Chris Sheridan high on Enter The Dragon. Photo by...
Description
Enter The Dragon roughly follows the line of a rarely done summer rock route known as Old Route (5.7). As a mixed climb, the route offers six quality pitches of moderate but strenuous climbing to a great summit.
The route has likely been climbed as a mixed route before, so maybe this is just a rediscovery of an old route for a new generation. With that in mind, its not too much of a stretch to give the mixed route a new name, like the route Left Chimney, which was often overlooked until someone renamed it Dreamweaver.
Enter The Dragon climbs the center of the south face of the Dragon Tail. Start by climbing up the Dead Elk Couloir and traversing into the top of a large snow ledge.
P1: Climb an iced up, right facing corner system for a forty feet. Run the rope up easier terrain and belay on the left (150ft, M4).
P2: Climb blocky mixed terrain on the left side of the gully system past a pair of crux bulges. Again, belay on the left about 30ft down from a steep chimney (150ft, M4).
P3: Kick steps up and right and climb the steep chimney past fragile snow mushroom (unless your lucky) then up easier terrain to a belay on the righ (150ft, M4).
P4: Climb up the left side of the gully past a short squeeze chimney with great featured rock then through a small overhang. Once past the overhang, angle up and right towards a notch in the south east ridge of the Dragon Tail (150ft, M4-).
P5: Climb up to the notch the work your way up the south west ridge until its possible to break right on a ledge system leading to the base of the east face of the summit block (100ft, 5.6).
P6: We didn't climb pitch 6 due to the usual assortment of excuses: cold hands, bad weather, approaching darkness, ext. From the view from our highpoint and by looking at pictures later on, there looked to be about one pitch of 5.7 terrain remaining through steep but featured terrain.
Location
From the summit or the route, descend north then down the Dragon Tail Couloir. It looks like it is possible to descend east from the notch in the south east ridge but having fallen for this trap, I don't recommend it. A huge overhang is directly below, with the lip of the overhang about 180ft above couloir. You may find yourself hanging in the middle of space wondering what to do next. If you have to bail, rappelling the line of ascent will greatly reduce your chances of having a really bad day.
Protection
Cams to a #3, stoppers, one specter, one thin knife blade an maybe a few other pins.
Photos of Enter The Dragon (aka Old Route) Slideshow
We descended east, from the notch in the south east ridge in two long rappels, one about 200ft, the second about 230ft. The anchor we used for the second and last rappel was about 50ft above the lip of the large roof. When I got to the lip of roof it looked like the ropes were about ten feet above snow, so I went for it. It turned out that the ends of the rope were about about 30ft above the snow. Getting down to the snow required letting one side of the rope (the side without the knot at the anchor) slip out of the belay device and using the friction of the rope sliding through the anchor above somewhat slow our falls. When I went, my partner, Andy saw the rope sliding through the anchor and grabbed it. That slowed me down some and I hit the deep powder snow with a nice soft landing. When Andy came down, there was no one above to return the favor. When the rope slipped through his belay device, he came down fast and landed feet up hill, then toppled over backwards. With the rush of relief, we sat there and laughed for five minutes straight.
Chris: 1st, this routes look fun - Thanks for posting!
2nd, in your description you mention the "Dead Elk Couloir". Is this the same as the "Dragon's Tooth Couloir"? There appears to be about 4 different names for the couloir that ascends between the Dragon's Tail Rock Buttress and the Dragon's Tooth Rock Buttress. Other names I've heard are "Dragon's Egg Couloir" and "Tower Gully". There must be some kind of magical curse in this area that has warped out minds... But my question is, do you know what the "oldest/original name" for this couloir is? Seems that you have access to some older information that seems less available. Cheers!
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