Dragon’s Back
“Dragon’s Back Peak” 12,973’
This is Regina’s report. She wrote all this.
For starters, you will notice this is NOT a report for Blackwall Mountain, but that's all part of the fun of spending time in these mountains we love so much. Before we left I took a few minutes to study Alex Henes' trip report for Dragon's Back one more time, and took a few screenshots of the upper route. His report was invaluable. We were able to follow he and Kristi's exact track and it made for an enjoyable route up this beautiful peak. His report is linked here, give it a read, you won't be disappointed.
The alarm went off way too early, as they always do, and Kiefer and I were once again out the door and headed up to Animas Forks, this time to head up the awful side of Engineer Pass. It's really only a few spots that are bad, but those spots definitely require a good driver. That driver is Kiefer. We took our time driving up the pass, and after reaching the crest dropped down and parked at the pullout that serves as the trailhead for the Horsethief Pack Trail.
Would Colorado finally allow us to get up this beautiful peak? We shouldered our packs and started up the familiar trail. Last time (Wildhorse) the mashed potato snow slowed our progress significantly, but this time we were able to speed across the flats and soon we were skirting by Wildhorse Peak and enroute to the pass southwest of unranked 12er, 12,916'.
The day had started as a beautiful day as forecast (20%). It is important to note that with weather forecasting, 20% means 20% of the area WILL get storms, but we were feeling confident as we trekked the miles across the flats. As we stood on the pass looking at Dragon's Back and the pond below it we could see the clouds to the west beginning to get taller and more ominous looking. Kiefer at that point said, "Well I think we will get one of the peaks, let's go get Blackwall". I immediately said "No, I want Dragon's Back, we carried all this extra climbing gear up here, let's use it." "Are you sure? You're working on the San Juan 13ers, and Blackwall is the 13er." "No, like I told Alex when he was sending me beta, the 12er is the priority today, if we can only get one, it's Dragon's Back".
I will admit my stomach dropped a bit looking at Dragon's Back from the pass. I had never seen the peak this close before, and it looks ferocious. It is a Dragon with teeth, and not toothless. This trip report got named while standing on that pass.
Crossing the Alpine Plateau to Lake City. (Secret short cut).
Yup. The sign of the times! Fall is here.
Blackwall Mountain (13,077'). Which we went back for a few weeks later.
The summit of Dragon Back.
The access gully to attain passage
Beer back at the trailhead
Regina on top rope up the "money" section
Regina rappelling past the access shelf
My summit beer back down at the lake.
We descended to the pond, hoping that Colorado would allow us a weather window to enjoy a snack at the pond, after summiting, OR even miraculously the weather would clear and allow a summit of Blackwall after all.
We skirted the pond to the left on a faint trail and were able to easily locate the access gully in Alex's report. This gully is the key to the route, and I cannot stress this enough, stay to the climbers left side of the gully.
The gully is grassy, but filled with loose rock and kitty litter scree. Staying to the left allowed for us to use the left cliff wall as leverage. Another key point I would like to add is you do not go to the top of the gully to access the route. Kiefer and I reached the top of the gully, and Kiefer asked if we were still on track. I pulled up GAIA, and we were too high. I took a few steps down the gully, looked off to my right and saw the two blue rappel slings I had screenshots of, and the "kitty litter ledge". I told Kiefer to come down and join me and we got ready to cross the ledge toward the rappel station. There is a cairn in the center of the gully where you should turn left to access the ledge, however the rappel station, and ledge are easy to miss on the way up, so I recommend continuing to look up and to the left as you ascend. The ledge is about 2/3 way up the short gully.
Fall is in the air!
I will also say that the ledge is much easier than it looks. After reading Alex's report, I was actually more nervous about the ledge than the actual 4th-5th class climb to the summit. Kiefer and I were both a bit nervous about the ledge crossing, so since we had a 30m rope with us, we decided to use it, and after shimmying into our harnesses, Kiefer crossed the ledge with no protection, anchored himself to the slings and brought me across. Kiefer said it wasn't nearly as bad as he expected. After my first couple gingerly steps onto the ledge I wholeheartedly agree that it was absolutely not necessary to use a rope on this section, but hey, at least we got some practice in. From the kitty litter rappel station there is a short walk to a class 3 gully on the right.
We scrambled the gully one at a time as the rock was mostly solid, but still had enough loose rock to be problematic in such a narrow gully. From the top of the gully it was another short walk/scramble over a small rib to access our route to the summit. The route starts with a short 20 foot class four climb up a rock face to a small ledge wide enough for two people to squeeze onto.
We roped up again here. Kiefer once again led the mostly class 4 pitch to access the summit ridge. There is a short 5.0 move about 3/4 of the way up. Holds are plentiful, but some of the flakes are loose, so test everything twice, because oh boy is it exposed. Kiefer once again anchored himself to the second set of rappel slings and I tied into the rope and climbed up. I found the climbing enjoyable and cleared the low 5th pitch with ease.
We untied and left our rope threaded through the rappel slings and headed up to the true summit. The summit was maybe 10 steps from the top of the climbing.
