The obligatory photo of Colchuck, right, and Dragontail, left. My route follows, more or less, just behind the right skyline of Colchuck.
Colchuck Peak, North Buttress, and Dragontail Dog Route
Solo. Saturday, June 27, 2009
After about the longest streak of good weather in June that I can remember, I finally found the wherewithall to make a climb happen. I arranged to climb the NE Buttress of Colchuck Peak with a guy I hooked up with on Cascade Climbers, and then, after fouling up the logistics completely with a series of missed phone calls and late getting out of the house, I found myself heading up there alone.
Obviously, the NE Buttress, at 5.9, is not the sort of place that I would try on my own. But I'd read an account of the Colchuck North Buttress, by a guy named Fred Spicker, that sounded much more feasible. So I headed down the freeway, and threw down my sleeping bag beside the car at the trailhead around midnight.
I got up around five, and lay there a while thinking that I didn't really need to get going so early, since I wasn't doing an epic, multi-pitch roped climb. Finally, around 6:00, I was up and pretty much ready to go, and it occurred to me that I didn't have a forest pass with me. In the past, I'd gotten around this at the Stuart Lake trailhead by parking a quarter mile or so down the road just on the other side of the forest pass sign, but now there is an 8 Mile Trail parking lot about a mile further back, and this plan would have requred me hiking well over a mile (each way) up the road.
After thinking about whether I felt lucky, I decided to drive all the way back to the highway to the Chevron station, hoping they'd have a trail pass to sell. And I got there, to find the place closed -- chained -- with no hours posted, but taunting me with a "forest pass sold here" sign on the window.
Okay, fine. Maybe I will get lucky. Drove all the way back to the trailhead, and parked the car as innocently as possible, and headed off down the trail. This whole quixotic side trip had wasted an hour.
The trail is about two hours to the lake. I hadn't gone very far before I was reminded by some helpful mosquitos that I'd forgotten insect repellant. Two different kinds of sunscreen, but no bug juice.
My recollection from my first time here is that the altitude sign is shortly before the lake, but it's actually another half hour. I was feeling pretty beat, not getting very much sleep the last two nights, and having had rather too much to drink last night before the drive. (poor me...) So, it was nice to sit on a rock in the sun on the side of the lake, a brilliant blue-green and smooth as a mirror, looking at Colchuck Peak, Dragontail, Aasgard Pass, Colchuck Balanced Rock, eating my apple and swatting the occasionally mosquito. Then, on to the climb.
The North Buttress Route is a bit of a 'chose your adventure' route. There are numerous ways to access it: Fred Spiker suggests climbing the North Buttress Couloir to avoid the less interesting lower part of the ridge, but without crampons that seemed a bit dicey to me. So I headed up the 'normal' route, looking up at the ridge for a good spot to climb up. There are a number of gullys of various sorts, and I decided on one, the one with the distinctive 'inverted cowboy boot' rook at the top of it, and headed up.
It was actually a bit more interesting than I expected, alternately easy then tough, some delicate slab climbing, a bit of climbing up the slab underneath the overhanging ceiling using a pseudo-chimney technique, and finally finding a stopping point to change into my rock shoes. This gully ended up being the most difficult part of the climb. It was probably not more than about 5.5 at worst, but being exposed and alone and with no prospects for pro (and feeling increasingly doubtful about my ability to downclimb it) I felt awfully committed.
Finally I got to the top of the gully, onto the ridge proper, and felt completely beat. If there was a practical descent route, I may well have bailed completely. I'd been thinking that I might actually be the first one on this gully, but at the top, I found a rap anchor with a couple of slings. It's hard to be first anyplace in the Cascades, I guess, especially someplace as overrun as here.
Then, on up the ridge to the proper beginning of the climb. The routefinding was pretty easy; there is almost a trail up much of it, interrupted by interesting class 4 obstacles and routefinding choices. There was one spot where my way was blocked by a very steep snow slope, very hard snow, and I had to chop out footsteps for myself to make it across. Kind of slow going, but on balance, I guess I'd rather have an ice axe and no crampons than the reverse.
To the right is the Northeast face, and that's a more easy 3rd class, and I kind of meandered between the two, picking and chosing my route, still feeling pretty draggy. Shortly below the summit (which I couldn't identify for sure before actually standing on it) I had to make some pretty dicey mid-fifth class moves, sort of scarey because the black lichen makes for an alarmingly insecure surface. it's not slick, but when it's this dry, it crumbles.
So I was on the summit a bit after two PM, enjoying the views, and took some summit photos. I was surprised by the enormous number of ladybugs clustered on the rocks up there. What are they thinking, and how do I get them back down to my yard where the aphids are?
Looking to the north, Glacier peak on the right, Baker in the distance, and Sloan peak on the left.
