Chair Peak
Elain and I climbed Chair Peak via a variation on the Northeast Buttress route.
We arrived at the Alpental parking lot before dawn, and were walking up the cat track by 6:00 AM. The hike to the basin above Thumb Tack Rock took about 2 hours. Daybreak brought bright sun and warming temperatures, which had us a bit concerned about icefall on the route. We left our snowshoes in the basin, and followed boot tracks up to a ridge that runs northeast from Chair Peak. We then traversed along the ridge to the base of the route.
By 9:00 AM we had racked our gear and were climbing. The route started out on a snow ramp that led into a gully. The gully narrowed and steepened, and then opened up to a snow slope below some trees. With a bit of simul-climbing, we reached our first belay spot at a tree. We had protected the first pitch with a picket, an ice screw, and a sling on a flake.
The second pitch climbed along the crest of the buttress, With a bit of simul-climbing, we reached a depression in the snow beneath a rock promontory. We protected the second pitch with a tree sling and a pin. From the second belay, the terrain directly above appeared to be steep and mixed. We had already climbed the East Face variation in a previous (autumn) climb of Chair Peak, so we decided to try traversing to the right, around the rock promontory.
A half pitch of traversing and climbing got us to our third belay spot, at a rap anchor below a gully. The gully appeared to be steep and mixed, but looked like it might go.
The fourth pitch proved to be the crux of the climb, involving some mixed moves and steep steps of ice in the gully, and an airy traverse across a fluting of steep, disturbingly loose snow. During the fourth pitch, I had brief moment of panic: I was in the middle of pulling over a short vertical ice step 15m above my last piece of pro, when the rope would not budge for a few moments. Fortunately I soon got some slack, and later found that the problem had been a tangle at the belay. The fourth pitch was protected with two pins. The fourth belay spot was straddling a small sapling on a 55-degree snow slope. At this point, it had clouded over and was starting to snow a bit. We were also getting a bit tired, and were anxious to finish the climb.
We simul-climbed for a few hundred feet on a rising traverse across 45-degree snow slopes before reaching a col below the true summit. From there, it was a short scramble around to the south side of the summit stack and up onto the summit. The summit had a huge cornice on it that resembled a frozen wave. It was 2:00 PM.
We down-climbed from the summit back to the col, and started hunting for the descent gully. After some discussion we came to realize that the south gully was on the other side of a rib extending southwest from the south summit. We climbed up onto the rib, and rappelled into the gully from a tree anchor. The first rappel got us almost to the base of the south gully. Some down-climbing on good neve got us to the col above the East Face gully. At the top of the gully teetered a snow cornice the size of a sofa. We rappelled quickly over and beneath it, hoping that the cornice would not fall down. Two rappels got us to the snow slopes below the East Face. We post-holed back to our gear cache. The abundant avalanche debris in the basin motivated us to pack quickly. We made fast time snowshoeing down the snow slopes toward the Source Lake trail. As we were hiking down the trail, we heard skiers coming toward us, and thought it might be the ski patrol on their final sweep of the day. Since hikers are not allowed on the trail, we quickly ran into the woods and down to the cat track. We reached the car at 6:00 PM.
Gear we used: 50m x 8.5mm double ropes; #1.5 tri-cam, #4 and #6 bugaboos; #4 hex; #1 angle; Ushba Ural-alp wedge piton; picket; 16 cm ice screw; lots of slings; 1 screamer; 9/16" webbing to back up a rappel anchor. As is our usual practice on winter climbs, we carried a stove and some fuel, and we each carried our homemade nylon bivy sacks and extra clothes, as well as avalanche probes, beacons, and shovels.
Things we learned:
Chair Peak
Chair Peak. Our approximate climbing
route is shown in red. Belays are shown
with red circles. Beyond the second belay,
our route goes over towards the North Face
and out of the picture.
Steve, at the col just below the main summit of Chair Peak
Elain on the summit of Chair Peak
The top of the East Face Gully, showing a large
cornice of snow and ice.
Elain on the third rappel
Elain downclimbing
Elain descending towards Source Lake
Chair Peak
Snoqualmie Mountain