Chimney Rock WA, East Face Direct

[pinegar]

I borrowed a truck from some generous friends, and on Saturday morning, I drive to Cooper Lake and hiked the 2.5 hours or so to

the Switchback:

 

 

in the Pacific Crest Trail where the rough climbers trail begins for the standard east-side Chimney Rock approach.

 

 

 

Last year was my first time there, and that time I only located fragments of the trail on the way down. Going both up and down, my tendency (both that time and this time) is to get/stay too high on this side-hill. This year I saved a lot of effort by going up in a better way, and on the way down I never had to rappel. Another improvement over last year's adventure is that I didn't slip on a small loose rock and then land on it, breaking one of my ribs.

 

 

 

 

Fortunately, on Friday I had received my $400 worth of Ebay cams and carabiners, which really filled out my existing rack and was to later allow lots of full 60 m pitches with as much protection as I had the patience to place.

 

Another thing I did at the last minute was prepare an Alpenstock from scrap drill bits and an old broom handle, since I had been far too lazy to bring an ice axe from home.

 

 

 

The Wikipedia article states that Ötzi the Iceman would have been incapable of making (on his own) the copper axe which he carried, but I trust that no such slander would have been levelled against me had I (and my tool) been swallowed by the moat, to be discovered a few thousand years in the future.

 

The last snow year was really good for the chimney rock glacier, and I'm pretty sure that the snowpack is several meters higher around my nunatak bivy-site, shown at the exact center of this picture:

 

 

 

I didn't attempt the North peak again this year as I was hoping, because I knew it would just take me (solo) too long, and maybe even be dangerous. Instead I slept-in an hour or two after it started to get light on Sunday morning, because there were a few sprinkles, and I thought I might not climb at all.

 

 

 

 

I think I crossed the moat onto the main peak somewhat to the right of where most people do it. It was easy to step across, but the climbing was upper 5th class for parts of this first pitch, and the area near the moat is so glacier polished that holds and protection are relatively scarce here.

 

 

 

 

Everything I climbed in the 7 or so pitches above here was low 5th class, but in many cases more vertical, and with more loose rock.

 

 

 

 

Up at the large heather-ledge with the juniper trees, I drank a few liters of water and left the remaining few liters in my "nalgene cantene" which sadly I never located on my way down.

 

In my second pitch above the unpleasant, ramping, heather-hike section, I dropped one of my blue Camalots from its biner and listened to it bounce and silently fell a long way.

 

Oh shit, only 10 cams left! (not counting the one I left at the moat holding my hiking boots, crampons, etc.) Since I really did have too much pro, rather than make an anchor and rappel /prussuk the single rope to try to retrieve it then, I just hoped I'd find it on the way down.

 

Around this time I was also thinking that I didn't get up early enough, and though I knew I "should" go down and return to summit the next day, I started to think about how warm it had been the previous night....

 

 

Without incident, I climbed and cleaned my pitches, and got to the summit just before 6pm, and enjoyed the views there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The North Peak from the Key Ledge:

 

 

The South Peak from the Main Pk Summit:

 

 

There was a nice summit register left by a guy named Jay (last name I forgot), who had been there two months before, accompanied by a woman as I recall. His name was also on some webbing, with the date 1998. Pretty cool.

 

Nothing particularly went badly, but when I got back down to the top of the heather-ramps it was too dark for me to continue, so I say/lay in the heather all night. I stayed on the rap line for the first half of the night, then later I pulled the rope and wrapped it loosly around my shoulders to give myself something to do. Once again, it wasn't very cold or windy that night, though it did rain on my a few sprinkles just before dawn. There is a cool little cave in this area, and if I'd brought a headlamp I would have found it and enjoyed the night more in there I think. I was thirsty again by this time, but it must not have been too bad, because what I really wanted was a cold bottle of white wine. Something dry and tart.

 

Rapping down the rest of the way in the morning, I didn't find the cam, and I didn't find that water container, and it took me a while of looking down to see the moat, and strategizing, to eventually land myself on the moat where I had left my other things. I left a large perlon-slung hex about 25m above the moat. For years I've gotten really tired of having this piece of "leaver pro" on my harness. And I felt that since I never augmented any of the webbing-nests or anything, I would do something nice, instead of being cheap and simply chalking the little notch with the knot of a short tied 1" nylon sling for this last rap anchor.

 

I ate some of the glacier and wandered around checking out crevasses and stuff on my way back to camp.

 

 

When I arrived there, it started to rain, and this continued as I was lounging around my bivy bag for the rest of the afternoon, wondering if Ötzi's last meals of grain and red deer meat tasted as good as my "everything" bagels, beef jerky, cheese, etc.

 

 

The next morning I left camp at 6:45, reached the PCT at 12:00, and the truck at 14:30. These pictures are from the place where I left the glacier:

 

 

 

I'd like to thank John Scurlock and all of the other people who've provided photographs and trip reports of Chimney Rock on the internet.

 

 

 

 

 

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Amar_Andalkar]

Congrats, Dave, on finally getting it done and making it back in one piece, too! You must be the first guy to fly all the way over here from Germany just to climb Chimney Rock!