Then, on down the normal descent route. It's kind of windey, and I looked over at Dragontail as I went, thinking that maybe I could party redeem the day by tromping up and tagging that summit, which I'd wanted to in the past but never had.
The thing is, Dragontail has some really distinguished and (locally) famous routes, like Backbone Ridge, and Serpentine Arete, and of course the Triple Couloirs winter route, that to climb it via the dog route has always seemed to me a bit phoney,like buying a letterman's jacket in a thrift store because you can't actually letter in a sport.
Anyhow, I made it to the top of Colchuck Glacier and met two people coming up, a man and a woman, who said that there was a couple hundred feet of ice on the glacier.
So, what the hell. I headed up Dragontail, following the meandering bootprint trail up through the rocks and grit. I bypassed the snow as long as I could, but was pleased to see that it was not nearly as slick as I'd feared.
Then I was interrupted by a noise up above, and two mountain goats appeared, side by side, at the top of the gully. They stood and looked down at me, then just came on down, slipping and plunge-stepping, looking like they were just goofing around (that half-smirk their faces have gives them an un-serious aspect.)
I took a dozen or more photos of them; it was just so fun to watch them coming down and hanging out in their environment. At one point they both stopped and looked intently down the valley, staring so hard I wondered if there was a predator of some kind down there, but of course I could see nothing. It's hard to believe that the sparse grasses and vegetation up here can support small rodents, let alone large active mammals like them.
Glissading, or playing?
Eventually they continued down and I continued up. It was clear from their footprints, which went much deeper in the snow than mine, that they preferred the rocks to the snow. At one point, for scientific curiosity only, I sniffed one of the footprints in the snow, and it seemed like I could smell a goaty aroma. Maybe my imagination.
I had expected that the top of the couloir would basically be the summit, but it wasn't. There were rock formations towering up either side, and a very steep snow slope, practially vertical, down the other side. The rock up to the left didn't seem feasible, not for a 3rd class ascent which is what I remember this route being rated, so I went to the right, and scrambled up the rocks to the top. Where I saw that, in fact, there was a prominence over the the north (climber's left) that was a bit higher. And, footprints on the snowfield heading for it.
So I scrambled down to the saddle, and looked again and the snow slope which seemed to be the standard route. It was not only awfully steep, but the steps that had been punched into it were pretty well melted, as though they were a few days old. I didn't really feel like I should be going down that without crampons. I looked again on the rock to the left, and saw that there did seem to be a sort of a route. Pretty exposed class 4, I'd say. I managed it, and continued over and down on the rock, till eventually I got to the snow footprints, and followed them along to what seemed to be the final summit. At one point I got to the edge and looked down, and saw a couple of guys down below coming up, on what seemed to be fairly moderate terrain, not roped. The top of Serpentine, perhaps?
After tagging the summit and taking a couple of quick photos, I felt like I had to make tracks down, since it was after 4:00. I had tried texting my wife from the summit of Colchuck, just to assure her that I was fine, but there was, naturally, no service. Just so I could say I did, I tried sending it again. And... the phone indicated perfect service, and sent the message! Go figure.
Looking into 'the lost world.'
Because of time constraints, as well as being kinda tired, I really wanted to descend Aasgard pass, which was much closer to the summit, but having not gone up it, I wasn't really comfortable with it. I remembered seeing it from the lake, and it looked surprisingly melted out, but I was afraid it would be icy, and dangerous to descend, and I'd end up having to go back to my initial route. So, I plodded back across the snowfield, and struggled and flopped up the rocks (30 minutes) down the chute to the top of Colchuck glacier (30 minutes) and glissaded and plungestepped and scrambled down to the lake (30 minutes.) There was some exposed ice on the glissader's right on the glacier, but I was able to avoid it by keeping to the left.
The hike out from the lake took a little less than two hours. I kept a close eye on my watch, aware that I couldn't start complaining before two hours went by, and remembering some of the sights I'd identified on previous hikes out as being 'false positives.' Then... the parking lot. And... the car. And... the ticket from Larry. FYI, it's a $50 fine, plus a $25 'processing fee' for not having a trail pass.
Equipment notes: Bring crampons. The later in the season, the more useful a pair of lightweight aluminum crampons will be in managing Colchuck Glacier. I bet a month from now, there will be exposed ice most of the way across. Also, for God's sake, remember the bug repellant. By the time I was at the car, the back of my neck felt like a braille book.
This time I brought my 'old' Nikon N80 film SLR rather than the family digital camera. It's less convenient, of course, because it's bigger and heavier, and you need to reload film and it takes time and hassle to develop it. But man, is it more pleasant to operate! It's laid out perfectly, and is so much quicker and more responsive than the Nikon Coolpix compact digital camera we've had for the last couple of years. A DSLR has got to be on my christmas list for sure!