We climbed the Serpentine Ridge on Dragontail in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area just outside of Leavenworth, WA. The climb is a grade IV 5.8, and was our first alpine climb. We ran into a few difficulties on the climb and had the enjoyment of an unplanned bivy on the summit of Dragontail. All of the photos are mine, except for 3 which are Joes. Also for reference, Joe has a blue helmet and I have a white one.
The drive up to Leavenworth was fine, not much traffic through Tacoma or Seattle, but not much as far as views through most of the pass. Once in 11worth the clouds had cleared, and God is that a weird weird little place! Great brats and beer, but damn, I've never seen (nor have I wanted to)so much leiderhosen (or how ever it is spelled). A beer was drank and a brat eaten and we found ourselves back in the car and on the way to the TH. the TH was fairly empty and we made quick time getting on the trail and good time to Colchuck; about 1hr 40mins.
Views of the mountain are, as I'm sure a good number of you know, stellar. Absolutely one of the most gorgeous places I've seen. We set up camp, had some dinner and studied the topo and the mountain. Sleep was good and we definitely heard some goats outside the tent doing whatever it is those things do. We woke a wee late (on trail by 7am) but made fair time getting to the route and were scrambling up the first ramp by 8:45. God that moraine is steep.
The Serpentine Ridge is the black ridge going up through the middle of the photo. We topped out at the obvious summit point.
We roped up rather early and pitched out the upper 4th stuff before, through and after the gulley. Being rather new to alpine rock, neither Thomas nor I felt entirely comfortably simuling anything that might be a bit spicy. The climbing was easy and we decided on a little mid 5th variation just before the 5.7 OW. Good call that was, a little interesting chimney with a fun internal crack system.
The crux pitches went really well, Thomas took the lead on the hardest crux pitches; his lead head and confidence is quite a bit stronger than my own. I was happy to let him lead, while I carried the back pack and cleaned. The 4-5 pitches of 5.6-5.8 are really fun climbing, a few tenuous moves, a few exposed, but mostly really fun solid locks and jams.
Above the difficult stuff the climb gets, how do you say, interesting. The TRs I'd read had definitely mentioned the difficult route finding, and they aren't kidding. this proved to be the crux of the climb. So, being a bit in doubt of where the climb went I took the "lead" through the easier stuff and followed the two route finding rules I could remember: follow signs of people and areas free of lichen. Keeping this in mind we went up, up and away (from the route).
So turns out that the two reasons that rock might be lacking lichen are, a) people climbing and b) water flowing. Bet you can't guess which one we ended up following. Not only was I following the lichen free rock, I kept seeing relatively fresh foot prints.
In no way would I describe our ascent as fast. Was it efficient? For the methods we chose (pitch most all of the climb out) we were pretty fast, but again, despite the climbing being easy, we weren't comfortable simuling most of the terrain. Everything was going pretty well, until the sun decided to go down. God that made things fun. Then I bonked. And if we needed more encouragement we found brand spanking new rap slings, apparently the party ahead of us was off-route and bailed here. So much fun at this point it was intolerable. Then Thomas called down from the sharp end, "hey dude, it's really steep up here, I don't know where to go." ---- "SHIT! Reallly?!?! Alright dude, set an anchor and bring me up."
Starting to go around the 5.7 OW because I thought the face climbing looked more interesting than the Off Width.
The start of the 5.8 technical crux. A pitch of 5.8 fingers leading into a pitch of 5.7 hands.
(Previous two photos by Joe C.)
I get to Thomas about 20 metres later and find him standing between some flake and a super steep headwall. To the left is a slab that has a big bulge and the only climbable feature (at least for us) is a short OW. To the right is a steep (80-85) flake system...looks even harder. We initially resign ourselves to an on-route bivy; but in the end (about 45 minutes later) I lift my head and say, "fuck it, get me the gear, I'm aiding the fucker."
The crack went pretty well, a little modified French freeing and I was to easier terrain. Then the summit; bliss. I belay Thomas up and we celebrate that we will be sleeping on the summit and not in some God-aweful squeeze chimney. I dunno how much warmer the summit was, but it was nice to be able to lay down. And I know what you're asking yourself, so I'll spare you the curiosity, we took turns playing Jake Gyllenhall: things got REAL cozy in that space blanket. A few hours of uncontrollable shivering and the sun was up. God it was nice to see that sun.
The next beast we tackled was the descent. The Beckey guide just says follow class 3 ledges down to Ass-guard pass, too bad it didn't say which way the ledges were. As the left looked like it would definitely send us over the glacier we elected to go skier's right. After a few hundred feet it cliffed out and we did three raps. Solid slings at the first two and then a 2 stopper and tri-cam anchor at a hanging belay about 30m off the ground. Quick descent from there littered with encounters with hikers asking if we were the headlamps on the mountain last night. Honestly, I can't see myself going up Aasguard for fun anytime soon. We got back to camp and made the best meal I've had in a good long while: TunaMac. So good after no food for a good long while.
All in all, the climbing was fun, the scrambling sucked and I am now a lot more confident in my alpine skills. I don't feel we made bad decisions, our lack of speed was largely due to lack of practical experience. Perhaps we should have selected an easier route, but I'm stoked to have this one under my belt and have put a lot of this year's goals into perspective.
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