Little Big Chief

[mountainsloth]

On 10/23/2018 at 11:59 AM, OlympicMtnBoy said:

  I still need to do a TR about going in to the north face of little summit chief based on his pics. 

Oh yes you do! I’ve been eyeing that face for years now. So tell!

[edit: I split the stuff about Little Big Chief into a separate topic from the orginal TR about 3 Queens   chucK]

Edited November 19, 2018 by chucK
split off into own topic

[JasonG]

Yes @OlympicMtnBoy...do tell.  Maybe you can draw in Colin and Dave's line against your for comparison?

[mountainsloth]

On 11/1/2018 at 8:34 AM, JasonG said:

Yes @OlympicMtnBoy...do tell.  Maybe you can draw in Colin and Dave's line against your for comparison?

Jason, Oly is speaking of the N face of LITTLE summit chief. Different than colon and Dave’s line on main summit chief. 

In this photo it is the peak and face on the left. 

Here is a shot of the three summit chief pics from tank lakes. Left is little summit chief face. 

 

Edited November 3, 2018 by mountainsloth

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Teaser shots:

[JasonG]

Ohhhhhhhhh, wow.  Cool.  That area is pretty neat.  Snoqualmonix!

[chucK]

That peak is "Little BIG Chief".   Here's a report of an ascent in 2001

 

[Kuckuzka1]

yeah I have wondering about that face for years too, I went to the summit via the east side(3rd-4th class) and was some of the worst rock I'd ever been on so I  kinda figured it would be shitty too. Nice looking peak though

[Kuckuzka1]

Edited December 16, 2018 by Kuckuzka1
photo was from main trail heading to dutch millier gap

[Kuckuzka1]

Curious if this is the aprox line taken?

[Kuckuzka1]

North America, United States, Washington, Little Big Chief Mountain, Falcon Route

 

• Climbs And Expeditions

• Climb Year:
• Publication Year: 2004

Little Big Chief Mountain, Falcon Route. Jeff Hansell and I made this new route (IV 5.9) on September 10,2001. Little Big Chief Mountain is located in the seldom-visited Summit Chief Valley in the North Central Cascades. The Summit Chief Valley is a tributary of the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River Valley. The route is never really hard, but is remote and demands a variety of alpine skills. From the end of the Middle Fork Valley Road, hike up the valley for about three hours. At a small steel bridge, leave the trail and hike cross-country in a southerly direction to the entrance of the Summit Chief Valley. The objective should be visible on the east side of the valley. Hike up into the Summit Chief Valley until you reach the flat gravel wash at about 4,650'. There are great low-impact camp spots.

From camp ascend a talus field for 900 feet to the base of the route at a prominent left- trending gully. Follow this for 50 feet; move right to a dead tree. Go up and right to another dead tree and continue to easier terrain. Ascend sloping heather benches to the prominent right-trending ramp and follow it to the beginning of difficulties, just left of the prominent chimney. The First pitch features an undercling to the right (5.8). On the second pitch, climb a groove for 60 feet, then move left onto a rib and into another groove. On pitch four climb a steep headwall (5.9) to yet another groove. Follow this groove on pitches five and six (5.7/5.8) to easy terrain and a big ledge, which is at the elevation of the top of the prow to your left. Pitch seven trends slightly right to a ridge near the summit crest. On pitch eight keep traversing right on exposed rock to the crest (5.7). Class 4 climbing on the narrow ridge leads to the 7,225' summit.

Descend the ridge to the south for several hundred feet, then turn left and gain a pocket glacier. Go down the pocket glacier and trend left over glacier-polished slabs. Keep trending left and reach the ridge crest at 5,400'. One to two rappels then take you back into the Summit Chief Valley. Continue trending left, follow goat ledges, then descend through steep forest to camp.

Martin Volken

Seems the route starts more to the left, sounds great

[dberdinka]

This is very cool.  Where is the TR Mr. OlympicMtnBoy.

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Here is the route we took, now I'm one step closer to a TR!  I think Martin's route started farther right towards the snow patch and angled up those ramps to catch up with the last few straight up pitches we did.  The obvious point Kuckuzka pointed out looks like the best rock and probably fun climbing but with little natural pro as far as we could tell, but that isn't the summit.  We had another 15 minutes of ridge scrambling once we topped out in this photo.

[Kuckuzka1]

Very cool. I always thought you did that line with martin and that the face had one ascent. the rock looks very Snoqualmie passish?? Yeah tat pillar looks like a mini North pillar of the north twin (Blanchard/Cheesmond 85) Looks like many good lines still available