Route: East/north face standard Posted On: 9/22/2023, By: VeraUndertow Info: Beautiful but slightly windy day to be up high. Left Mill Creek TH around 7 AM and hiked up the standard South to East ramp. Some good choss and scree but summer conditions on South and East aspects. The C4 chimney was dry to get onto the north face and had a slung boulder on the top but that's where the fun began. Blazingtoes led a slight variation up the standard crux pitch due to snow while Heather belayed, the snow was really faceted sugar snow with ice underneath and would give out randomly without warning. Amy cleaned a bunch of snow off the route and placed 3 cams (not sure sizes) and then I followed up on top rope. My fingers were frozen within 1 minute of starting to climb and my shoes had ice on the soles making everything slightly more challenging then you'd want. Heather followed up right after on top rope then we hung out for a good while enjoying the summit of what has to be the hardest centennial peak I've done in the current conditions. We tied our two 60 meter ropes together and rapped around the chockstone instead of thru in one rap, anchor was in good condition. There was another rap station lower about half way down the east face that we also rapped with a single 60M. Long day with all the rope work and it was super cold above 13k. Definitely early winter conditions on the north face of Dallas and I don't think it's going anywhere any time soon unless we get a really warm dry spell. The 5.7 east face route looked dry and Chossinator looked right out of the picture with all the snow on the ridge there. Bring your A game and microspikes and maybe an ice axe wouldn't hurt either |
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Route: Standard Posted On: 8/5/2023, By: Chipmunk Info: Snow is avoidable on the entire route, except for at the base of the rappel/chockstone. Free climbed up, used two 30M ropes tied together for the rappel. All anchors in good shape. |
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Route: Southwest Rib/West Ridge Posted On: 7/16/2023, By: josephnephi Info: The final climb requires an additional 10-15 feet of exposed snow climbing. Used an ice axe and brought (but didn't use crampons). We roped up and started the final pitch from the beginning of the snow. Additionally, on the rappel off the summit, we bypassed the choke stone as underneath it was still quite full of snow. The rest of the route was snow free. |
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Route: Standard Posted On: 7/10/2023, By: ryansunshine20 Info: Still snowy up there. We were able to mostly stay on snow up the south face. Most of the areas around the traverse to the east face were basically dry. Just after the steep class 4 section the snow was very deep and unconsolidated. We had to turn around about 200 feet from the summit due to it being impassible because of the snow. I would wait until august to attempt this for a real chance to summit. On the way down some of the more exposed snow sections on the south face were impassible due to the softening snow so a lot of exposed scree surfing took place to bypass that. The snow on the exposed sections should melt here in the next week or so. |
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Route: Standard Posted On: 8/23/2022, By: Tornadoman Info: Route dry except for a little hail in the 2nd class 4 pitch (it's avoidable but may limit options). A bit of hail on north face, we did not need gear just careful foot placement. All anchors in good shape. |
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Route: Southwest Rib/West Ridge Posted On: 7/24/2022, By: Geckser Info: Great conditions this morning, 5 hours 20 minutes car to car. Glad to get down early before the late afternoon Lightning. We took the 5.7 variation to the summit. Fun little route for folks looking for an extra thrill. Glad to have the rope for rappelling down. A little snow at the base of the rappel but nothing that caused any issues. Super fun peak! Probably won't do it again though |
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Route: East Face Posted On: 7/24/2022, By: kempenjn Info: No snow except for the base of the summit rappel. All rap stations appear to be in good condition. 6 people in 11.5 hrs car to car. |
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Route: East face Posted On: 7/2/2022, By: zootloopz Info: Summer conditions except for some snow at the base of the summit pitch, and at the bottom of the long summit rappel. No biggie. Brought a 46m rope and split it into 2 raps. Rock did not feel that bad compared to all the other San Juan junk I've been on. 11 hours round trip. Solo'd up. Rappelled down. Hail around 2pm on the way down. Fun day! |
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Route: Northeast Posted On: 2/14/2022, By: blazintoes Info: Approached via Stan's shortcut. Was nice to scramble on rock. Then pounced directly up the south scree face. The snow was stair stepping quality with occasional punch if I stepped on an air pocket. A FFL helicopter flew by twice. Made good time to the standard route and once I turned to the east face the snow was terribly sugary and burned energy. Since I was solo I chose the standard 5.3 north scramble and it took me 90 minutes to rope solo 40 feet because once I set up my anchor point on top I got to climb it twice to retrieve gear. It was an outstanding winter weather day. Views aplenty. Rapped from the summit. The snow turned icy after the sun set and I front pointed down east and 600' down south. |
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Route: Standard Posted On: 10/11/2021, By: lkk8815 Info: Should have brought the cams - turned around just shy of the summit. South side approach from Mill Creek was sunny, wonderful, and dry until higher up where there was some intermittent snow. We brought spikes but the snow was soft enough to kickstep without them. Turning onto the north face was entering a whole new world. Cold, holding more snow than expected, and super icy in all the wrong places. The chimney was very slick and hard to protect. We spent over 2 hours getting through the chimney and trying different cracks to get up the summit pitch but couldn't find a way that felt safe enough with the gear we had. We had only brought some slings, tricams, and nuts. I think we would have made it if we'd just brought a few cams instead of trying to go lightweight. Even a tool would have helped. Also could have tried that route on the east face where there was significantly less snow, but at that point we were too frozen and over it to spend more time in the frigid shade. I was too frozen and focused to take any photos past the chimney. That whole ramp along the north face was holding a ton of snow, which made it not very easy to wander back and forth looking for different ways up. Leaving this condition report for future reference for people attempting in shoulder season, since this will be outdated info by tomorrow morning with more snow on the way. I'm gonna be real grumpy about this until we go back and finish it. Guess that's how things go sometimes! |
