Chair Peak, Round 2 - A Double Dose

Aaron and I set out to climb Chair Peak; the location and access for this peak make it a great winter training ground for my plans later in the season, and I can't get enough! Our plan was to try do to both the Northeast Buttress and the North Face in one day. It worked out fantastically. Snow conditions were firm heading up from the parking lot, and we didn't need snowshoes. Unfortunately, my camera at this point was still stuck on a messed up ISO setting (I thought perhaps that I had damaged a light sensor on it), so the pictures I have are mostly washed out.

We took a 'left' variation at the start of the northeast buttress, and Aaron belayed me up to some trees. After that, we simulclimbed the rest of the way to the top in one long pitch. It is amazing how fast you go when you do this! We were up there after only an hour or so of climbing (at least that's what I recall). We made a quick descent and traversed back around to the north face route. We climbed this in two long pitches, with me stopping to belay Aaron once in a stand of trees. Aaron's a totally solid climber and cruised the whole way up.

Additionally, I'd like to thank Aaron for his patience. I dropped an ice screw (d'oh!) while on the north face, and saw it plummet to the snow slopes below. He was patient enough
to wait for me while I traversed back around to the north face for the second time that day to retrieve it. Fortunately, it was easy to locate! It was a brand new one, too.

Chair Peak - Round I

Pete and I decided to team up for a climb of the Northeast Buttress of Chair Peak in late January. Trip reports on cascadeclimbers.com indicated this route had a lot of parties on it the weekend before; we thought a weekday climb would capitalize on the good conditions and let us have the climb to ourselves. We lucked out on both counts.

My camera has been acting kind of screwy lately; only much later did I find out I had messed up the ISO settings; this explains the washed-out nature of a lot of the photos. Fortunately, Pete made a nice video montage of his photos and video available here. Kudos to Pete for the DJ Shadow/Cut Chemist soundtrack.

This was my third time getting out on some ice this winter. There's only a bit of ice on this climb; the vast majority is steep snow. Pete didn't have any tech tools, so we split my ice tools and supplemented with a regular mountain axe each. We were keeping it real now! This was one of the steeper routes Pete had been on, and we decided to pitch out the whole thing. Pete set a raging pace on the approach, and let me take the more technical leads. We didn't climb super fast, but made steady progress. It was pretty cold out that day, and we were glad to have the puffy jackets for belaying.

Pete took the lead as we simulclimbed the last bit to the summit on steep snow. We made victorious salutes on the summit pyramid. This route (and others on the peak) are frequently soloed by area climbers, and it isn't a terribly proud or awesome summit. That said, the climb is really fun and the position is great on the steep ridge.