http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW9o57t7hzg&feature=youtu.be


Joe Lind from CdA posted this July 5 2012. I've added comments on the routes.

"Went to Chimney today. As we arrived at the base I noticed a ton, probably hundreds of tons, of rock on the snowfield that seemed out of place. Looking up at the East Face I was shocked.

The following routes no longer exist!

Greystoke
Magnum Force
UNI
White Lightning
Kimmie
Yahoody
Pitch 2 of Cooper Hiser

The following partial routes or routes still exist.

East Face Direct
Canary Legs
Cooper Hiser pitch 1
Free Friends
Tsunami
Illusion/Eye of the Tiger
Graymatter
NE Face"



No surprise really. New routes to do now!!! ...but likely you don't want to be there until things settle down some. ;-)

Zach Turner's photos:







A HUGE CAUTION here. Of the 3 major flake systems left intact (East Face Direct column, Free Friends Column and Eye of the Tiger Column) on the east face, only the 4th has come off in my life time climbing there (40+ years of climbing there and nothing had changed drastically since the 1930s that I know of) And while the Cooper/Hiser chimney was an obvious hazard to me for decades the rest of the route is now rubble in the valley. As are the ones I considered VERY solid... My point is none of the east face climbs are safe right now IMO....

Any one of those huge flake systems could just as easily fall off as Magnum Force and the rest did last week. I would suspect the thing to be rather unstable after a huge rock fall like this or any time after heavy rain of a melt freeze.

Better to be careful and conservative here for a while!

The climb pictured below, Yahoody, and all the climbs left of the climbs is gone!

DAMN!!! I should have done that when I was in there last year! :{

Thanks for the info, WOW!!!

as Dr. Shipman is constantly reminding me: "geologic time includes NOW..."

I just wanted to add that the rock fall occurred some time last winter. I hiked into the base of the east face in early May. At this time much of the debris was still buried in the snow but was obvious enough to be visible from Pack River Road.

At least in part, Kimmie, Yahoody and the Cooper Hiser are still intact.