[rstoddard24]

Kyle, Bora, and I ended up with a free weekend unexpectedly, which corresponded with some nice Spring weather. On a ride home from Vantage a week ago Sunday I planted the idea of going for Colchuck, then we decided we might as well go for Dragontail too, and it was game on! Since the road to Stuart/Colchuck lake TH is still gated we decided best plan was 2 day climb with camp at Colchuck lake. We had a relaxed start on Saturday, started hiking up the road at 1pm and made to camp at 5pm after walking about halfway down across Colchuck Lake. Bora got his boots eaten by the slushiness on top of the lake but Kyle and I escaped unscathed.

Mountaineering often means walking on dry, gated roads

Colchuck selfie

after slushy boot

water hole

The following morning start was a lil slow, there were many obstacles such as Bora’s boots being so frozen solid from the slushy plunge that he couldn’t get them on. Ha. Anyway after pouring near boiling water on the laces it went, and we managed to leave camp at 4:45am.

lightsaber ice axe

dawn on the Colchuck glacier

The cramponing up the colchuck glacier wasn’t as good as expected (there were some deep snow drifts with a not-so-firm crust on top..), but we traded out breaking trail and made good time up to the col. We now set our sights on Colchuck, and ascended the steep snow, trying to kick good steps in somewhat rotten snow. The final moves to get onto Colchuck summit were super fun with the snow and rock. We relaxed on the summit for awhile as we checked out the Pandora’s box snow slope across the col, which looked pristine.

Bora breaking trail

at the col

Kyle; pandoras gully behind

Kyle on summit

Stuart and lesser peaks

summit dudes

Kyle descending Colchuck summit

We ran into our friends from the Mounties as we were carefully descending back to the col. Party on Colchuck! We kicked steps all the way up the pandora’s gully, which is pretty steep but straightforward with all the snow. The beta says exit the gully left ~30ft before the ridge crest just below the Pandora’s box feature, but we went all the way up to the base of the box to see what the fuss was all about. Some parties have found a way around here but it looked like a dead end to us—an overhanging boulder to the left (towards D-tail summit) and near vertical snow slope on front down to easier terrain – the only way forward from here we could see would have been to leave pickets and rap down. Instead, we turned around, down climbed ~30 ft, and turned back up towards the snowy ledges. We all kept axe in hand with crampons on and proceeded unroped thru the mixed class 3+ scramble back up to the ridge crest (this time on the correct side of overhanging boulder). Once on the ridge crest the climbing was easier but still felt quite exposed kind of like a knife edge. After passing thru “the horns” the run-out on the climber’s right side gets much better and it is a relaxing traverse up to the summit of Dragontail, where X marks the spot of the 2nd highest peak in the Stuart range!

cliffed out dudes

Pandora's box

looking down pandoras gully

dudes getting their mixed scramble on

Kyle topping out on Dtail ridge

Kyle and box

"the horns"

Traverse with Rainier far away

dudes on Dragontail summit

core zone behind

sitting on true summit

the core

discussing future adventures

After relaxing on the summit in continually improving weather, we began the long descent (of 7000’ to where car was parked at icicle creek!) The plunge stepping was nice down the snow creek glacier then Asgård and in no time we were filling our water bottles in our colchuck lake hole in the ice outside of camp. We packed up, headed out, pounded out the trail then road miles (wishing we had brought approach shoes), then were driving toward pizza in Leavenworth at around 4:45pm, about 12 hours after starting our day that morning

plundge stepping snow creek glacier

top of Asgård

perfect day

PNW wonderland

gear: ice axe + crampons skinny 30m rope + pickets + accessories (brought but didn’t use any of it) glad to have left snowshoes in the car credit to Bora for some of the pics

[RichP]

[Just_Some_Hiker]

[Tom]

Nice TR. Hard to tell but looks like some glissade paths over the waterfall (zooming in to the original size image). Hopefully folks know to avoid as things warm up.