Trip: Chair Peak - North Face
Date: 2/6/2010
Trip Report:
Since some of you have no doubt seen the news in the last couple of days and heard about my friend Bret and my experience at Chair Peak and subsequent cold night at Melakwa Lake, I thought I would post a quick trip report to fill in some of the details and so other people may learn from our mistakes.
Bret and I started from the upper parking lot at Alpental at about 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, February 6, with the intention of scouting around to see which climbs were in. We brought ice gear with us in case we found anything interesting, but we were not even sure whether we would climb. I suppose you could say it was to be sort of a fact finding mission and possibly climbing if conditions were right.
As we were putting our boots on in the parking lot, we bumped into another cascade climber, Wayne, who told us that he was planning to solo Chair Peak. Neither Bret or I had climbed Chair Peak before, and really were not all that familiar with the area; however, we were both interested in doing it. We asked Wayne if he would mind if we tagged along with him. He was gracious enough to let us follow him up.
Because Wayne had heard there was a boot pack all the way up, we left our snowshoes in the car and proceeded to boot our way up past Source Lake. Wayne was nice enough to point out a number of the climbing routes along the way. There appeared to have been some new snow and it was somewhat difficult to locate a boot pack above Source Lake. We did see another party ahead of us on snowshoes, however, so we stayed in their tracks and the post-holing was kept to a minimum.
I don't recall exactly at what time we reached the base of the route, it was probably somewhere around noon, or maybe a little before. At the base of the route, we bumped into Dane, another cascade climber, who also was planning on soloing the north face. It was determined that Wayne would lead the first pitch, followed by Bret, who was tied into Wayne's rope, and I would bring up the rear and be tied into a second rope. While I was coming up, Wayne would solo the second pitch and we would move up the route in that fashion.
The plan was running smoothly until I reached the first belay station. I had not eaten enough and was feeling really light-headed and was not sure that I would be able to complete the climb. At that point, Bret, who was tied into Wayne's rope, untied himself and told Wayne to go on ahead. I was able to each a Pro Bar and a power gel and began to feel much better so Bret and I decided to continue the climb. Bret would lead and I would follow. We continued on and at one point as I was belaying Bret at the second belay station, Wayne had completed the climb and hiked around to the base of the route to make sure that we were okay. Although communication was somewhat limited, I was able to tell him that I was okay and we were going to complete the climb.
The rest of the climb went smoothly, we completed the route in three pitches and a short solo to the summit. The conditions were really good, plenty of ice and firm snow made for a great day of climbing.
The "fun" really began when we reached the summit and began the descent. Since neither Bret or I had climbed Chair Peak before nor were we super familiar with the route, we were not sure exactly where the rap station was to begin the descent. We attempted to follow some other tracks on the summit, presumably they were Wayne or Dane's, and we figured that they would lead us to the proper descent route. We, however, found two sets of tracks and we could not find any evidence of someone having rappelled. So we picked one of two gullies that appeared to be the most likely route down and we began to rappel. We used trees, rocks and even a makeshift deadman anchor, which I fashioned out of a thick tree branch as rappel anchors and began to rappel down what we would later find out was the southwest face of Chair Peak.
As we descended, the angle of the slope became more gradual and since it was getting dark fast by this time, we opted to save time by downclimbing instead of rappelling. We down climbed for approximately 400 vertical feet. The angle became increasing steeper and the route went from firm snow to waterfall ice as we neared the bottom.
I don't know if it was adrenaline or simply the lateness of the hour, but Bret and I climbed way above our normal ability level and made quick progress down the gully. I was in front and Bret was some ways above me. When I neared the bottom, I reached a spot where it appeared to not only be vertical, but also, it appeared as though the rock was bare. Fortunately it did not appear to be that big of a section of rock. As I was a little bit ahead of Bret, I decided to sink a screw and simply rappel down the rock section. the ice that I put the screw into was sketchy at best, but I knew that it would not be a long rappel and the landing appeared really soft if I was to fall.
With that in mind I began to rappel. I got about halfway down the section and, sure enough, the screw pulled out of the ice and I did fall. As I anticipated, the landing was soft and although I was a little shaken up, I was not hurt except for a small cut in my chin, where I would imagine my ice tool hit me. The only other unfortunate thing about the fall was that I lost one of my ice tools--I was using a wrist leash and it flew off my wrist despite that I had it nice and tight (I still have not figured how that happened).
I yelled up to Bret and told him that I was okay and by that time, I could see that there was an ice line over the section that I had been concerned about. I also told him that I had only fallen about 10-15 feet, which I think gave him more confidence in knowing that even if he fell, it would not be that far. Bret, being a more experienced climber than me, found that line and downclimbed the rest of the route.
At this point, we thought we were home free and could simply retrace our approach and get back to the car. However, as we began walking away from the face, something did not look right. As we continued to descend, I began to recognize the basin as the area above Lake Melakwa. I had hiked to the lake one time a couple of years ago and I looked at my GPS to confirm that in fact that was where we were.
By this time it was totally dark. Although I was somewhat familiar with the trail out, we were not very confident in our ability in our abilities to find the trail around to Denny Creek in the dark. It was at this time that my GPS began really acting up and I began to get all kinds of strange readings, so I did not really trust that either.
We knew that we needed to wait until daylight to be able to find the trail out and so we proceeded to hike through the snow for the whole night to stay warm. We had some food with us that we rationed so that it would last through the night and we were able to refill our water bottles in Lake Melakwa--normally not a good idea because of parasites, etc., however, in this case, it was better than the alternative.
When daylight came, we were able to find the trail from Lake Melakwa down to Denny Creek, where we were able to contact our wives and tell them we were okay and where we were. As we got closer to the Denny Creek Water Slides, we met up with a Search and Rescue team who had been sent out to find us. We walked the rest of the way out with them and they gave us a ride up to Alpental where my Dad and brother were waiting.
Sorry if the story is kind of long, but as I reflected back on the events of the last couple of days, there are a number of things that I could have done differently to avoid some of the problems that we had. By including a lot of detail, I hope that those who read the story will learn from our mistakes and be more prepared for their own adventures.
Also, I am pretty new to CC and I have not figured out how to post pictures into the body of a TR, if anyone is interested I would be happy to email the pictures or perhaps someone could enlighten me on how to post pictures into a TR and I will put em up.
Gear Notes:
standard ice gear. Would have been nice to have a picket or two for the snow up there.
Approach Notes:
booted in. snowshoes or other flotation would have been nice though--especially for the LONG hike out.
