[TR] Chair Peak- East Face (attempt) 3/5/2005

[griffo]

Climb: Chair Peak-East Face (attempt)

 

Date of Climb: 3/5/2005

 

Trip Report:

Hey all, long time reader first time poster.

 

Jim and I headed out to climb Chair Peak via the east face on Saturday. We expected a fairly quick climb (Becky makes it sound so easy), so we got a bit of a late start, arriving at the base of the climb at 1:00pm after a ~3 hour post holing approach. We were climbing by ~2:00. The face was mostly free of snow, with only a few inches remaining in the base of the gully near the NE buttress. Our first impression of the rock was that it was loose and crumbly and hard to place gear. There's not many good cracks and places to put gear, and those spots that will take pro are sketchy because the rock is likely to fracture. Anyways, the climbing isn't that difficult, class IV mostly, with a bit of low class V, so we headed up anyways.

 

I lead the first pitch, at first hunting around for a while for protection, but then I just ended up taking huge runouts instead until I found a crack to set an anchor in. I was trying to be careful about ripping out loose rock, but I still sent a few fist sized chunks down Jim's way. Jim lead the second pitch, also taking some pretty big runouts until he found a sturdy flake to set an anchor on. I lead the third pitch, and I think I was a bit off route to climbers right. I came over a slightly overhanging section at a rock band ~150' below the summit, and found a tree to set an anchor on. I was clearly off route now because the tree was at the top of the gully of the NE buttress route, and had slings/rap rings on it. Jim started the fourth pitch, but we quickly realized we were going to run out of daylight soon, and he downclimbed back to the belay station. We had spent so much time hunting around for places to set pro/anchors that we had used up all the daylight. :-( It was ~6:30 now.

 

Another pair of climbers had followed us up the route and also decided to turn back at that point. So the four of us started rapping down in the dark on their double 60m rope. This took a really long time because the rope tangled a couple of times and didn't pull free from the bottom of the rap. Also, hunting around in the dark for a place to set another rap anchor can take a long time. Anyways, after 5 raps and ~5 hours we were back on snow at about midnight. We made it back to the parking lot at ~2:30am.

 

In summary, the climbing on the east face route is pretty easy, but the protection situation sucks. So if you're the type who doesn't think twice about free climbing class IV/low class V, it would probably be fine. If you're the cautious type (like me) who likes to set bomber pro every 10 ft, you won't like this route.

 

Gear Notes:

We brought a small rack of stoppers and cams to ~2 inches. They weren't of much use though, because there was no place to put them. Some tiny micronuts might have been useful as there seemed to be a lot of tiny cracks that none of my gear would fit in.

 

Approach Notes:

Snow lake trail had boot packed snow up to the divide. We postholed the mile or so from the divide to the base of the east face.

[Dru]

there seemed to be a lot of tiny cracks that none of my gear would fit in.

 

Pitons

[Alpinfox]

 

Hey griffo,

Welcome to cc.com and thanks for the trip report.

 

BTW: Fred's last name is "Beckey".

[griffo]

hehe, I was never good at spelling.

[gyselinck]

Griffo, you were on route, it does go to the tree. You will know your on route if you cliped the one piton just below the crux. Although it appears you have joined the buttress while on the climb, its still actually the east face. Below is a link to my write up last year. There is a good picture showing the route.

 

Chair Peak - East Face

 

Chair peak is just a fat odd ball mountain.

[griffo]

Thanks Gyselinck, sounds like you had a similar experience with the east face. I wish I'd read your TR before we went... would have thought twice...

 

We saw the second of the pair that was following us knock off a pretty good sized (~50 lb) flake that broke into a spectacular shower of shrapnel after a couple hundred feet. Luckily no one was below...

 

Anyways, I don't think I'll be repeating this attempt any time soon. I'll stick to solid rock.

[gyselinck]

Indeed, there are better climbs.

[catbirdseat]

You should have descended via the NE Buttress. I realize that if you have never done that route it might be scary going that way, but it is a much easier way to get down. One single rope rap from the tree you mentioned, then downclimb to some trees, then two single rope raps to get you down to the ridge. From there you can downclimb to the basin.