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6/15-6/16 Fisher Chimneys TR


MountainMan

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We drove to the parking lot (about 1 mile short of the end of the paved road) and arrived at about 12:30 PM on Saturday afternoon under sunny skies. The Summit Pyramid was unobscured.

 

We left the parking lot at about 1:00 PM on Saturday 6/15, climbed up to Austin pass, descended the gulley into the Swift Creek basin, and traversed the hillside towards Lake Ann. Temperatures were in the mid to upper 70s. The snow was very soft and slushy the entire way up to Lake Ann.

 

Upon arriving at Lake Ann we set up camp about 150 ft. above the lake where we had a perfect view of the Lower and Upper Curtis Glaciers, the Hourglass, Hells Highway, and the Summit Pyramid. We discussed our route for the next day and had a good idea of where we wanted to go.

 

Saturday evening, around 9PM, I could see a layer of clouds beginning to form overhead. My party and I didn't realize that these clouds were to be our downfall.

 

Throughout the evening and night we heard the sounds of many avalanches coming off the Upper and Lower Curtis Glaciers. It was a very warm night by North Cascades standards, with the temperature hovering around 40-45 degrees all night.

 

The next morning we woke up at 3:30 AM, packed up, and began the rising traverse to the base of the ascent to the Chimneys under cloudy skies and a full-on mist. The snow hadn't solidified at all overnight and was just as slushy and messy as when we came in the day before under sunny skies. We came to the base of a 55 degree slope which we thought was the base of the route, but being cloudy and misty, and with the visibility at right around 30ft., we just coulnd't tell. We ascended the slope for about 400 ft. and it began to steepen to 60 degrees. After ascending about 75 more vertical feet, we came to a small "plateau". We then followed a snow finger about 100 vertical ft. to a dirty, near vertical gulley. We climbed the [100 ft.] gulley and topped out on a moderate snow slope that headed nowhere. At this time, the visibility was decreasing (20 ft.). We came to the base of a rock outcropping at about 5950 ft., and encountered a 70-80 degree snow slope that descended into the great white unknown. At this time it was 7:00 AM and my party mutually agreed to sit it out for an hour or so to wait for better visibility -- we couldn't see what was below us, and we couldn't see what was above us. After about an hour and a half of waiting for the weather to clear, it was only getting worse and we were getting soaked by a relentless mist. At 8:50, we decided to bag it and began our descent back down to Lake Ann.

 

We were clearly not on the proper route, as we hadn't traversed around enough towards the Lower Curtis and I believe we stopped on a pinnacle just above the Shuksan Arm. But with visibility as it was, even if we had been on route we still wouldn't have been able to find our way through the chimneys.

 

In my opinion, the Chimenys are at least 3 weeks out. There's still quite a bit of snow up there.

 

We didn't summit, but all-in-all we still had a great weekend. We'll be back for either the North Face or another attempt on the Chimneys later on this summer.

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