Chair Peak NE Buttress, cake walk (frosting)

[mr.radon]

Chair Peak, NE Buttress

 

2-11-06 Saturday

As usual I’m a little late. I’ve brought more then I need. I park next to Jdog’s car and quickly transfer my gear into his Subaru. Jdog heads back up to his apartment to gather the rest of his gear while I patiently sit freezing in the passenger seat. I move to the driver’s seat and try my Subaru’s key in the ignition. A little wiggling and I get the car started, warming it up. The look on Jdog’s face is priceless, as he knows the keys to his car are still in his pocket.

We pick up Frank in down town Bellevue. Traffic is light as we drive up Snoqualmie pass, but at 6:15 we are way behind our planed start time. The upper Alpental parking lot already has numerous cars parked next to the trailhead. Getting first dibs on the route is looking quite slim. I square away my gear and walk to the trailhead to put on my skis. Jdog and Frank join me as I lead the group up the trail. My new skins are sticky, causing me problems gliding downhill. I’m used to the smooth glide from my old skins, these sticky contraptions almost cause me to fall over the front of my skis. In a clearing I take a lower path while Jdog continues higher up as does Frank. I'm passed and to add insult to injury my chosen trail soon ends forcing me to head back up. The going is slow and now I’m way behind Jdog and Frank.

From this point on I only get short glimpses of the two. As I arrive at Source lake the view is great, not a cloud in the sky. A few hundred feet above Source Lake my camera bag falls off my pack. I grab for the camera but miss. I do manage to give it a better ballistic arc. It lands in the snow a few feet below me, quickly accelerating down the hill bouncing over our ski tracks and then fortunately stops as it falls into a random hole in the snow. I count my blessings I only have to loose 50’ in elevation to retrieve the camera and not a couple of hundred. I mutter a few curse words as I ski down.

Further up the hill I dislike my new skins more and more. They seem to slip worse then my recently retired skins. A half dozen times I slide backwards. Once I fall down, skis splayed apart in a painful fashion. It’s obvious I was in the Navy as I let loose with a string of profanities. Slogging up the slope isn’t much fun today, I’m nackered and wish Jdog and Frank would wait up for me. I’m ready to just turn around, but I’m carrying the ice screws and a rope; things they would need to make the climb. After ascending another couple of hundred feet I’m still having troubles with the skins and getting very pissed at the situation and myself. I probably feel crappy because I only ate two bananas for breakfast.

I’ve been up this trail often enough to recognize exactly where I am. I’m pretty close to a feature known as the “Thumbtack”. It’s just a rock sticking up in the middle of a small cirque. Here the slope levels off and climbers stow their gear if they are going up Chair Peak; snow shoes, poles, etc. As I round the last corner to the cirque I see Frank and Jdog sitting in the snow waiting. I lower my head in shame and motor on. I stop once to measure the remaining distance and continue. I’m ashamed to have taken so long reach them. I debate if I should even climb, I don’t want to hold them back.

Jdog and Frank are happy to see me. I feel much better after a few minutes. I eat some Gu and drink a lot of water. Jdog leads the way to the ridgeline separating the East face from the North face of Chair Peak. Usually Jdog and I attained the ridge further to the right, but there is a track in the snow leading to this more direct route. We continue on our skis but the going is tough. I see I’m not the only one with skis sliding backwards. Soon Jdog then I then Frank give up and take off our skis. We put on our climbing harnesses, crampons, stow our poles and pulled out our ice tools. Jdog is ready first and leads the way, then I then Frank. From the ridge’s crest we can see a party of two on the first pitch of the Northeast buttress. We traverse to the start of the North face route. On the North face route we count 6 people either on the first pitch or waiting to start. We debate the choices and decide to climb the Northeast buttress. None of us has ever tried it so we head back.

Jdog sets up a belay and Frank arranges the gear to lead the first pitch. Frank ties into both ropes, Jdog and I will follow Frank simultaneously to save time. When Frank is ready to lead, the party already on the route has set up a belay and is bringing up the second climber.

Leading Frank takes his time, clipping a sling and placed a nut while following a nice line involving some dry tooling in poor ice conditions. He sets up a belay in a stand of small trees. As I climb Jdog closely follows a few feet behind. The snow is loose, even planting the shaft of the ice axe to the hilt would probably not hold a fall. I enter the narrow gully, the conditions are not much better. In the gully Frank solidly placed a nut, which I remove. The gully’s ice and snow is very shallow. I have to be careful where and how I place my tools. I can’t strike the ice too hard and in a few places I stick the pick into cracks as I head up the gully. At the end of the pitch I find a nice spot above Frank and sit on my pack to insulate my ass from the cold. Jdog is close behind. I feel sorry for knocking so much snow and ice on his head.

Jdog takes the pickets, ice screws and ties into both ropes. I belay Jdog just as the wind picks back up making voice communication difficult. At one point Frank and I hear someone yell but we can’t understand what was yelled. Then the rope starts to play out rapidly. Thinking Jdog is pulling up slack I take him off belay. However, when the rope stops I have doubts and put him on a hip belay until the rope goes tight forcing Jdog to stop. I tell Frank I’m going to climb to a rock outcrop that blocks our view of Jdog. Rounding the outcrop I see Jdog sitting in the middle of a snowfield. I tell him he’s at the limit of the rope and to put us on belay. I climb up to a tree just above me to tie off. For his belay Jdog sinks two pickets. As Frank climbs I take pictures of him. He passes me, then I unclip and follow. The snow is interesting; a crusty layer covering a powdery layer. Frank’s foot steps collapse slightly under my weight.