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Route: East Face Posted On: 9/6/2021, By: supranihilest Info: Trail to the south slopes is in good shape. On the ascent we were led astray by several cairns far to the left of where we should have been; if you find yourself climbing past a red webbing rappel anchor you're in the wrong place and too far left. The proper route trends up and to climber's right to a saddle with a large, obvious cairn on it. Class 4 headwall was easier and more solid than expected but test every hold. The "Class 4" chimney felt like Class 5 to both myself and my climbing partner and was the only part of the route we definitely felt warranted a rope and protection. The upper pitches to the summit felt more like Class 3-4 on rock more solid than expected. Rap stations at the summit, at the top of the standard rap chockstone, the top of the "Class 4" chimney, and the top of the Class 4 headwall all in good shape. A piece of advice from Mike Rodenak (Chicago Transplant) who we ran into the day before: instead of finishing the standard rap through the chockstone hole, rap over to the top of the "Class 4" chimney and rap that instead. The chockstone descent is horrible, steep, bare hardpan with ZERO traction. We followed Mike's advice (thank you!) and had an easier time. Another piece of advice: bring microspikes. There's 2,000+ feet of scree and hardpan on this route, sometimes very exposed, that will be 10x easier with microspikes. |
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Route: East Face Posted On: 9/6/2021, By: Danger_D Info: Completely dry. All rap anchors (summit, and the 2 class 4 sections) are all in great shape. The 4th class chimney felt more like low 5th IMO, and my less experienced partner appreciated a rope. On the short crux pitch I placed a .4 at the belay, a .5 in about 10 feet up, and built an anchor about 10 feet above the crux pitch in a dihedral using a .75, 1, and 2 (could use less, but I had them). Didn't use rope after that. In general, this trip report was super helpful for route-finding near the top https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=15410 |
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Route: Standard Posted On: 8/22/2021, By: yaktoleft13 Info: Dallas received the same dusting snow that the other peaks in the area received. Dry until crossing over to the north face (we used the wormhole to the right under the rap route), then a couple inches on the crux pitch, which made it very spicy. Lightly snowed on us while climbing the pitch too. A couple warm days would likely melt it out, but for now come prepared. |
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Route: Standard Posted On: 8/16/2021, By: Will_E Info: Webbing and quicklink at the top are in good shape. I didn't use the two lower rap stations, didn't pay attention to condition, light rain started after summit rap so I hightailed it outta there. |
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Route: alternate starts Posted On: 8/10/2021, By: Wentzl Info: So the start of the technical climbing on Dallas has several variations. Yesterday I tried a third start and my condition update is just to share my observations and compare the three. The southernmost, and the one you come to first, is to climb up under the chockstone and pull through a small hole. There is still a small amount of ice in there as of yesterday, but while wet, was climbable. I consider this the middle of the three in terms of difficulty. Going north, next up is the "standard" start. There is a bulge to pull over and usually some webbing at the top. This seemed to me the most difficult of the three. There was some blue webbing for a belay station above the bulge yesterday. If you miss the bulge, you come to the north face and can just start out on this airy wall. While by far the most exposed, I also thought this was the easiest of the three starts. The climbing on this start is similar to the final moves to the summit. While Roach says these starts are 4th class and the crux 5.3, it seemed to me that with the exception of the North Face start, the other two were more difficult than the finish. |
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Route: Standard North Face Posted On: 8/8/2021, By: Anima Info: The standard (5.3) route is in good shape. The entire route is dry lest the ledges on the north face, but it did not interfere with the climbing. All of the 5th class is totally dry... and easier than expected. Roach's description is absolutely awful and does not accurately describe the climb. Use trip reports on this site instead. The Summit rappel anchor has both webbing and steel cable (almost identical to the one that was put into the hour glass anchor on Little Bear) and all other anchors on the mountain are in very good shape and appear to be from this season. Beautiful peak. a 60-meter rope is ideal for the rappels. |
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Route: East Face Posted On: 7/12/2021, By: davisschenk Info: Route is snow free except for area directly under the rappel. |
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Route: Mill Creek Posted On: 9/20/2020, By: angry Info: Route is dry until you exit the cave portion of the chockstone. From that point, unavoidable snow to belay ledge and crux pitch to summit. |
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Route: Bootleg gully up, standard (Roach) down Posted On: 8/7/2020, By: HikesInGeologicTime Info: Some snow under the summit pitch's chockstone, dry otherwise. Alternate route up a gully to climber's right of standard had some fun, solid Class 3/4 scrambling. Be mindful of start times even on bluebird days, as the cairns and trail segments below the cliff bands on the standard route are, shall we say, challenging to follow in the dark. |
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Route: Mill Creek Posted On: 7/20/2020, By: dwoodward13 Info: Summer conditions. Snow patch at the base of the belay station has melted enough and its totally avoidable. Incredible mountain. |
