[TR] Alpental Valley - Shoulder of Chair Peak via Rockslide Basin 1/30/2011

[Powder Skier]

Trip: Alpental Valley - Shoulder of Chair Peak via Rockslide Basin

 

Date: 1/30/2011

 

Trip Report:

My cousin and I decided to try and climb the north face of chair peak. Considering the lack of snow and rain received in the past few weeks we were not expecting much. After skinning up the valley to rockslide basin, we found the snow to be very soft and stable. Our third climbing partner had bailed out and due to the lack of gear and the quality of snow we decided to get some turns in. We eyed a nice couloir on the east facing slope on the shoulder of chair peak.

 

We skinned up to the bottom of the couloir where I dug a small snow pit to check the snowpack on a 50 degree slope. There was a soft layer about 8-10" deep with a small crust underneath with several feet of soft almost slushy snow under that. Top layer took alot of pressure but sheared off fairly clean. Bottom layer was solid and just compressed.

 

We boot packed up the couloir which was slow due to the fact that there was no hard layers underneath. The snow would pretty much compress down several feet on each step. We roped up for safety's sake and did a running belay with a 30m rope and set a few snow pickets for pro starting about half way up.

 

We skied the couloir which was fantastic. I released a small 20' slab 8" deep at the top but other than that the snow pack was solid. The snow was great until below rockslide basin where the snow became crusty. We went skiers right down some chutes. I released another small slab coming down. The layer below the top was very hard so it was a lot less stable. Skiing down into the valley was miserable due to the large chunks of snow from previous weeks avalanches. Looks like there had been some major slides recently.

 

Sorry no pics... we both forgot our cameras. All in all not a bad trip considering the terrible conditions in the past few weeks.

[mwcjak]

I think we saw you up there, did you top out around three? If so that looked like a killer line. Nice work!

 

Also, we saw some gear stashed under a big debris chunk, was that yours?

[Powder Skier]

Thanks! I haven't been up to there too often so we had to take the opportunity to ski that since the snow quality was really perfect for that line. We ended up topping out on the ridge after alot of work. Beautiful views at the top. I think we saw you two down in the basin. Looks like you got some nice turns in the pow there. What way down did you guys go? We saw some tracks going through the avy mess in the fog. We saw two other big groups going to snow lake and wasn't sure if that was them. One other guy followed us up to the bottom of the couloir and snowboarded down.

 

Ya, we stashed some gear near a big chunk of avy debris since I was carrying way too much gear for skiing. Haven't done enough touring this year to ski with all my alpine gear.

 

Hopefully we get some snow soon!