Chair - North Grove?

[kurthicks]

Anyone have any beta that they want to share from personal experience about Chair's North Grove? Pictures?

[kurthicks]

100 views and not so much as a photo or spray?

I'm sure someone has ventured past the NF route to spy this thing.

[philfort]

I hear Chair's grove is nice

 

[Geek_the_Greek]

Is this a humorous beta request for the N-face route? Ok, there are some trees on it, yes...they make nice belays.

Didn't you get enough info from the 35 TR's in the past 3 weeks? Between that and Nelson's guide you should have more than enough info. Turn the 'puter off and go climb it!

 

Mind you, conditions are probably sketchball on it right now, with the dumpage here in town. Better stay home and spray some more...

[NYC007]

Wazzu when was the north grove put in Nelsons book? crap I must not have the 06 one.... Geek its in WA ice book but limited info.. KNOW YOUR SPRAY

[Geek_the_Greek]

Ah, my bad. I retract everything.

[dalius]

Chair's North Grove?

Ha! Ha! You funny!

[kurthicks]

ok spraymasters. Supposedly it's a Bebie route, WI4 mixed, a few hundred meters right (west) of the regular NF route (which I have done, Geek)

 

I'll post a TR after I go in there once the weather and avy danger calm back down.

[kurthicks]

a couple of us went in to do this route yesterday. There is no climbable ice anywhere right of the north face route. From what we could tell, the route forms in a small depression just before you get to the NW ridge (which looks like a fun winter climb). I think the route is a melt/freeze and has not come in yet, but should soon. Alternately, it could be an early season route and has melted out already.

 

Dave took a couple pics of that side of the face. perhaps he will post them.

 

In other news: the NEB is still in good shape and much firmer than last week...reasonably fast and secure climbing. The NF is still good. The downclimbing couloir was very solid and would make a fun climb. the huge cornice in the rap gully is still growing. Beware, the snow has some sketchy layers.

[dbconlin]

Here are some photos I took while we were scoping the North Grove. The first two are looking up at the face from left to right. On the first (left) photo, the possible North Grove route is the gully at the far right and is not really visible from this angle. In the second photo it is all the way to the left, also not visible.

 

We continued traversing to the west (right, looking up the face, as in the photos) and finally got a view of what we thought would be the route:

 

We decided to can the North Grove and go do the North Face instead. On the traverse back below the face, Kurt and Scott (Scottgg), triggered an avalanche which took them for about a 100 foot ride downslope. They both were lucky enough and fought hard enough to stay on top of it, and ended up uninjured to boot. I took some photos of the crown, but they didn't come out (whiteout conditions). The crown was about 1-2 feet deep and 80 feet across. We decided to can the route and headed back over to the NE Buttress, which Kurt and I had both climbed the week before. On the way back, Scott triggered another avalanche and we decided it was a good decision to get the hell off of the north side.

 

Back on the NE side snow conditions were considerably better. We tried a direct variation to the first pitch, which ended up harder than it looked (poor, rotten ice or snow on rock, little pro). The rest of the route was easier than it had been the week before. Here are some photos:

[dbb]

shit dude! glad to hear you're okay

[scottgg]

Ok, I got some more beta on the North Grove... suppose to be late season, after a big melt/freeze climb, even then its pretty thin. Next winter....