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Serpentine Arete

5.8, Trad, 2000 ft (606 m), 13 pitches, Grade IV,  Avg: 2.7 from 111 votes
FA: Tom Hargis and Jay Ossiander, 1973
Washington > Central-E Casca… > Stuart-Enchantm… > Dragontail Peak

Description

A very exciting and aesthetic line, which climbs the ridgeline on the right side of Dragontail Peak. Climb up an obvious dihedral system, past two trees with webbing on them until you reach a large terrace (done with a 70 meter rope). Next, continue up to a stance about 60 meters away where a rock is slung with webbing. Move up to the large pillar and go around right to set up your belay. The next two pitches are the crux 5.8 pitches and can be linked with a 70 meter rope. Move right from the pillar, across the face and into a large crack. Climb this until you can traverse left across a small, nobby slab and up another crack system that turns into a small dihedral. Belay up over a small hump right next to a piton. Continue the next pitch (past the two 5.8s) up left. For the rest of the route stay on the ridge line. There is a small down-climb and then after it move up right towards the summit. At the last part go around left of the summit block and follow a well traveled path to the top. Beware of loose rock through much of the low 5th class climbing. All of the technical climbing is solid.

Location

Located on Dragontail Peak, about 200 feet right of the Backbone route, on top of a bulging pile of rocks. It is the ridgeline that is right of the ridge that contains the obvious face near the top.

Protection

Standard rack up to 3 inches. Doubles up to 1.5 inches is optimal, excluding the very small sizes (like metolious purple and silver). Some long runners, about 12 draws (including runners). Crampons and ice axe are important for the decent. Helmet!

Photos [Hide ALL Photos]

Spring (mixed) ascent
[Hide Photo] Spring (mixed) ascent
Dragontail Peak in the evening.  Serpentine Ridge can be seen to the right of Backbone Ridge on the right side of the face.
[Hide Photo] Dragontail Peak in the evening. Serpentine Ridge can be seen to the right of Backbone Ridge on the right side of the face.
Summit block with our alternate 5.8 direct finish detailed.
[Hide Photo] Summit block with our alternate 5.8 direct finish detailed.
Following the crux pitch on Serpentine Ridge
[Hide Photo] Following the crux pitch on Serpentine Ridge
Pulling into the final 5.7 hand crack at the top of the first 5.8 "money" pitch.
[Hide Photo] Pulling into the final 5.7 hand crack at the top of the first 5.8 "money" pitch.
Cheryl VanDerHorn
[Hide Photo] Cheryl VanDerHorn
Shirley midway up Serpentine Ridge with Colchuck Glacier below (July 2005).
[Hide Photo] Shirley midway up Serpentine Ridge with Colchuck Glacier below (July 2005).
Michael leading the first 5.8 pitch.
[Hide Photo] Michael leading the first 5.8 pitch.
The face of happiness after exiting the choss fest with still a full rack on neck
[Hide Photo] The face of happiness after exiting the choss fest with still a full rack on neck
Michael leading a 5.8 flake direct variation on the summit pinnacle. So much better than scrambling up loose rock!
[Hide Photo] Michael leading a 5.8 flake direct variation on the summit pinnacle. So much better than scrambling up loose rock!
The crux cracks on Serpentine Ridge
[Hide Photo] The crux cracks on Serpentine Ridge
Our pitch 3.
[Hide Photo] Our pitch 3.

Comments [Hide ALL Comments]

rpc
Portland, OR
 
[Hide Comment] Did this one a year before doing Backbone (2005). Climbing was OK but much more loose stuff than on Backbone (I thought) & the best pitches here did not compare to best ones on its neighbor. Mar 21, 2008
Mike McL
South Lake Tahoe
 
[Hide Comment] As far as snow gear, we did it in late June without crampons. That time of year there is very little actual snow climbing on the approach. Most of it is on rocks with short stretches of snow. We were able to get by in the morning without crampons, but the snow was very hard. If you descend in the afternoon (which most will do) the snow is soft and we didn't need crampons. An ice axe was nice to have. We brought boots but it could be done in approach shoes with an axe.

As far as a rack, I suggest doubles of purple, green, red, and maybe yellow camalots in addition to the usual stuff if climbing near your limit. Nothing bigger than a single #3 was necessary.

