Climbing the NW Ridge of Dragontail Peak
Huddled on a rocky ledge, Ross and I huddled together through the final dark hours, waiting for enough dawn light to continue our descent from the mountain. This was the 4th of July bicentennial weekend. With Audrey and our friend Lynn we’d hiked up to Colchuck lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington. The next day Ross & I left our lakeside camp at 6:00 am for our climb.
Overshadowing Colchuck Lake, or goal was Dragontail’s northwest face rising in tiers of gray granodiorite, snow gullies, broken ledges, and jagged needles providing its name. No simple staircase to the summit, it wanders upward for about 20 pitches of mixed challenges – sometimes clean rock, sometimes across loose shelves, sometimes steep snow, sometimes along exposed ridges above the lake which fell away far below. In good weather it was a classic Cascades mountaineering adventure; in fading light, with an injury, it could become a cold, complicated place to spend the night.
Hiking to the base, then scrambling, by 7:30 the actual climb began — a mix of 4th and 5th class rock pitches including a snow couloir finishing in a chimney dihedral system. We leap-frogged leads. Nearing the summit, Ross led, using hammer and ice axe to chop steps in the last snow couloir, then I took over for a stretch of 4th class rock, unprotected due to meager belay points. I brought Ross up. He tried a pendulum to a more prominent crack, but he fell about 30’ stripping protection. He heard a crack in his foot. It started to rain, but so close to the summit, with an easy descent via Aasgard Pass, I tried to finish. I fell but protection held; tried again, fell again, again protection held I had only scrapes. It was about 5:00, raining lightly but with a beautiful rainbow. Ross moving slowly. Time to look for a place to spend the night. We rappelled several pitches leaving the anchors behind, eventually stopping at a decent ledge under an overhang about 1/3 of the way down. It was a cold night, but we hugged each other & shivered through the night.
As dawn approached, we continued abseils and down-climbing, culminating with the scariest rappel I’ve ever done. Imagine 2” by 3 ‘ curving protrusion from on an otherwise 40’ blank wall. We carefully looped the rope around that curve, keeping downward pressure so the rope wouldn’t slide off. I waited as Ross hesitantly descended, trying to avoid knocking his broken foot against the wall. Then I followed, carefully keeping my weight on it as a slight tick upwards would cause the rope to slip. Once down that quick flick retrieved the rope.
The rest of the descent, with several more rappels, was uneventful. Once we made it back to the trail Ross slowly continued to our camp while I ran ahead to go for help. At the camp we quickly packed up and Lynn and I started down the trail while Audrey remained behind to help Ross. We got back to Leavenworth and the sheriff set up a helicopter rescue. I drove back to the trailhead to wait for Audrey.
Audrey told us the story from there. Ross had limped into camp by the time the helicopter set down on the shore of the lake. 2 burly sheriff’s deputies got off the plane, no backpacks, but carrying small brown-paper lunch sacks. They proceeded to help Ross onto the helicopter along with his pack and tent but wouldn’t take Audrey’s pack!. The deputies remained behind as the helicopter flew Ross to the hospital. Then Audrey descended the trail with deputies fore and aft, carrying a full pack with our climbing rope on top. She really wanted to yell out to those coming up the trail “I didn’t do it!”.
Once Audrey arrived at the trailhead, we drove to the hospital — Ross had already been treated for a broken ankle and given pain relief. We piled into my VW bus and headed for home. But about halfway home the VW lived up to its reputation by overheating & throwing a rod and we had to be towed to a garage in Olympia. Audrey called her amazing longtime friends in Portland who drove up to get us.
We got back to Portland about 3:00 AM – so much for our bicentennial celebrations.
Coda:
The next day I received a call from my brother announcing the birth of his first daughter.
