[TR] Chair Peak - North Face 3/6/2010

[YocumRidge]

Trip: Chair Peak - North Face

 

Date: 3/6/2010

 

Trip Report:

With the Chair becoming another BeaconRawk for at least this year, it was hard not to get on its North face. Thanks to Dane and others for the updates on the ice conditions - very much appreciated, guys.

 

Oleg and I left PDX early a.m., rolled into the Alpental parking lot at 4.30 a.m. and started out on the trail at 5.00 a.m. Expecting a zoo of the desperate ones like us to climb the NF on a Saturday and on a nice day, I was obsessed with the idea to hurry up to get in line as fast as we could. A zillion of multiple trails on the approach was not helping though – we had a few failures with the routefinding and lost an extra hour doing just that. Once we had Chair in our view, we headed straight up.

 

The sun was well out (8 a.m.) when we got to the base of the NF. Despite our routefinding problems and to my surprise, we were the first at the “checkout” line but then two other parties arrived followed by three more.

 

Crossing the moat at the base of the NF was not trivial: either belly crawling over the thin bridge in the center or traversing all way to the right and back to the rock ridge. The former did not work well for heavy individuals like Oleg - he collapsed through the bridge to the rock bottom of the moat.

 

The moat:

 

 

I let the other party who intended to simul-climb start first while I was getting Oleg out of the moat. He was OK but did not feel happy and badly wanted beer and meat at this point.

I switched back around the moat to the right and up and belayed him to the base of the NF.

 

 

Wind was picking up with some spin drifts coming off the face so we agreed on simul-climbing instead of simul-soloing. Oleg being a real gentleman let me lead the whole line to the summit ridge as one pitch.

 

The other party and us getting ready to simul-climb:

 

Myself on the thin ice of the NF and caught in the spin drift:

 

Higher up:

 

 

I placed 3 screws (2 x 13 and 1 x 16) and slung two trees. Ice on the first 80 feet off the ground was a bit thin and brittle.

At 10 a.m. we got to the summit ridge, enjoyed the views on the summit and started the epic “descent”.

 

On the summit:

 

 

We knew a few downclimbed via the standard southeast gully, so we were hoping to do the same thing. What we thought was the walk down gully that parallels the summit ridge to the second rap anchor sprouted an overhanging cornice and after falling into the moat, Oleg was not hugely impressed with this option.

 

Rapping off the tree was looking better but then again we brought a single 40 meter rope and after tossing it we realized it was not long enough to get us to the notch. If that overhanging buttress with a very loose rock below the first anchor was what we were supposed to downclimb, then we were just not digging it or are getting too old for that sort of thing. I would like to hear how people get around this section if not on rap:

 

 

We had eventually settled on downclimbing one of the south gullies for about 300 vertical feet, then traversing east on the mixed terrain and climbing up another gully to the notch:

 

Finally we got to follow the standard descent route to the base.

 

 

Gear Notes:

Ice rack and 40 meter rope (used), two pickets (not used), Chalk (recommended), Anti-Anxiety candies

 

Approach Notes:

Source lake

[OlegV]

My best compliments to Nastia for leading the face - it felt like a single pitch to me. I wish there were similar routes but longer .

[spionin]

an FA (first arrival) on chair peak on a weekend? AWESOME!

 

[YocumRidge]

an FA (first arrival) on chair peak on a weekend? AWESOME!

 

 

It was actually an FFA (first follow-up arrival) - Oleg took some time to desperately fix my agonizing camera en route.

[LostCamKenny]

are you sucking on sour patch kids?

[cbcbd]

On my first trip out there we also took that gully - it's not "wrong", but it's not the best option.

 

On the descent: Is the gully you took for 300ft the one that descends right across from the top out of the NF face, onto the col (with summit on right)? Looks like it is.

The better gully to descent runs parallel to the one you took, East of it - no rappelling over buttresses. From the col of the NF route topout just head East up and over a small hump. On the other side of it you'll see the descent gully.

The descent gully is the obvious one you can see ascending North from the notch at the top of the SE gully.

Confused yet?

[stevetimetravlr]

Way to go get it and get it done!! Yeah!

