The Dragon

This is Rusty Baillie's visionary line up the gnarliest stretch of the Painted Wall. It is a serious helping of old school, whup azz.

It has 16 pitches of diverse, mixed, and wandering climbing on often uninspiring stone.

Whenever a climb has well-known named features that define the route, you can pretty well bet it is a classic route with historic importance. Well, the Dragon has a slew of named features, features that inspire "fear and loathing" to those who know, features like the first & second Dragons (large and fearsome pegmatite barriers)...or, Kor's Cave (may it rest in pieces)...or, the Rubbly Ledge, or the first and second scree fields...or the Stygian traverse (aka the Zuider Zee), not to mention the named belays like: 3 Bolt, Bugger (aka booger) belay, the Broken Hanger belay, the Horn Belay, the LBL (Lovely Bivouac Ledge) and the Buzzard's Roost. My all time favorite named feature on the Dragon, howeve, is the Yellow Queeziness. Sounds inviting doesn't it? With that many named features, the Dragon has just got to be a "Classic" right?

From the upper left side of the 2nd scree field of the Painted Wall, climb up and leftward to the neck of the 1st Dragon and on to the top.

The exit cracks are obvious features high on the wall. The 1st & 2nd scree fields are obvious features down low, but if you intend to venture up the wall in between, you really should possess very keen route and gear finding abilities!

A full Black Canyon wall rack. It is now possible and desireable for a competent team to leave the hammer and iron at home.