Enter the Dragon Beta

Hey all,

Title says most of it. Looking for decent beta on the route, mainly the descent. Also if anybody has any good info on current snow conditions in the area (southeast face of flattop). How often does this route get slid on? And the descent? I know both Dead Elk and Dragon Tail can go. Thanks!

I climbed Enter the Dragon sometime this past November, here's what I remember...

Descent:

Rap directly back down the last pitch. (We left some new cord up there so you should be good.) Reverse the traverse pitch across the ledge/ridge back to the large broken area/notch that you started the traverse pitch from on the way up. From the notch area keep heading S across to the other side, you'll down climb a little bit to a decent ledge with an anchor. (I think this will be on the wall to your right.)

Rap 200' to a small couloir/gully. Down climb until a chockstone/big drop. The anchor will be to your right (looking down) and I think is a little exposed. One final rap will put you into Dead Elk.

Other stuff:

The difficulty when we did it seemed to vary quite a bit from what we expected due to conditions. Compared to pictures in the route description there was much less snow which made getting started on a few of the pitches harder. There was a little ice on the route when we were up there, but mostly in the form of ice covered snow cone like formations and icy cracks. We didn't find much in the way of pro (at least near many of the cruxes).

Have fun! The last pitch is sweet, and pretty burly! Don't be stupid like me and take your crampons off on it because it looks dry... You'll have a ball when it turns to snow covered hummocks haha.