Alpine Goodness at the East Face of Chair

Trip Report

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Comments (18)

Geography

Trip Reports in Washington

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Chair Peak

Trip Reports

Alpine Goodness at the East Face of Chair

North Face in Winter

Alpine Goodness at the East Face of Chair

Page Type: Trip Report

Location: Washington, United States, North America

Date Climbed/Hiked: Feb 18, 2006

Activities: Mountaineering, Ice Climbing, Mixed

Season: Spring, Winter

Page By: Martin Cash

Created/Edited: Feb 20, 2006 / Feb 22, 2006

Object ID: 174513

Hits: 3372

Page Score: 83.89% - 24 Votes

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TR

With the weekend approaching and the forecast showing clear and cold weather, I was drooling over the alpine possibilities available. It has been a long, iceless, and rainy winter in the Cascades. It would have been nice to try a bigger line like something on Stuart, Dragontail, Big Four, or Colonial, but neither Bruce or I had done a snow / alpine ice climb since last June. We decided to try the East Face of Chair Peak at Snoqualmie Pass. There is very little info out there on this route in winter conditions. I had heard from a friend that it was quite a bit harder than the Northeast Buttress or North Face. This sounded great, something challenging but easily doable in a day.

Bruce and I left the car around 7:00 in the frigid single digit temps and began the hike up the valley towards Source Lake. We reached this quickly and started up the headwall. In 2 hours from the car, we reached the basin below the East Face of Chair. The route looked good with a fair amount of ice on the lower portion, but the crux waterfall was not completely formed.

We roped up, put gear on, and began the climb up the steepening snow slope to the base of the face. It had become very windy and our faces where being pummeled by sprindrift occasionally.

I reached the first mixed band and hunted around for a crack to set up an anchor. The rock quality on Chair Peak is fairly poor, and is quite compact yielding few good cracks. I finally found one just to the right of some really sketchy thin ice on slab. I traversed over but had no idea how I was going to hang on and excavate out the crack to get some good placements. Thankfully I found a edge on the rock to put my foot on. I brought Bruce up. Due to the thin ice over slab and the steep nature of the terrain here, this was a hanging belay.

I lead up the first pitch which started with a mixture of steep snow and alpine ice with challenging ice bulges. The angle was sustained around 65 degrees with 75 degree bulges. I placed a couple of screws, but only got about 2 inches of bite on them. The upper half of this pitch was a bit easier and consisted of 55 degree snow. I looked over to my right and noticed 2 climbers starting up the Northeast Buttress route.

I started scouting around for an anchor knowing I didn't have much rope left. I couldn't find anything at first and was getting worried because I had no interest in simulclimbing this type of terrain with only a couple crappy screws between us. Fortuntely, after I pryed off a loose flake with my ice tool, I found a good micro crack. I stomped out a good stance then hammered in a knifeblade and a long thin bugaboo. I belayed Bruce up.

We looked up above us at the crux mixed band and things did not look good. The main waterfall was not formed and did not look climbable. There appeared to be some possibilites over to the right, so I lead up this way. I finally reached the mixed band after about 100 foot of 55 degree snow to discover that right below the band was this nasty section of thin sugar snow on smooth slab. This prevented me from getting up to climb the right waterfall. This section was very unnerving since I had zero protection in. I finally found a placement and started my traverse to the right. I placed another piece and tried to go up but it was more of the same thin snow on slab. I downclimbed to a rock outcropping and thankfully found a good anchor. I brought Bruce up and admired the fine view from my perch.

Bruce started the traverse over through the difficult thin section.

He was not too happy about having to downclimb the steep snow down to the anchor. Fortunately, the going is a bit easier there. I racked up and lead up and to the right going over a small waterfall with a good ice screw placement at the base. After that the route eases up to 40 degree snow so I stretched the rope to its end, then simulclimbed with me reaching the false summit just before Bruce reached the waterfall.

Bruce arrived to some cold and windy conditions. We chatted with another party then started the descent. The downclimb to the rap station went smoothly where we met up with the other party and tied our ropes together for a full 60 meter rap. I went first, then came Bruce...

Bruce started down while waited for the other party. The descent after the rappel is fairly steep at first, about 40 degrees or so, but eases off after about 200 feet.

