8,840 feet
Serpentine Ridge Grade IV; 5.8
- Gear Used:
- 60 meter rope
- slings
- Gear to 3 inches
July 15, 200
8,840 feet
The Approach
It's about a 2 in a half hour drive from Seattle to Leavenworth. Once you get into town drive south on Icicle Creek Road for 9.2 miles to Bridge Creek Campground. Drive across the bridge on Mountaineer Creek Road for another 3.5 miles to the Stuart Lake Trailhead (3400 feet).
We left Seattle at about 8:30 p.m. so we could sleep at the trailhead and wake up early so we could try and climb dragontail in a day. We were stupid! Dragontail Peak is a huge mountain and though there are many people out there who can easily climb it in a day, two day's is probably a better option for us. With that said, it was a great trip!
The alarm went off at 3 a.m.. This was disturbing to me in many ways. We both barely had about 3 hours of sleep (although Dylan did sleep in the car on the drive here). We removed ourselves from the comfort of our sleeping bags, slammed an energy drink, threw on our packs and were on the trail by 3:30. It was a bit strange hiking the trail via headlamp but I think it made it quicker as I would not stop at every view point.
Dragontail Peak and Colchuck Lake.
We made it to the lake in 2 hours and I made it to the base of the route on the Colchuck Glacier Moraine in about 3 hours and 20 minutes. Dylan was about half an hour behind me.
Dylan on the Colchuck Glacier Moraine.
The Climb
Dragontail Peak - mouse over the image to see the Serpentine Ridge.
The climb starts with about 500 feet of easy and not that great climbing. I lead off traversing ledges and climbing blocky and somewhat loose terrain. After I climbed to the end of the rope Dylan followed and we simul-climbed for a bit. We ended up doing two very long pitches with simul-climbing till we made it to the start of the more technical climbing.
Dylan climbing on some easy 4th class.
The first technical pitch was a 5.6-5.7 corner system. I wasn't really sure of the best way to climb it so I kind of wandered back and forth between the face to the left of the corner and the big, blocky corner system itself. The face seemed easier as the corner system seemed dirty and loose to me.
After belaying Dylan up we had another corner system but this one was much shorter. It required a few lieback moves and then you just pull yourself on to the large ledge system. I walked around the tower to get a look at the crux pitch and belayed Dylan up from there.
Dylan climbing the 5.6-5.7 corner pitch.
The crux looked awesome! We had three choices; the corner, the middle crack and the crack to the right. I choose the middle crack as it looks more continuous. I started up with fingers and a couple of stopper placements before the crack would give in to a nice hand jam. It seemed to go back and forth, fingers and face to hand jam. The hand jams were nice relief from the not as solid finger locks.
Danny leading the awesome 5.8 crux.
After climbing till about the height of the tower I had a choice of traversing left to the tower and belaying at the top or continue straight up an awesome hand crack. I, of course, chose the hand crack and was hooting and hollering the whole way up! Once out of the hand crack I traversed left and set up a belay in a shallow corner system.
Danny higher up on the splitter crack.
We had one more great pitch of 5.7 corner and crack climbing before we made it to the ridge proper.
Dylan finishing the difficulties and getting on to the ridge proper.
Dylan climbing some easy 5th class.
The rest of the climbing is kind of a blur to me. Lots of easy and loose rock. We only stopped occasionally to belay certain sections that looked a bit difficult. The simul-climbing was pretty slow and painful if you ask me. We defiantly have to learn to move faster.
Finally reaching the summit.
We reached the summit after 10 hours on route. Disappointing I think. But at least we made it. The views from the top were breathtaking! The upper enchantments, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Daniel, WOW!
Dylan as high as he can go.
Danny's summit shot.
Dylan is the little dot on the snow field.
We hiked down the back side and down ass-blaster pass and started the nightmare retreat back to the car. Dylan was "bonking" and our return to civilization ended up being a lot later than I hoped.
Everything became pretty blurry at this point.
It ended up being a 20 hour day from car to car. Not very ideal but it was a great trip and an awesome accomplishment! Thanks Dylan!
- Car-Base: 3,760 vertical feet - 3:21
- Base-Summit: 1,930 vertical feet - 10:00
- Summit-Car: 5,690 vertical feet - 5:36
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