Dragontail Peak Backbone Ridge

After climbing the Triple Couloirs and Serpentine Arete routes on Dragontail Peak it was an obvious choice to next sample this route. I called my buddy Dan who lived near Leavenworth and asked him what he was up to for the weekend. He said that him and Ben were going up to Dragontail to do the Backbone Ridge. Then he asked if I wanted to tag along. Sweet! I was game. I had not been rock climbing much this year but I had been mountain biking quite a bit and was in top shape for hiking and felt strong enough to do this climb without any ramp up for the season.

On Saturday morning around 9:45 am we headed out from the Colchuck Lake trailhead. Dan and I motivated each other with a blistering hiking pace on the way in. Ben was a little bit farther behind but he was doing great. Soon enough we were spiraling around Colchuck Lake. It was refreshing to see my good friend Dragontail again. We marched up the talus and scree and scurried across some steep and slippery snow to the beginning of the scrambling. It was about 400 feet of ledge traversing to the east and with a slight upward trend. There wasn't any reason to rope up as it was fairly simple. At some point we crossed a prominent section of rock and slightly moved up and right to a short gulley to chimney feature.

Here we roped up and it was about 12:30 or 1pm in the afternoon. A late start but it didn't bother any of us. I took a pitch to a chimney and turned it over to Dan. We moved up a little bit and bam we were at the base of the crux offwidth that I had heard so much about. It sits back in a corner above a small tree near the ridge crest. Dan already called it out long ago that this pitch was going to be his. No problemo for Ben and I. Send the midget rope rocket up he he. Dan styled it and set up a nice belay. Ben and I followed at the same time. I was just a few feet in front of him. I remember thrutching a little bit and took a great shot of him right on the crux. It kind of gives you the feeling that you are almost there.

We took some more pitches right near the crest up to 5.9, including another offwidth. We were basically lolly gagging and didn't hurry at all. Finally we arrived at the rock ampitheatre below the Fin. The Fin is a large white looking prominent feature just below and in front of 3rd couloir of the Triple Couloirs winter route. The rock looked sweet and we had some nice views of Colchuck Peak and the Sandpiper. Around this time a helicopter blazed by and went up into the upper Enchantments. We began ascending on the left side of the Fin and trended to the right up to a ledge. From here we climbed up some 5.8 to 5.9 face and fingerlike climbing on sound rocks to another ledge. Then we were given some options. Dan lead out "plankwalking" left and up to more stellar crack systems. This pitch finished up with some wider crack climbing and great exposure. Some of the finer climbing on the route if you ask me. We had a belay set right on the top edge of the fin. We moved out right again on the top of the fin and then finally dropped over it into the last of the Triple Couloirs. From there the nature of the climbing took a downward spiral. Chosspile sums it up, but we were pretty much done and arrived at the summit area soon enough. The sun was setting as we took a couple of photos and began the trek out.

Right as the sun went down we were just beginning down the infamous Aasgard Pass trail. We bumbled around with our head torches leading the way. About halfway down I stumbled across someone laying in the dirt who had obviously established a bivouac there. I asked him several times if he needed anything and if he was doing ok. He humbly insisted that everything was fine. So we took off. I thought it was a strange place to be spending the night. But then again some hikers think the same of climbers from time to time. Eventually we hit the slide alder near the edges of Colchuck Lake. I knew it would not be long before we were on a good trail. Cool!

About and hour later we were on the opposite end of the lake where Ben and I had gotten slightly ahead of Dan. We waited for about five minutes watching Dan's head lamp bob around in the darkness, hearing him cursing up a storm about every 10 seconds. It was hilarious. Finally Ben and I backtracked and teamed up with him. Dan mentioned that he had run across some people's camp and gave them a piece of his mind for not telling him where the trail was. Man I missed out on the entertainment! It turned out later on that he ran into my old roomate. It was great to hear the other side of the story. Haha!

Uneventfully we landed back at the car and were all happy to be sitting and moving. I'd have to say that this route is the best one I have done on this peak and definitely rivals Mount Stuart's North Ridge. In fact it is better than the upper version of Mount Stuart if you ask me. Later on I was saddened to hear on the internet that the gentleman we encountered near Aasgard Pass had a family member which had passed away up near Little Annapurna after slipping on ice and falling into the lake. I somehow imagine that this man had already known his son's fate and that was the reason he was not too talkative when we crossed paths. My condolences go out to him and their family.