NMS Guides Dragontail Peak via Backbone Arete

On June 24th at 0300 Kevin Q. and I, Joel Kauffman, started hiking from the Stuart Lake trail head with the idea of climbing the Backbone Ridge on Dragontail Peak and returning in time for dinner that night. Kevin and I have both climbed larger objectives in this style before. This climb was made more interesting by the fact that we had never climbed together.

Guided Dragontail Peak Climb - Backbone with Fin Direct

Kevin and I got to know each other on the hike into Colchuck Lake. The reason we were able to attempt a grade IV alpine route having met the night before is our prior climbing experience. Kevin has climbed with talented people on routes such as the complete Exum Ridge on the Grand Teton and the Whillians route on St. Exupery in Argentine Patagonia.

I've climbed the Backbone ridge before and am always up for a nice long day in the mountains. With the summer solstice a few days earlier, the Eastern horizon began getting light a half hour into the approach and we turned our headlamps off shortly after. We made short work of the trail section and scampered up the lateral moraine of the Colchuck glacier.

With a quizzical glance toward the high clouds, we racked up and donned spikes for the snow traverse which would bring us to the start of the route. The last time I climbed the Backbone, we did so with a C4 #4 Camalot. This time I opted to bring a #5. There is a balance between skill, gear, and weight.


The #5 was big enough to protect the 5.9 OW until it widens to six inches. I would recommend bringing the #6 unless one feels comfortable in these wide cracks. We attached our packs to our harnesses with tethers and climbed left side in. This is the crux of the route.

The climbing eases considerably above the OW and we enjoyed solid granite and fast transitions at belays. Notice the smile on Kevin's face and Colchuck peak in the background.

At 1200 we were on the Fin Direct. I found a new #1 Camalot with a wire gate caribiner a pitch below the ridge. This more than made up for the nut I had welded in place on the previous belay. From the top of the Fin we traversed the ridge toward the summit negotiating a few gendarmes along the way. "Just some class 3 and 4 scrambling to the top, huh?"

The showers to the North that had been challenging us while on the upper Fin Direct manifested in the form of a few drops of rain. When we reached the Cumbre (the Spanish word for summit), the blue sky greeted us and we were treated to exquisite views of Mount Daniel and the Cascade Range.



The descent was pleasant with the warm temperatures lending to perfect snow conditions in the upper Alpine Lakes basin. We descended Asgard pass and ran the last couple miles of the Stuart Lake trail. Kevin sprinted pass me at the last minute and pushed the stop button. Our round trip (car-to-car) time was 16hrs. 33min. Quite good for a couple guys who never climbed together!