Home > Trip Reports > April 26, 2014, Chair Peak E/NE

April 26, 2014, Chair Peak E/NE

4/26/14
WA Snoqualmie Pass
42809
22
Posted by tabski on 4/26/14 11:21am
Left car at Alpental around 0600 with hedonaut. Skinned to Chair Peak basin on a mix of bed surface, old soft-frozen debris, and semi-supportable crust. Hasty pits revealed a bit of a shit sandwich -- .5'' of morning fluff, a 3-5'' crust shearing on water-saturated graupel or facets and then ~12" of storm snow from earlier in the week sitting on the old crust.

Ascended center of E face with generally solid climbing except occasional hollows near rocks. Joined NE Buttress route just below the ice step. Substantial hollows and a large glide crack here as well. Nearing false summit, I was startled by a shooting crack ahead of me as I neared a large cornice. Cornices will present great danger in coming warm days -- almost all appear fully intact but ready to *pop*.

Tagged the summit and began the descent. We belayed a slope cut of the upper snowfield. The snow was a firm crust made quite slick with the morning dusting of snow. Axe-in side stepping circumvented the first step, before steep, good turns on warming snow brought us to the final rappel point. With the rope in place "just in case," I was able to finish the route without its assistance.

Final ski out to Source Lake was in poor nic, with the morning's supportable crust now not, and very sticky surface snow. Despite some warming we observed no snow slides perhaps due to current strength of crust bridge, but the bridging seems very tentative and I would expect serious, destructive slides with warming. 





DAMN. Excellent.

Nice job, guys!

Color me impressed.
Any media of the "final rap" decent?

yeah, you win again! that was humbling impressive given the conditions and exposure etc etc etc....
praxis under foot?

Any locks cut or trees cut??.... Had to check first.

If not nice work gentlemen.

Now that is cool. Been wanting to ski that route since 1990. Very nice!

Insane line. Fun watching you guys from the ridge










author=altasnob link=topic=31562.msg132457#msg132457 date=1398616435]




Thanks for the captions.  I was wondering what these weird squiggly lines in the slope were.  Some climbers who really like their switchbacks??

Cool descent!  Thanks for posting your trip.

Yikes! Cool report, and thanks altasnob for providing a bit of extra visual perspective.

I am pretty sure I will not be emulating you guys, but it's fun to read/see from the comfort of home.

Wimpy old Snoqualmie Pass has quite the variety of recreational options!

Wow, how many black diamonds is that?

Is this in l'Alps?
Wine pairings?

Sick boys! Glad you got it $

Nice write up DT.  Insanely fun jaunt; wanted this line for a long time.

Haha Gregg; the only laws broken were on the drive up as I got a little overstoked in the sport-cart.  "Oops, I'm going over 90".

Jonn-E: unfortunately, it was impossible to get set up for a good pic of the final impressive send.  A few more pics and details here: http://skisickness.com/post/vt533-26-apr-2014-chair-peak-ef-and-neb

Thanks altasnob for posting those pics!  Thought I heard voices coming from the ridge, but didn't see anybody--or didn't look--was kinda focused.

author=tabski link=topic=31562.msg132435#msg132435 date=1398565289]With the rope in place "just in case," I was able to finish the route without its assistance.


Sick indeed. Nice one, Tabski.

I'm comfortable in steep terrain, but those pics over at skisickness.com still made my palms sweaty!

I'm comfortable in steep terrain, but those pics over at skisickness.com still made my palms sweaty!


Chalk up and don a huggy!

Wow! Nice work.


Well  I climbed that in the summer,
and I was pretty pleased with myself, Doh

author=hedonaut link=topic=31562.msg132476#msg132476 date=1398639496]
A few more pics and details here: http://skisickness.com/post/vt533-26-apr-2014-chair-peak-ef-and-neb


I'm impressed by Drew's successful ski of the crux step.

I'm equally impressed by Eric's decision not to try and ski it.

Both exemplary.

Ditto Lowell's comments. Goodunonya boys!

Wow guys.

Way to get that one the second time around DT in what looks to be less than favorable conditions.

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2014-04-26 18:21:29