Sat, Aug 13, 2022
|
With: | Robert Wu |
Day 9 of the Sierra Challenge saw me skipping the long outing to Torchbearer
in favor of a rock climb of Dragon Tooth. Robert had driven up from Southern
California to join me for an outing we'd been talking about for more than a
year. Tom Grundy and Iris had climbed it two years earlier and reported it a
fine adventure, but not one suited for a large Sierra Challenge group. It is
climbed infrequently and still has the original register from 1946 at the
summit. We chose to start at 6a to give us pretty much all day for the
route, even though the approach
isn't all that long. The Sierra Challenge folks had started from the same
Kearsarge Pass TH, but at 5a, so we missed the gathering. Zee Chunawala was
heading to Dragon Peak and joined us for the hike up the trail.
We spent the first hour on the lower part of the
Golden Trout Trail to climb
out of Onion Valley. The trail is
steep and poorly maintained, if at all, but with no pack animals it was far
preferred over the Kearsarge Pass Trail. In the middle section between Onion
Valley and the unnamed lakes, we found uncut downfall
across the trail
and eventually lost it in
a talus & boulder slope leading up to the
lakes. We regained it briefly
across a meadow where we took the right
branch in the drainage. We had lost the trail completely by the time we reached
the first of two lakes. We went around the north side of the lake and then
further up to the second lake over mellow terrain. Once at the first lake, we
could see
Dragon Peak rising high above the far side, with Dragon
Tooth clearly visible to Dragon Peak's right (north). At the second,
larger lake, we could see the features of both peaks to
better advantage, though they were still some distance off.
After passing the second lake on the south and west sides, our hiking became
more of a scramble with acres upon acres of cruddy morainal material to work
through. We parted ways with Zee who took a line up to Dragon Pass on
the south side of Dragon Peak. Robert and I scrambled
across boulders,
following
the drainage up to North Dragon Pass on the north side of
Dragon Tooth. The
last bit might be rated at class 3, but most of the
route to the pass was no more than class 2. It was 9:15a by the time we reached
the small saddle and looked down
the northwest side to Rae Lakes. The
continuing route over the pass looked no better than what
we'd just ascended, and I couldn't help but think how
awful it would be carrying a backpack over it. We unburdened ourselves of our
loads and went about sizing up Dragon Tooth from our vantage point.
In addition to beta from Tom and Iris, we had more from Richard Shore and
Natalie who had also climbed it in 2020, a month before Tom and Iris. Even with
both sets of descriptions and staring up the North Face, the route
was hardly obvious to either of us. While
Robert went about loading his harness with climbing gear, I scrambled up the
class 3-4 start on the left side to see if I could gain clarity with a closer
look. The rock was a bit crappy to start, but not too bad. It looked better
higher up. After gaining a ledge, I worked my way to the right but found only
difficulties above that. I retreated to the left side and decided that side
held more promise, but too difficult to solo, so back down I went to report my
findings. We seemed to burn an inordinate amount of time at the pass, reason
unclear. Maybe we were tired, maybe we figured there was no need to rush. The
weather was certainly better today than it had been the fast few days, no
threat of thunderstorms anywhere. In our musings, Robert had mentioned
something about folks leaving registers at passes, and only a few minutes later
I spied a small plastic bottle tucked under a rock. It had been left
in 1982 and had only a few entries, the last in 1991 - evidently the
hiking place was a little too good. We
signed it and tucked it back
where I'd found it. Ten minutes later we were ready to head up. Robert left his
pack at the pass while I shouldered mine with the rope atop, and we headed back
up
the class 3-4 section on the left side.
Once at the shelf on the left side, we roped up and got ready to
climb. Robert first tried
a direct line up, bold but overhanging. He
then moved left where he found
an easier route at 5.6 or 5.7. This
led to a second shelf above that I could not see on my earlier exploration.
Here he moved far right and set up a belay to
bring me up. It was a
sloping shelf with a solid anchor of three cams, positioned directly under the
crux. We didn't recognize it at first, as it seemed easier than the advertised
5.10+. We were both scoffing a bit until Robert started up for the second, very
short pitch. It was soon apparent that it would hardly be easy -
the thin crack would only take finger tips and was not buoyed by any
real foot placements. Robert set several small cams in
the crack before trying the harder moves which proved worthy of their rating.