For the route, aim for the golden granite blocks at the base of the ridge near the rock island in the glacier. You'll start in a blocky left-leaning ramp that joins up in about 1 pitch with an easy right-trending ramp. Follow this right-trending ramp to the base of a large left-facing corner. 1-2 pitches up to 5.7 puts you on the large ledge with the large pinnacle. This pinnacle is very recognizable and is a good landmark when locating and scouting this climb. Traverse to the right side of the pinnacle and climb some cracks that lie about 15' right of the pinnacle for a short pitch. This is the crux and felt a little tough for 5.8 to me, but I'm a weakling so it's hard to tell. A shallow right facing corner with a hand crack in the back lies above this crux pitch. Ascend this corner (fun!), traverse left on some knobs, and set up a belay to the left. These two 5.8 pitches could be linked with a 70, maybe a 60. After these crux pitches, the next pitch climbs a short (10-15ft) straight-in corner and then follows a right facing dihedral to some blocks. It's a bit nebulous from here. Stay near the ridge crest and follow the path of least resistance. Just about every pitch seems to have a short stretch of low/mid 5th class separated by 4th class. The steep stuff just below the summit can be avoided by going left around the corner and walking to the top.

Descent is down the easy back side trending south and east towards snow slopes. Descend these snow slopes and walk east to Asgard pass. Descend Asgard Pass to Colchuck Lake.

Enjoy and be careful of the loose stuff. Jul 1, 2009
Andrew Carson
Wilson, WY
  5.9-
[Hide Comment] With a camp at the south end of Colchuck Lake, we thought a descent of Colchuck Glacier was the way to go. What we forgot to do was look at the map and see that there is a sub-ridge that makes a straightforward descent and traverse to the col at the top of the glacier less than obvious. We learned a harsh lesson...in the dark... again. Figure it out beforehand.
We didn't find crampons necessary but this was a big snow year and the snow was soft and pliable. I could easily envision crampons being mandatory in the right (wrong?) conditions. Aug 7, 2011
Aaron Wait
North Bend, WA
  5.8
[Hide Comment] Thought the crux was the third pitch after traversing the ledge to the right side of the ridge-line (~p5, pitch immediately following the two 5.8 pitches). That little corner got kind of funky.

Above that there are maybe 2 spots I encountered harder than 5.0-/4th class, by that I mean 5.4. We essentially did a quick hip belay.

After the small downclimb we put our approach shoes on, which was a good call as it was 3rd class to the summit. Jul 21, 2015
[Hide Comment] FA Tom Hargis and Jay Ossiander on July 1, 1973 according to Beckey guide Jun 7, 2019
[Hide Comment] I think this is one of the best routes in the range. It takes you directly to the summit. Do not drop down into the gully to the climbers right too quick and you will have good climbing on good rock 90% of the time. Traverse the gully then up the final 5.7 pitch to the summit and enjoy lunch. I have climbed this route about a dozen times and enjoy it every time. Aug 1, 2019
Ryder Stroud
Seattle, WA
[Hide Comment] Definitely an adventurous route, but be wary some loose rock hazard on the route, especially the top third of the route.

Some beta from an early July 2019 ascent:

- Timing: Can be done in a long or very long day depending on team speed. The terrain isn't hard. There is just a lot of it to cover and it wanders. Asgard Pass at night is tedious, but doable. Expect 3-4 hours, average, from the lot to the base of the route. 2.5 hours if you are feeling froggy.

- Gear: nuts, cams .3 to 3 with doubles to 2; an extra 3 could be helpful; I also like bringing a couple of small pieces like a .2 and a 0 C3 for the occasional out-of-place belay stance or conserving larger pieces for belays; 60m rope is fine.

- Crux: Hidden behind a large pillar. Follow the large ledge to climbers right around the arete of the pillar. Definitely an earn-it-for-the-grade pitch. Great fun!

- Snow travel: Minimal snow travel on the way to the route, with a short, not steep crossing just before the start of the route. We used microspikes and had plenty of traction. I think you can get away with these in all but the hardest of snowpack in early season. If you are comfortable with it, you can probably get away with just microspikes for the approach and descent. The axe is always nice insurance.

- Loose rock: There is a lot of gravelly, loose stuff up the top third of the route ranging from pebble-sized to microwave-sized. There are sections of the upper arete where you very well might have to mantle while pressing down on only gravel. Perhaps others have threaded their way better through the top terrain, but we took what seemed like some well traveled lines up the ridge. Tread lightly, manage your rope well and place gear high where you can to elevate your rope away from the garbage. We had looseness even up to the very final belay to the summit ridge (we ended up just below the summit proper).

- Verdict: An adventurous route with some decent moderate climbing lower on the ridge and a lot of terrain to cover. If you are undecided between Backbone or Serpentine, I would go with Backbone. But If you don't want to offwidth, do Serpentine. Just be ready to have your routefinding nose turned up to "high." Both routes still get you to a pretty incredible Cascades summit! Aug 21, 2019
Ben Pontecorvo
Eugene, OR
[Hide Comment] Learned a lesson on this recently. We had a great climb, no major issues, until the way down. Having descended dragontail before in July w/o ax or crampons, I convinced my partner that we would be fine with just an ax.

