falling about 7 ft with rope stretch, one axe in hand and the other firmly rooted in the ice above. Second pitch was quite close to 80 meters and took 7 screws and a few pieces of rock pro (small nuts and cams).

A short pitch of WI3 brought us to a sheltered hanging belay behind a nice chunk of granite. It was during this transition, and while Craig took an awkward hanging shit while dangling from a tree trunk that I let my left outer glove slip off my hand and careen down route, quickly out of sight. There was a brief discussion of calling the climb but I was convinced it was warm enough to continue - plus I had a plastic sandwich bag on me which could double as a waterproof layer. So we continued with Craig leading up the 4th pitch which was all mixed and rather cruxy.

The 4th pitch wasn't long but it was somewhat hard and consisted of a short ice climb to overhung granite blocks with a thin crack seam traversing under a shallow roof from climbers right to left. Craig sewed up the move into the seam and was able to Stein Pull his way almost onto the block protruding below the seam, but popped a tool and took a whipper - maybe 15 ft'? It was exciting! Craig eventually dialed the beta to match both feet and front points on a small frozen patch of moss before hucking the left leg high and out to balance a point on the tiniest of protrusions. On his second try he nailed the crux and placed a few more pieces before pulling through the roof traverse and crossing into a narrow gully on climber's left. Here the ice was "sub optimal" - overhung, thin and rotten so Craig utilized some creative stemming to cruise his way up unprotected. I struggled to follow this pitch but we both eventually made it. M6+, WI5 - 50 meters. Lots of cams and nuts. Maybe a screw.

Craig sending roof traverse on pitch 4 - M6+

Things chilled out from here. Pitch 5 was a less severe ice climb up the narrow guley then an awkward move up and over the ridge to the right (you had to mind your head and pack here) onto gradually less steep icy and snicey slopes, venturing into alpine ice territory. (Again, probably about 50 meters) All thing considered we had made decent time but from the anchor at the start of pitch 6, the headwall looked pretty daunting and it was already pushing 2:30 PM.

From a semi-hanging belay we grabbed some food and opted to begin traversing right towards the couloirs, continuing directly upwards if the path seemed good and not terribly difficult. In this fashion we continued to simul for approximately 2 more pitches till the choices were up rotten ice and wet lichen rock to the base of the headwall (overhung, wet, thin ice in cracks, not ideal), or just keep working right till we entered the couloir.

Traversing over to the TC route

We opted for the the latter, eventually entering the TC route about 50 m below the start of the last ice step into the 3rd couloir. We simuled up past the step, unroped and continued up the last couloir, following kicked steps until we summitted around 4:30 PM. The descent off the back was easy and painless and we quickly descended Asgard Pass and back to camp, arriving around 6:30 PM, after first pausing to retrieve what turned out to be my left outer glove and one of Craig's left hand gloves as well, which must have slipped from inside his jacket at a belay. We took our time refueling and packing up, hiked back across he mushy but still solid lake and had an uneventful trip back down trail, arriving at the cars just before 11 PM. A quick refueling in Leavenworth and I was home in Seattle by 3:00 AM, roughly 24 hours after starting the actual intended adventure.

Total Climb: 7 pitches (on an 80 meter rope), 360 meters, M6+, WI5, FA of Left Hand Freeze by Craig Pope and Kirsten Gardner

**We named our route "Left Hand Freeze" in homage to our mutually lost left hand gloves, not the Alt J song, thought that is good as well.

***This is my first post on Cascade Climbers and the first FA I've been a part of. I don't know if our route is truly a "New Route" as it did not independently make the summit and linked up with the top of TC or if it should be considered a "variation". To me, the grade of difficulty, the fun and the challenge of the climbing merit this being its own route...and perhaps under better ice conditions it can be linked all of the way to the top of the East ridge, with the summit being attained by a traverse. We did our research and could find no other descriptions of a similar line (nor evidence of previous climbers) and thus feel confident claiming this as a FA in good faith.

Gear Notes:

BD screws to 16 cm, double set of cams .2-.75, single set of cams to #2 BD, full rack of nuts, BD Spectre, small misc. pitons: knife blades, lost arrows and peckers, 1-2 each.

Approach Notes:

Don't fall through the ice when you cross the lake. Same as approach for Triple Couloirs.