He was hoping to be able to free the route in proper style, but ended up
hanging on the rope a few times as his arms became exhausted. He would shake
them out, add more chalk, then go back at it, eventually working his way up
without having to pull on any of the gear. It was an excellent effort,
I thought, but his disappointment was evident. After
passing the crux,
he put in another cam above this before moving right about 20ft to set up
an anchor and belay. Now it was my turn.
I had no such ambitions to free the route. I immediately got out the mini
ascenders I carried just for this purpose. I had thought that I had a cord
for my harness and a second for my feet, but when I uncoiled the pair I found
I had two of the same version for the harness. Hmmmm, not what I expected, but
I would make this work. I attached an ascender to each cord and then to the
rope, then the other ends of the cord to my harness. It worked even better than
expected, though I might not have been as successful if the crux had been
vertical. As I removed the three lower cams in the crack, I was glaringly aware
that my safety was depending on the one cam above the crack that was taking my
full
weight and transferring it to Robert at the anchor well to the right. If it
pulled, I would go crashing down in an awkward pendulum that would have me in
a world of hurt before the rope went taut at the anchor. I was happy to see it
held. Once above the crux, I collected this last piece and joined Robert at the
anchor. The anchor here was a piton and a small nut left by others in
decades
past, the same the previous two parties had used in 2020. It seemed a solid
arrangement. The rest of the climb was one long pitch using most of our 60m
rope, though not as technically difficult as the first two pitches. It goes
down a ramp (of sorts) to the right for about 60-80ft,
a short traverse,
then up, more or less directly
towards the summit. The crux of this pitch was a short section about
midway up, perhaps 5.4-5.5. By the time I had
joined Robert at the
top, it was 12:40p, about 3.5hrs after we had first reached North Dragon Pass.
It was no speed record to be sure, but it had been great fun.
The register was found in
a small cairn at the spacious top.
We relished
reading its four pages,
adding our names as the
7th ascent. However, we were soon realizing we weren't quite at the very top.
To
the west are a couple of large, awkward summit blocks that constituted
the highest point. I walked over to examine the two features. The lower block
takes a reachy mantle to gain its edge. One would then need to scoot along this
edge towards the second block, and make a stretch move onto the higher block to
"Ride the Tooth!" as Iris described it later. I backed off after the initial
mantle, suggesting it would probably be better to do this with a rope for
safety. Robert then went over to repeat the same
initial move I'd
made. We hemmed and hawed about the two blocks, eventually
convincing ourselves that we could climb them if we wanted, but that
doing so wasn't really necessary. The jury is still out as to whether that was
the right decision, but in the end we left them untrammeled.
Instead, we made our summit stay brief and then went about setting up for
two rappels. We moved northeast off our perch to find the first rap station.
Richard and Natalie had cut a piece of their rope and tied it around a block
to rap off. Tom and Iris had used the same rope piece two months later on their
climb. It wasn't looking so solid two years later, so we used a large piece of
the red webbing I was carrying to facilitate the rappel. Robert
went down first, dropping to
the top of our short P2 pitch
where he then tied into the piton/nut combo. After I descended, we pulled the
rope and set up
a second rappel with the remaining webbing we had with
us, backed up by another piece of the older Richard/Natalie rope. The
2nd rappel would not reach all
the way to the pass, but would make it to where we had started the roped
climbing atop
the lower ledge. We would have to
downclimb
the class 3-4 section
at the start, but having done it once already, it wasn't of much concern.
It was 2p by the time we had packed everything back up and
started down from the pass. After
the initial bit of
class 3 scrambling, the remainder was tame but somewhat slow.
It would take us more than two hours to
work our way back down the
3.5mi of
the drainage, the weather to continuing to cooperate nicely.
When we got back to the TH, we
found Zee hanging out with Jim at the
RV. He'd gotten
back several hours earlier, though most of the others would be out many hours
longer, not returning until after dark. I was not envying them, happy to join
Zee and Jim for an adult beverage in the shade of the RV...
Continued...
This page last updated: Fri Sep 9 11:01:38 2022
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