Index Upper Town Wall - Green Dragon 2/2/2008
Trip: Index Upper Town Wall - Green Dragon
Date: 2/2/2008
Trip Report:This is just a little trip report to mostly report on conditions at the Upper Town Wall.
On Saturday Nate and I went up to try Green Dragon. The idea was to climb it in 2 days. We met up with fenderfour and argus since they were going to give Town Crier a try in a day (after finishing the first pitch which was really bad, they decided to go for some hamburgers instead, smart choice)
Saturday:
Nate leads pitch 1 (5.9 pitch was mostly aided and free climbed at the top). This was a scary pitch since there was a whole bunch of snow at the top of the first pitch. That meant that Nate had to dig a whole bunch of snow to find placements for gear. He also had to transition to free climbing at the top of the pitch were there was snow. This made for some sketchy climbing. Mean while I was trying to avoid most of the chunks (some up to 10 inches wide) of snow that were being hurled by Nate. Fenderfour had the same problem leading to the right of us.
I lead pitch 2 (all aid climbing) and this was much safer than pitch 1. The only thing was that some small parts of the crack were filled with water and slightly mossy slick stuff. Other than that it was still good. After getting to the top of pitch 2 we rapped down. We left two ropes so that I could try to come on Sunday to finish the route.
Sunday
Nate was sick so limegreen came with me to give the route a try. We jumared up the fixed ropes I had left on saturday. Some of the rope was covered in water ice. That made for some exciting jumaring. As I was jumaring up pitch 2, snow started to fall from the top of the route. Turns out 2 BASE jumpers were up there and it was cool to see them jump. Limegreen took the lead of pitch 3 and while she was leading, she would break small icicles (1/4inch diameter about 1 inch long) and hurled down over to me. However most of the time it was just dripping water from the roof. We reached the top of pitch 3 and decided to rap down since we didn't think we had enought time to make it up the route.
(Note: Nate, Limegreen and I are pretty new to aid climbing. We do have experience free climbing (doing trad)) The whole route seemed ok to climb. I bet a good efficient aid climbing team could do the route with out much problems. However still be careful of the first pitch since all that snow at the top of pitch 1 makes for some dicy climbing. Also remember early morning some parts of the crack are ice covered.)
Limegreen leading p3
Me leading p2 (mandatory butt shot)
Nate leading p1
Argus belaying fenderfour.
Many thanks to fenderfour and counterfeitfake for the beta.
Gear Notes:We used standard aid climbing gear. Gaitors would have been useful on saturday. My toes were wet and cold.
Approach Notes:Most of the trail was covered with snow. We got lost at first trying to find the wall. However we managed and now there is a boot track to the base of the route.