In late Aug (at 330 pm ish) we encountered a 30 foot section of ~35 degree bullet hard ice on the backside decent, and were unable to even chop steps. We were able to hike back up and make a rap route thru a gulley, leaving some gear. If we had had crampons it would have been a cakewalk. I have climbed alot in the Cascades and had always experienced bringing crampons and not needing them, not the other way around. Be aware of how glaciers change in late season! Aug 26, 2019
[Hide Comment] Just got done with this route and want to make sure that others are in for less of a surprise than we were in for. Full disclosure, my trad climbing tops out around 5.9, so if you are a super hard climber this trip report might seem irrelevant. But for those of you climbing 5.8-5.9 trad this might be very good info. So here goes...

9/1/19- Left from Colchuck trailhead at 3 in the morning. Got to the southwest corner of the lake around 5:45 where we angled up the talus field directly toward the base of the climb and didn’t have to get on the snow. We racked up on orange rocks at the base at 7:00. We brought nuts, tricams, singles in .3-4 and doubles in .3-2. We were happy to have a few doubles in the mid sizes but they were not necessary.

Pitch 1-3
We headed up and decided to bypass the steep dihedral that is evident at the top of the first pitch by heading to the left and then back right to join the route again. If you do take the dihedral note that it tops out in a bunch of choss and gravel so just a heads up. Then we headed up and right (full 70 M) to the beginning of the 5.7 pitch. The 5.7 pitch is a broken flaky corner that offers many options some better than others. We headed up and then traversed left out of the corner and then traversed back. A lot of loose rock on the top so be careful not to knock any down or let the rope knock any down on your follow. The traverse from there looks scary and airy from the belay but it is totally chill when you peek around it.

Pitch 4-5
The 5.8 crux pitches. Started up the crack in the middle of the face. Delicate moves on small feet lead to good jams and then less good jams but the crack takes some good gear. I was able to get a number 2 high up to protect a move and then with my feet in the flare was able to get a red tricam in. Then I actually lowered a few feet on my piece and traversed right to the next crack system which eased up significantly. I set a belay on a sloping small ledge below the next little 5.8 crack system… which was AWESOME! Super fun and straight forward fingers to hands jamming that took great gear!

Pitch 6
The rampy dihedral? Headed left and up a little ramp that I found a little tricky but my partner liked because she had smaller fingers and was able to get some solid locks. That gave way to a nice dihedral with I think 5.7 moves with good feet on the face and jams and lie backs on the left. It ended in a ridge that I crawled over into an alcove with a little dead tree and a piton in the rock directly above me.

Pitch 7/8?
The flaring slot? We transitioned into simul climbing mode because we were expecting. 5.0 climbing. But instead we found a tricky corner… we transitioned back to lead/follow climbing. Just before the slot, we hauled packs because the movement was really hard to do with packs on (5.8?). After that, there was a lot of grunting from chimney moves and eventually I ended up on a slab that got easier.

Pitches ?-?
After this section the climbing eased up but don’t expect 5.0 climbing. Every pitch after this had some short sections of 5.5-5.7 movement somewhere on the pitch, depending on your route finding. We looked for signs of wear and followed rampy crumbly systems up and left into what looked like headwall towers and then cut back right to escape to easier ground. That seemed to be a repeating pattern. One of these towers had a rightward ascending crack on a slab (that was not hard but had my attention 5.6-7?). As it was, my partner and I were not comfortable simul climbing with all of the loose rock.The choss continued for many pitches.

The Finish
We headed directly left on chossy ledges which lead to a short downclimb and then just popped out on the ridge. It was 8:30. There were clouds coming in robbing us of our last bit of daylight and a view so we opted not to bag the summit and start down. Beware the occasional summit goat.

The Descent
From where we were, below the summit, do not head down to the left, it just cliffs out. Instead. head up and toward the summit and over a ridge. The trail down becomes apparent and mellow, switchbacking and heading down to a point where you reach the snow. We had axes and crampons and were happy to have them. We headed down the bootpack on slightly icy 30 degree snowfield toward a band of rocks. Some people had glisaded this earlier. We hit the ice rock mud mix and slid down the slope until we hit more solid rocks. From here we recommend not doing what we did. We saw some footprints leading to the left and staying high. We think that is what we should have done but instead we picked our way down the rocks and ledges toward Isolation lake. We found many dead ends and at 11:00 we called it, smoothed out a platform and burritoed up in our space blankets for a shiver bivy until we had daylight to navigate by. The sunrise revealed that there was a cairn high and to the left that we should have followed but also that there were footprints across the snowfield directly below us. With renewed confidence, we found a way down choss and slab to the snow and walked down to the top of Aasgard pass. With route finding out of the way, we followed the trail back down the pass and around Colchuck lake and back to the car. It took 6 hours from our bivy to get back to the car.