The other climbing party has set up a belay above us just below a slug of ice. The second climber of this group is still moving very slow. He’s obviously unsure of himself in these conditions. I take the gear Jdog had but since the pickets are in use for the belay I only have ice screws and nuts. I plan to set up a belay at the slug of ice like the other team and then bring up Frank and Jdog. I reach the other party at the base of the ice slug and move to the right kicking out a platform to stand on. I strike up a conversation with the second climber while looking for a place to sink an ice screw. The second climber is on his first ice/snow climbZ.

In my search for a place to set a screw I find all the snow caving away. The snow peels away in 6” thick slabs when I hit it with the axe. I stomp my feet to knock the loose snow off my small platform. I get an ice screw started in a patch of ice, after two turns it sinks into an air pocket. Pissed I retrieve it and climb up. I place a long ice screw into the slug of ice a few feet above the other party’s ice screw. I clip the rope and descend back to my platform.

The other party climbed to the left of the ice slug, I start up to the right. Unexpectedly each time I kick my feet into what looks like consolidated snow it breaks free. I have to use my ice tools to work my way up. On top of the ice bulge I look up and see another long snowfield. The other party has set up a belay near the top. I place another ice screw and quickly ascended the snowfield until the rope goes tight. I’m four feet short of a platform cut into this steep slope. I pull hard on the twin ropes to reach the platform. I bury my ice tools above me and attached two slings for an anchor. I really hope that neither Jdog nor Frank fall causing me to test this poor anchor. Before I put the two on belay I pull out my camera and snap a few panoramic pictures from this airy perch.

On belay Jdog and Frank simultaneously climb the ice bulge. Jdog taking the easier route to the left and Frank following my lead to the right. They clash at the top, trying to place their ice tools in the same small patch of ice. I take pictures as they come into view, they join me at my belay. I tell them to keep going. They run parallel to each other in a race to the top. Soon after they disappear from view I hear their yell, they’ve reached the top. Hearing this I start to dig out the ice tool anchor, it’s placed better then I had thought, they don’t want to come out. Following footsteps in the snow I join Jdog and Frank.

This isn’t the summit, but we can see an obvious trail to it. Jdog and I have been at this spot three different times in the winter, but because the weather was always crappy we’ve never went to the actual summit. This time the weather is prefect. We drop our packs, unrope and traversed across a gully to the summit’s shoulder. Although the traverse is easy, any fall would be a nasty experience; the gully is very steep and icy. The last 30 feet up the shoulder to the summit are the easiest climbing yet. The summit view is grandiose! The sky has only a few clouds and for the first time ever NO WIND.

We take pictures, enjoy the view and chat with the other two climbers. They are two University of Washington students. Jdog is the first to head down. The snow has softened enough to cause my crampons to ball up. I hit my boots with each step knocking the snow free. Jdog sets up the rappel and lowers off. I rappel next. At the bottom I yell, “Off rappel.”, and down climb to the second rappel station where Jdog is already waiting. Frank soon joins us. As soon as the second rap station is free I throw our rope and rap off. At the bottom I pull out my camera to snap pictures of Frank as he raps. I stow the camera and quickly descend to my skis. I pack my climbing gear and start skiing downhill. Although I’m tired I figured it’s going to be a sweet and quick ski descent to the car. I could not have been further from the truth. My first two turns are horrible. The snow is crusted over, below which is loose unconsolidated snow. The tails of my skis unexpectedly break the crust throwing me off balance. Even a great skier would look like a beginner in this crap. I ski to the thumbtack and wait for Jdog and Frank. Something is delaying them, I figured to be the slowest so I take off. I stop at Source Lake glad to be off the steeps. This is by far the worst backcountry skiing I have ever experienced, every turn I felt I would loose control and wreck. I watch Jdog and Frank they have just as much trouble.

I take off my skis and notice a binding is misalligned. I’ve had issues with this binding before, the base plate shifts to one side. Skiing in this condition allows the heel to move. I beat on the plate with a pole and then release the heel lock. Usually this allows the plate to slide free. Not this time, unexpectantly the heel lock flies past my head, the base plate flies away in a different direction, both landing in the snow a few feet away. Shocked I look at the binding, I can’t believe it just blew apart! Crap! I can’t ski back to the car. I notice two small fittings are broken, they attach the heel clamp to a hinge in the slide plate. When they broke it released the spring tension the heel lock is always under.

I load my skis on my pack and wait for Jdog. When he arrives I hoof it down the trail while he waits for Frank who was having a very hard time with the snow conditions. He’s falling on every other turn. Half way to the car Jdog passes me. When the trail widens out I ask Frank, who’s been behind me for some time now, to remove my good ski. I single ski like a skate boarder and make good time this way. I stop at the top of a steep section and press the heel release to take the ski off. Poof! The release breaks off the back of the binding! I can’t believe my eyes! Both bindings fail just a few minutes apart in different ways. I’m still locked into the binding and can’t release it. I throw off my backpack, dig out an ice tool and pry the ski off. Pissed I carry the ski the remaining distance to the car.

I make a huge mistake when I show Jdog the second broken binding. A few weeks ago I broke a ski, now both Frank and Jdog announce they are convinced all my equipment failures are proof positive that I’m fat. How can I argue? What a way to end such a fine trip.

[Weekend_Climberz]

I appreciated the trail on Sunday. Cheers to a good climb!!

[Doug_Hutchinson]

We climbed this route on 2/17 (Fri) during the "artic wind event 2006" (which did not really happen) and found exactly the same conditions. The Chair Peak area is doing very nicely during this "high snow year."

 

How great would be it if we got more bluebird days where the temps never get above 20 degrees F in Cascades?