[Secret Agent Man]

Despite several trips into the Enchantments I had never actually done Dragontail, a pretty big missing piece in my scrambler's resume since it's such a classic and commonly done route. I did it Saturday and I figured people might be interested in a report on the conditions since a lot of people might be going up soon. I started about 6:30 AM and other than tiny patches, snow didn't start until the south side of Colchuck Lake, approaching the base of Aasgard Pass. The slope up Aasgard was miserable with big patches of snow then big stretches of rock and dirt. The snow was very hard, so it meant either taking crampons on and off or spending a bunch of time wearing crampons on rock. There were folks in microspikes making it up but they were having less fun than those in crampons. The snow is clearly melting very fast - no way anyone is going to be getting into glissade trouble this year. From the top of the pass, getting to the summit of Dragontail was very straightforward. The Snow Creek glacier wasn't as steep as I expected and with some sun on it, the snow was great and easy. The rock to the top was class 2 and simple to find one's way. I didn't use snowshoes and didn't come close to needing them. Since the climb up Aasgard was so unpleasant and patchy with snow, I decided to go over Pandora's Box and descend the Colchuck Glacier, since that would be entirely snow. Going up Pandora's from the Dragontail side was a little steep but very short - climbing down from Pandora's to Colchuck Col was much longer than I expected and the runout was concerning. It wasn't technically difficult but I felt I had to be cautious and moved a lot slower than I had thought I would. I considered trying to tag Colchuck as well but I had done it previously and people at the col said that the snow was up there was miserably soft and that it was a lot of postholing. From Colchuck Col, it was straightforward plunge stepping down the glacier and a long walk out on the trail. About ten and a half hours round trip. Snow appears to be changing rapidly but as of now I'd say Colchuck Glacier is a lot more inviting than Aasgard. There was a lot of avvy debris on the glacier to think about but it's all snow and it was in really nice condition. With a little bit more melting, Aasgard could be a lot better soon. Colchuck Glacier:

Aasgard:

Core Zone from Dragontail:

[Secret Agent Man]

[Midnight Slogger]

Thank you for the conditions report! And well done!