Temps on Hood have dropped dramatically in the last few hours, its 10 degrees at 6500 ft level as of 8 pm, and the winds are up also. Artic storm coming in! Winter returns for the moment it seems, they are calling for heavy snowfall tomorrow thru Wednesday.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

My best compliments to Nastia for leading the face - it felt like a single pitch to me. I wish there were similar routes but longer .

 

MOLODCI!

[YocumRidge]

On the descent:

The better gully to descent runs parallel to the one you took, East of it - no rappelling over buttresses. From the col of the NF route topout just head East up and over a small hump. On the other side of it you'll see the descent gully.

Confused yet?

 

Thanks, Doug, it all makes perfect sense. The gully you are talking about is the one we took. It had a turn out to the tree rap. I guess my pic does not make that obvious.

 

[YocumRidge]

Temps on Hood have dropped dramatically in the last few hours, its 10 degrees at 6500 ft level as of 8 pm, and the winds are up also. Artic storm coming in! Winter returns for the moment it seems, they are calling for heavy snowfall tomorrow thru Wednesday.

 

For as long as it brings in some sweet ice that does not instantaneously melt - it is all good.

[genepires]

from your description, you did not take the way that cbcbd is talking about. There is no rap that way and no way you could miss it and have to climb back up to it.

 

From the top of the nf route, you walk climbers left along the ne buttress route, over a small knob and have to downclimb a small bit to see the correct easy gulley which leads right to the large other gulley (with rap anchors). Jason and I went down the wrong gully also following tracks.

[lazyalpinist]

Gene's got the right description. You rapped into the gully that can be downclimbed.

 

Pic from the top of correct gully:

[img:left]http://lh3.ggpht.com/_93XPnSTQ19w/SyU8BCT51LI/AAAAAAAAJHo/zfwRFSZ34mM/s512/IMG_9058.JPG[/img]

[CascadeClimber]

Gene's got the right description. You rapped into the gully that can be downclimbed.

 

Pic from the top of correct gully:

[img:left]http://lh3.ggpht.com/_93XPnSTQ19w/SyU8BCT51LI/AAAAAAAAJHo/zfwRFSZ34mM/s512/IMG_9058.JPG[/img]

 

That's the correct one. The gully at the top of the NF is WRONG. You have to go up and over one hump (toward the NEB route) to get to the correct descent. Simply walk down the gully in this picture and you will end up at the top of the second (steeper and corniced) gully that has the two-pin rap anchor. There is no reason to leave the first gully; it ends at the next one.

[cbcbd]

...The gully you are talking about is the one we took. It had a turn out to the tree rap. I guess my pic does not make that obvious.

No worries, there aren't any pictures describing the terrain so I made one.

Your second to last pic with the circled buttress - was that taken from the col, looking up? If so, that gully to the right of the circle is the better descent gully (blue line). The better descent gully shouldn't have you traversing East or climbing up to the col. Both of the gullies going South have trees near their top. Doing the NEB route you have the advantage of passing and seeing the descent gully (blue) on your left before reaching the summit. Doing the NF route you don't see it unless you go up the hump East looking for it. From your pics, especially the last one, it looks like you guys took the green line - I recognize the traverse from my first time up there taking that gully and thinking that it was a lot longer than described on Nelson's guide. My second time, going up the NEB instead, I saw the better descent gully and had a moment of realization.

The Alt Descent gully curves a little to skier's right at first, is longer, steeper, narrower, and has you traversing climbers right at the bottom to get to the col.

The better "actual" descent gully is shorter, straight, less steep, and dumps you right at the col.

 

[spionin]

No worries, there aren't any pictures describing the terrain so I made one.

that's just awesome doug - big props

 

[cbcbd]

No worries, there aren't any pictures describing the terrain so I made one.

that's just awesome doug - big props

V, the people have a right to know!!

[YocumRidge]

WOW, you guys are so helpful!

Thanks for taking your time to draw the map.

 

The best thing was that we DID get to the top of the correct gully:

 

 

but after noticing an overhanging snow cornice we bailed and went down the alternative gully which WAS steeper, 60 deg at places, with melting snow over rock - a kind of like "life is going to be all right after this".

[cbcbd]

Aaaah, ok, that makes sense now.