[TR] Dragontail Peak - Gerber-Sink 4/10/2016

[ilias]

Trip: Dragontail Peak - Gerber-Sink

 

Date: 4/10/2016

 

Trip Report:

Jeff, Priti, and I climbed the Gerber-Sink route on Dragontail Sunday. Saturday was a leisurely approach day and we got up at 4:30am Sunday for the climb. We got moving up the route a bit later than we wanted because one of our party members had an ankle injury and we ended up climbing as a group of 3 instead of 2 teams of 2.

 

I was initially worried about what this would mean for our speed and time up the route but turns out I had no need to worry. The route was in super fat condition, snow and ice all the way. We didn't touch any rock at all, no 5.7, no mixed, nothing. Even the exit pitch into the 3rd couloir was all snow and ice. With conditions this easy, it only took 6 hours to hit the summit.

 

The lake was still frozen enough to walk across despite the hot afternoon temperatures up there:

 

 

Looking up at Dragontail's north face:

 

 

Here's the overlay of the route we took (we pretty much picked the easiest bits of snow/ice as we went, one could definitely pick harder variations if one wanted to):

 

And a zoomed in version:

 

 

Climbing near the bottom of the route:

 

Looking back down:

 

A little higher up the route:

 

 

Simuling ice chimneys towards the snow bowl at the top:

 

A bit of beta for exiting the bowl at the top, as I saw different trip reports talking about different things. Here's how the bowl looks like when you are at the bottom of it looking up towards the fin:

 

 

After following the easy exit gully, we were in the third couloir and unroped to walk up to the summit:

 

Descent took less than an hour back to camp from the summit, you can glissade large chunks of the way from the summit to the col and down Asgard.

 

Overall, super fun outing and a great start to alpine climbing season! The route felt much easier than I expected given the grade it's given on Mountain Project (5.7/WI3+/M4) but I think that was due to the conditions which made it so there was no rock at all.

 

All the snow and ice routes on Colchuck and Dragontail looked to be in really good shape. There were a lot of kicked steps all over all the routes, surprised there haven't been more reports on CC yet from this area this year.

 

Gear Notes:

We brought:

 

2 pickets - used all the time

8 ice screws - way too many, 4-5 would have been plenty

Cam sizes 0.3 through 2 - used a bit

3 pitons - never used

Set of nuts - never used

 

Approach Notes:

Road is still closed. Snow coverage starts about half way up the road. We brought approach shoes to walk the dry part of the road and stashed them near the Lake Caroline trailhead.

 

The trail is all snowcovered and the snow is firm, uneven, and covered in sap, moss, branches, etc. Definitely would not recommend skis for the approach (unless you're going up specifically to ski). No crampons or microspikes or anything needed for the approach.

 

The lake is still frozen and can be crossed, but don't know for how much longer. Jeff's foot plunged through into the water at one point, near the shore where the ice is thinnest.

Edited April 11, 2016 by ilias

[anikoy]

Nice work! Thanks for the excellent TR with pics.

[Alisse]

Awesome!!! Great trip report, as usual. That looks like fun, you guys got on it at a good time