Trip: Chair Peak - NE buttress

Date: 4/23/0

Trip Report:
Brandon Gratias and I climbed Chair peak today. Fantastic day. Morning Start was beautiful. The route was great, enough ice to put in 4 screws and we used 1 picket (sketchy in the current snow conditions)


At the rock outcrop we opted to go left for the ice step. The other team opted left, they seemed to have some troubles.



Topping out.


Getting out was a bit sketcy we had no place to rappell due to massive cornices. We down climbed the backside and traversed then climbed back up to the top of one of the couloirs and got lucky it was the only one without the cornice!



Climbers on route as we descended.

Gear Notes:
4 screws, 1 picket, sunscreen.

Approach Notes:
Snowshoes would have been very nice on the way out.

My bad. the other team opted right

wow! 4 srews,impressive. that summit pic looks like the hillary step.kinda [minus24k feet] looks like fun

Very nice, I was curious what conditions were like up there. I've been drooling over the recent nice weather and cursing because I had to work. Glad you got up and down safely and enjoyed the stellar weather. Thanks for the TR!

Nice guys!

Bronco and I were the first party in the basin on Saturday, but we were slowed down considerably by the icy breakable crust (should have brought ski crampons!) we encountered on the slopes leading up to the basin. We'd sort of informally decided that if we didn't think we could be descending by 10:00 AM at the latest, we'd pull the plug.

Between our pitifully slow pace on the approach, the rising temps, the bright sunshine blasting everything, the insane cornices overhanging the descent route, etc - we wussed out, exited via the ridge to the climber's right, ate lunch in the sunshine, and chilled until the crust softened up enough for pleasant turns on the way down. Beautiful day to be out.

Interesting to see folks just starting on the route when you guys were completing your descent, since when we bailed at 10:00 it looked like both parties were still fairly low on the route.

See above for state of the cornices. Massive cornice overhanging the North Face route as well.

Crazy whipped-cream snow formations on the slopes above Snow Lake on Saturday....

I was one of them who climbed on that day. In the last photo, there are 6 peoples, three teams were acending as you guys were going down. I was the last one.

See my photo album
http://jsong.smugmug.com/Mountianeering/ChairPeak/16760432_XqHzj5#1264445103_mPtwfWW