In summary, this route can take a very long time. I am sure that other parties have done it quicker but we were going slow and steady. Because we pitched it out it had taken 13.5 hours. We are not fast climbers but we kept moving at a pretty steady clip. Just a heads up on how long it could take if you aren’t comfortable soloing or simul climbing. Do not underestimate this route and be ready for a long day if you are not comfortable simul climbing on loose rock. Your results may vary, but I wanted to share some details. Best of luck and stay safe out there. Sep 4, 2019
[Hide Comment] Did this 6/19/20. Felt like some of the comments here downplayed seriousness of the route...we did not find any long sections of fourth class terrain on the route and simul-climbing did not seem safe/secure with abundance of loose rock and occasional sparsity of solid gear placements. We encountered seemingly unavoidable (5th class) stacks of large boulders which we had to hope stayed intact throughout the length of the route, not to mention large blocks precariously resting on kitty litter choss almost everywhere. Pitched out the route as a result and it took 12-13 hours from the rock island. Probably did 20-25 pitches. Found water mid route, which was well needed. This had us descending Asgard pass at nightfall (after starting at 3:30) where we descended all the way down to colchuck and missed trail around lake. After bushwhacking for a while to find it, we decided to bivvy under a large boulder before finishing five mile hike out. Aim for the true summit which is marked by what looks like a large detached boulder to find descent trail. In summary, this route was extremely taxing for us due to its length, loose rock and challenging route finding.

Also:
Approach was fine with micro spikes, probably want ice axes for descent, thought snow was soft and there was a good bootpack for us. This descent traverses over what I would guess is a few hundred feet of 45 degree snow, and would be scary in hard snow conditions without traction and an axe/trekking pole. Jun 22, 2020
Brock B.
Seattle, WA
 
[Hide Comment] I would say route finding is definitely the crux on this one. I found the climbing significantly easier and less sustained than Backbone Ridge. In terms of loose rock (while leading) this also felt a lot safer than Backbone as I was only concerned about pulling something down on my belayer during one pitch.

Base to summit in 8 hours at a moderate pace with a less experienced partner. We didn't simul-climb and pitched out everything that wasn't obviously an easy scramble (4th-5.0). I lost count but would guess we did 13-16 pitches, with many of the upper pitches being a full 60m. The rack that I thought worked well: singles BD .1, .2, .3, .4, doubles .5 to 1, one 2 and 3, 8 alpine draws, 2 double-length slings to reduce rope drag at key points, no nuts.

We descended with microspikes and one hiking pole each which worked really well. Jul 21, 2020
Zack Miller
Bend, OR
 
[Hide Comment] Went with a party of 3. Simulclimbing didnt seem like a great option. Tons of loose rock and many different ways to get up at the top. Definitely did some variation at the top that was around 5.8/5.9. I did this c2c and it took like 25 hrs (with a nap included) Oct 24, 2021
Mattie Quigley
Durham, NC
  5.8 R
[Hide Comment] This thing def deserves an R rating! Tons of loose rock, its a china house up there. Jul 29, 2022
[Hide Comment] Did this car-to-car in 13 hours on August 1st. The rock is generally superb as long as you stay on the ridge; loose rock can be found on ledges and in gullies, which is to be expected on long alpine routes. Route finding is straightforward once you get to the base of the crux pitches, though there are many viable routes to that point. As a party of two, we did 5-6 full pitches, ~1000' of short-pitching and simuling, and ~500' of soloing following the short downclimb. Aug 6, 2022
Nick Jendrzejewski
Hanover, NH
  5.8
[Hide Comment] Great climb with generally solid rock. We completed this route on July 26th, 2023 in 19.5 hours car to car. We found the climb relatively straightforward but lost some time route finding toward the top / getting down a steep snow slope on the descent (we didn't bring ice axes).

Like others have mentioned, the climbing remains quite sustained above the 5.8 pitches. It's not difficult, but we didn't feel comfortable simul-climbing either—especially as we began to get tired higher on the ridge. The climb itself took us 9 hours, so make sure you bring enough water. We didn’t find any running water on the climb. Jul 30, 2023
Ben Hyver
Seattle, WA
 
[Hide Comment] Climbed this route in 14 hours c2c on 8/25, took 5 hours from base to summit. Soloed the first few hundred and last few hundred feet of the route in 3rd/4th class terrain. Pitched out the rest with the occasional bit of simuling to stretch out the rope. Watch rope drag when simuling, lots of meandering on this route. Rock quality was much higher than expected. Keep an eye out for the loose stuff on ledges and you won’t pull anything down all day. We brought gear to descend the ice but found a single rappel with a 60m to be much less involved. There was old tat precariously slung around a sloping horn; would not have trusted my life to that. Thankfully someone has recently installed a bomber rap anchor with new 7mm cord and a locker right next to it. Thank you to whoever did this! We cut out the old cord as it’s easy to miss the new anchor if you don’t look around the corner. Aug 27, 2023