Dow Williams - Sep 24, 2015 1:05 pm Date Climbed: Sep 5, 2015
Dragtooth
A great adventure with Casey, but the death block is for real. I led the crux 4th pitch dealing the death block at the top. You have to climb around its right side. For a climber who has climbed around many death blocks in his career, I have seen no worse than this one. It is sliding down the corner basically...the size of a large horse. This is a hump car to car as we did it. Would camp next time for sure, that is a sweet bivy that is also used for the Matterhorn. The dihedral did offer two outstanding pitches and the 5th pitch is pretty damn good as well. The descent was a pain in the ass with critical beta, that being that you should descend straight away from the summit to the base of the ridge (backside) and traverse over to the base of the col with the Matterhorn, then re-ascend, taking the right fork. The gully you descend in is nasty to say the least, but it eventually gives way to studded glacier ice and returns over large boulder to the tarn bivy site with lush meadows.
Dow Williams - Sep 24, 2015 1:05 pm Date Climbed: Sep 5, 2015
DragtoothA great adventure with Casey, but the death block is for real. I led the crux 4th pitch dealing the death block at the top. You have to climb around its right side. For a climber who has climbed around many death blocks in his career, I have seen no worse than this one. It is sliding down the corner basically...the size of a large horse. This is a hump car to car as we did it. Would camp next time for sure, that is a sweet bivy that is also used for the Matterhorn. The dihedral did offer two outstanding pitches and the 5th pitch is pretty damn good as well. The descent was a pain in the ass with critical beta, that being that you should descend straight away from the summit to the base of the ridge (backside) and traverse over to the base of the col with the Matterhorn, then re-ascend, taking the right fork. The gully you descend in is nasty to say the least, but it eventually gives way to studded glacier ice and returns over large boulder to the tarn bivy site with lush meadows.