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Trip: Chimney Rock - East Face (U-Gap) Trip Date: 08/24/2020 Trip Report: Are blue collar classic climbs becoming in vogue this year? I was the 18th person of 2020 to sign the Chimney Rock summit register this past Monday! I was inspired by solo trip reports from Jon Parker and Eric Eames (nwhikers) earlier this summer. I always thought I’d need a partner for Chimney Rock, but I enjoy traveling solo and their reports planted the seed that maybe I could do this one alone. Late Sunday afternoon I left the Pete Lake trailhead with a bit of anxiety about what lay ahead. It took just under 4 hours to get to the bivy boulder at 4800’. I was moving quick and racing daylight so I didn’t have to bushwhack in the dark, but I needn’t have worried, the climbers trail is pretty beaten in and was relatively easy to follow. Monday morning I was moving shortly after first light. I accessed the Chimney Glacier at the flat spot @ 6400’ immediately below the imposing North Peak. An easy traverse of the glacier and then up the U-Gap couloir and gully which was heavily moated and a took a lot of weaving back and forth to get through. At the top of the U-Gap came the section I was most anxious about. Super exposed class 3/4 ledges that look quite improbable from far and from near. The ledges had my complete attention. Early on there are a couple blind corners that seem to lead to nowhere but 1000+ feet of air. Once you commit the traverse is quite easy, but the exposure is quite heady. After the exposed traverse the white rocks and hidden ramps went quickly. The three rock pitches felt easy with rock shoes and the benefit of a self belay taking away the exposure anxiety. Views from the top were sublime. The hike out was long but it felt good to reflect on a climb well executed. Gear Notes: 60m rope, light rack Approach Notes: leave PCT at the second switchback to minimize brush

I do not know exactly where their route goes but I am guessing this is the aprox line as he mentions in the post when they emerged onto the north ridge they were surprised they missed the access gully to the upper north ridge and they were close to the gendarme. I think I have seen photo with some steep good ice in the lower ridge. PHOTO CREDIT ED COOPER Also at the base of the gendarme they finished on the NE face

Trip: Static Point - Lost Charms, 5.9, 5 p Trip Date: 08/30/2020 Trip Report: Did a search and the last TR for Static Point was from ten years ago! Rat and I climbed Lost Charms yesterday; beautiful day and we had the place all to ourselves. If you're looking to avoid the Vantage/Leavenworth crowds, this would be a good place to do it. Beta for Lost Charms can be found on Mtn Project or in Sky Valley Rock if you are or know an old coot who has the book. Fun route; more route-finding necessary than most slab routes as you're not just following a line of bolts. We agreed the 5.6 finger crack was a particularly fun pitch. Trail is in stellar shape and Online is sporting shiny brand new bolts and rap stations. Go get it. Gear Notes: Rack to #3 Camalot, slings, double 60m ropes Approach Notes: US 2, north on Sultan Basin Road to Spada Reservoir, take the right fork after reservoir, park in first pullout on left after you cross the bridge, hike up blocked-off logging road directly across from the pullout ~1 hour, then turn left at massive cairn and go uphill ~0.5 hour.

I had a great time "cascadian hilarity" describes it well. @zaworotiuk here's you guys coming up the snow arete in the morning! Might have to zoom in.

Trip: Liberty Bell - Liberty Crack Trip Date: 08/27/2020 Trip Report: 10hr c2c ascent of Liberty Crack with my really good (and crusher) friend Christine Spang! Once again I'm being lazy to reupload all the photos, so here's a link with a trip report and our aid beta (don't bring jumars, only 2 aiders and you'll be just fine): https://www.natexploring.com/washington/liberty-crack Gear Notes: Double rack aliens -> #3; 2 aiders (1 per person); no jumars; no hooks/beaks/etc Approach Notes: Chill and easy! Standard approach from road, up and over and descent via blue lake

Hi folks, Climbed this route about a month ago, and it turned into an epic. Rad is right-- this is a serious (but fun) climb not reflected by the moderate grade. Our climb took about two hours longer than expected, but it's the descent that was really hairy, and took us an extra ten (yes, ten!) hours because of the number of rappels and difficulty retrieving our ropes. It's easy to descend the wrong way, and end up with a nightmare series of potentially dangerous rappels in a very wet gully (what we ended up doing). We topped out in darkness, and started rapelling down a brushy SE-facing gully what we thought was the gully described in Kurt's guidebook. In retrospect, I think we didn't go south far enough. It also looked like a number of other folks had made the same mistake, as we saw a number of left over rap anchors on everything from rocks to large downed logs across the gully. Our descent route required about 22 rappels, many of them double length. The rope drag was heinous because of the brush and, and even required us to ascend some of our rappels to retrieve the rope. The gully we went down also turns into a series of waterfalls near the bottom. If you're going to climb this, make sure you study the route, especially the retreat beforehand (sorry if this is obvious...). We left the parking lot at 8:00 AM, and got back at around 2:00PM the next day. Not ideal. Picture below is my partner ascending the stuck rope on our second to last rap. This was after nearly 11 hours of descent. Notice it's light out (again) in the picture. Edit: Just saw @Lowell_Skoog's post. I think we rapped the same gulley he did. BTW, we also left a fair bit of gear during this descent, including a #3 or 4 cam.

Thanks for the reminder! This fall I will need to sample these routes. I mean it!