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A Kidney for a Friend
5.8 YDS 5b French 16 Ewbanks VI- UIAA 15 ZA HVS 4c British
Avg: 2.3 from 3
votes
Routes in Dragontail Peak
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A Kidney for a Friend T 5.8 5b 16 VI- 15 HVS 4c |
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Backbone Ridge T 5.9 5c 17 VI 17 HVS 5a |
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Complete Northeast Buttress T 5.8 5b 16 VI- 15 HVS 4c R |
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Der Dihedral T 5.9+ 5c 17 VI 17 E1 5a |
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Direct North Buttress WI5 M4 PG13 |
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Dragons of Eden T 5.12a 7a+ 25 VIII+ 25 E5 6a |
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Dragon’s Jaw T 5.11- 6c 22 VIII- 22 E3 5c |
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East ridge T 3rd 1- 1 I 1 M 1a |
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East Route Mod. Snow |
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Gerber-Sink T 5.7 5a 15 V+ 13 MVS 4b WI3+ M4 Steep Snow |
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New Dark Ages T 5.11+ 7a 24 VIII 24 E4 6a |
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Serpentine Arete T 5.8 5b 16 VI- 15 HVS 4c |
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This, My Friend T 5.10a 6a 18 VI+ 18 E1 5a |
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Triple Couloirs WI3 M3 Steep Snow R |
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West Route Mod. Snow |
| Type: | Trad, 1000 ft (303 m), 7 pitches |
| GPS: | 47.4789, -120.83318 |
| FA: | Chad Cochran, Matt Primomo, September 2021 |
| Page Views: | 1,985 total · 37/month |
| Shared By: | Matt Primomo on Sep 27, 2021 |
| Admins: | Jon Nelson, Zachary Winters, Mitchell McAuslan |
Description
This route goes up the East Face of the NE Tower of Dragontail Peak, following weaknesses through an inviting white fractured slab with long crack systems. There are a few roofs and overlaps to weave around before gaining the NE Arete.
We found fun, moderate climbing and engaging movement. The climb took us 5 hours from the base to the summit notch, taking our time on the trickier pitches. A very enjoyable outing with an option to summit a rad tower! Plenty of possibilities for harder variations exist on this feature, and other routes nearby. Also plenty of grit, lichen, and loose blocks mixed in with good granite climbing.We haven’t returned to extensively clean the route, so heads up, it’s a raw alpine climb. We did trundle a number of obvious loose ones, and set a few others into place. Still, plenty of loose rock remains, and the rock/cracks could use more cleaning.
Approach: Take the right branch of the Aasgard Pass trail above 7,000ft or so, and traverse over the rockfall strewn (July 2021) couloir at around the 7,500ft elevation. Scramble along a ledge past a few trees and aim for the bottom of the small tower on the right.
P1: 5.8 50m - Start at the bottom maybe 15’ left of the tower. Go straight up on easy rock towards a steeper wall with some parallel and inviting hand cracks on the Left, maybe 6ft right of the dihedral. Continue over a slab to another small overlap, then step up. Belay on the large grassy ledge above with a 6 foot block below the white fractured slab.
P2: 5.6 40m - Climb onto the first pedestal of the large dihedral system, then take off -up and left into the obvious long wide crack up the white slab. After some wide climbing, the crack becomes more shallow, then it turns to a deeper handcrack for a while. Above this there are a few decent stances to belay where the crack opens up again some 40’ below the middle of the roof. Can use large cams (2-3”) for an anchor in this zone.
P3: 5.8 30m - Continue up and right following a crack to a 15 foot handrail that traverses right, towards the dihedral. Make a mantle move up then stem out into the corner. A bit runout on the handrail but then can plug a .5” cam in the vertical crack above. Make some more moves up and pull over a block to a belay on a ledge with a tree. Can sling this tree for an anchor.
Pitches 2/3 can be linked with a 60m rope if belaying from the base of the pedestal at the beginning of the long R facing dihedral system. This also allows the belayer to tuck in under the corner, out of the way of rockfall.
A number of potential, harder options exist for pulling over the main roof more directly.
P4: 5.7 45m - Step down to the edge of the block, and make the move around left to gain the left facing dihedral again (super fun)! Layback this crack a few moves, then head left, up into a vertical crack. After a few moves here, continue trending left and slightly up, aiming for the place where the next roof tapers. This traverse will bring you around a small corner, where you can sling a horn on the sharp arete before continuing the traverse over a slab move and past a sharp small horn. Climb up onto an exposed ledge just left of the roof, and make a belay here with fractured cracks. This is an exposed stance but has good line of sight with the anchor below. Can use .2-.3 size cams in a vertical fracture, and a 1-2” cam in a horizontal pod.
P5: 5.6 50m - Up and over onto blocky terrain. The rock becomes more blocky and broken in here. There are a fair amount of loose blocks to be careful around, and consider trending to the left, or right as to not be directly above your belayer. Can belay off a very large block on a large grassy ledge system.
P6: 5.5 30m - Up cracks to the ridge.
Ridge: 4th to 5.5 - ~120m Follow the ridge, stepping around left towards a chimney at one point, then up into a gully to gain another notch.
From this higher notch, go right, around the corner onto a 3rd class ledge system. This takes one up to the upper notch just west of the summit tower. It looked like a lichen covered crack could be climbed at moderate difficulty to summit, though we bypassed it with questionable weather.
From the summit notch, traverse and climb a short ways up onto the south side of the slope that goes towards the Enchantment Snowfield. Can downclimb the skiers right of the gully to a large, wide tree, and make a 30m rappel passing a chimney. This tree sits roughly 40ft below the notch to skiers right. Finish downclimbing the gully, then trend down and right to easier ground and the Dragontail path.
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