The hike out went quickly and was uneventful. What a great climb. It is so nice to have an area within an hour of my place to enjoy like this. It almost made me forget about the 2 straight months of rain we got, almost.

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Viewing: 1-18 of 18

tazz

thanks

Voted 10/10

for the TR. The images you took get my adreniline moving...heh. Nice work! I hope to be climbing like this someday. If I don't get too friggen old and fall apart first. :)))

Posted Feb 21, 2006 2:24 am


	Martin Cash	Re: thanks
	Hasn't voted	Thanks a lot for the nice words. A fun area to play around in so close to home.
		Posted Feb 22, 2006 7:39 pm

rpc

Great read!

Voted 10/10

If we ever seriously get into snow/ice, would love to do Chair (probably the easier route though :).

Enjoyed the read, esp "nasty section of thin sugar snow on smooth slab".....heh, heh - sounds like fun ;)

Nice job Martin!

Posted Feb 22, 2006 9:51 pm


	Martin Cash	Re: Great read!
	Hasn't voted	Thanks a lot! It's a fun place to climb in the winter with the short approach and steep terrain. Yeah, the NEB or NF have trees on them which definately eases the mind a bit when it comes to protection.
		Posted Feb 22, 2006 11:08 pm

hkutuk

Nice trip

Voted 10/10

Looks like a fun trip, nice job Martin & Bruce! Clear but very cold weekend, we were in the Goat Rocks backcountry skiing and despite the sun the snow never softened, good conditions for you guys but must not be fun to follow the downhill traverse without pro...
Isn't east face of Chair an ok rock route in summer?

Posted Feb 22, 2006 11:41 pm


	Martin Cash	Re: Nice trip
	Hasn't voted	Thanks man. Yes, it is a rock route in the summer, rated II 5.6 I believe.
		Posted Feb 23, 2006 1:47 am

Brian Jenkins

Great read

Hasn't voted

and good pics. Looks like a nice one, Martin.

Posted Feb 23, 2006 2:56 am


	Martin Cash	Re: Great read
	Hasn't voted	Thanks a lot Brian.
		Posted Feb 26, 2006 10:49 pm

mvs

Great TR

Voted 10/10

Very nice, I miss ol' Chair Peak! There aren't many East Face TRs out there, it's usually the NE Buttress or N Face.

As a rock route in summer it has a bad reputation. A friend of mine tried, getting a full 60 meters up then downclimbing completely unable to find pro. A few years ago a climber fell to his death while soloing when a handhold broke. FWIW, I think winter is the way to go!

Posted Feb 26, 2006 7:33 pm


	Martin Cash	Re: Great TR
	Hasn't voted	Michael, Thanks a lot for the nice comments. Yeah, the rock on Chair is not exactly confidence inspiring, much better when frozen together. :-)
		Posted Feb 26, 2006 10:50 pm

Sam Mills

Good one Martin

Voted 10/10

And as always, cool pics. Thanks!

Posted Feb 27, 2006 2:18 pm

jtschanz

Great report

Voted 10/10

Just saw this one, Martin. Great report and photos - way to get out there and take advantage of the clear skies (and sub-zero temps!). Nice job on the route - thanks for posting!

Posted Feb 27, 2006 5:21 pm

johnk

pleasure to read

Voted 10/10

wonderful report martin! you really get a good feel of what it was like out there with the pics.

Posted Feb 27, 2006 6:55 pm

Steve Larson

Good job

Voted 9/10

Nice report. Sounds like a fun climb! The photos helped tell the story.

Posted Feb 28, 2006 12:23 am

BobK

Great TR and Photos

Voted 9/10

Wish I had something like this one hour from where I live! Photos are great and really help tell the story.

Posted Feb 28, 2006 1:28 pm

Martin Cash

Thanks!

Hasn't voted

Thanks a lot to everyone for their nice comments on my TR.

Martin

Posted Mar 1, 2006 5:10 pm

Diggler

Thanks for the great read

Hasn't voted

Looks like it was a fun climb & a great day in the hills! Could you maybe scale down the photos the next time, though? They're great & a lot won't fit onto my screen at once, which is a bummer.

Posted Mar 1, 2006 5:37 pm

Jason Halladay

Nice!

Voted 9/10

Looks like a beautiful day and an enjoyable climb. Wish it were snowing here in the southwest!

Posted Mar 3, 2006 5:01 am

Viewing: 1-18 of 18