Glacier Mountaineering Society

Sat, Sep 11 2010 - Dragon's Tail #2 (View Original Event Details)

Coordinator(s):		Jim Foster
Participants:		Trevor Helwig, Greg Kushnak, Jim Foster, Ken McDermott, Jodi Smith, Logan Smith

Write Up:
The forecast held pretty much all week, 20% chance of rain in the afternoon, cloudy, windy and 50s to 60s. When we arrived at Logan Pass though the air temp was 37°F according to Stephen's car thermometer and guessing the wind speed at about 20 mph put the wind chill at 25°F, brrrrr. Six of us started out all bundled up at around 0915 trying to walk fast enough to get the internal furnace cranking so we could warm up. We made the col between Reynolds and Dragon's Tail in 1h 33 minutes with a very brisk wind especially when we were profiled on the skyline. Once we were on the lee side of the Tail we took a little break to shed a layer or two and shift gear around a bit. Jodi had hers and Logan's helmets in her pack and as she was pulling her wind jacket out her helmet got away from her and began rolling downhill. We all shouted at it to "stop!" but it ignored us and kept gently rolling over each break in the terrain - almost stopping in a couple of places. It just seemed to have a mind of its own. Finally just as it approached the "event horizon" (the edge of a cliff) it came to a stop laughing at us. Jodi launched after it and had to gain back at least 150 feet of elevation to join us again. After describing our route to everyone we began the side hill trek across the east face of Dragon's Tail. Once in the serious cliff bands we donned our helmets and proceeded. Along the way I glanced at the undersides of some of the rock and saw icicles hanging so we knew the temperature wasn't much above freezing. The rock ducks I left from the week before made the scramble across and up to the ridge easy and we were soon standing, or better leaning, on the summit ridge. The overhead clouds were billowing dark gray masses that flew up the west face, over the ridge and down into Nirvana below. Spectacular sight. We made the summit in 3h 26 minutes and quickly shot the summit photo before retreating to the lee side for some lunch and to get warm. Logan was oblivious to the wind and cold and was busy making snow balls and filling in the holes in the summit cairn with snow. The lunch break was quick and we were on our way back down sooner than last week. I took a detour further along the Tail to scout out a route that could lead toward Comeau Pass and around Hidden Lake. It looked very doable. All summitted which included Jodi Smith, Logan Smith, Ken McDermott, Greg Krushnak, Trevor Helwig and Jim Foster. We burned 4,347 calories on the climb, walked 20,297 steps which roughly translates to just about 10 miles and climbed 2,685 vertical feet. The extra steps from last week were three detours I made on the way down. Great start to acclimating for winter :)

Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Tim Anderson at twamontana@gmail.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.