[Fletcher]

Jake and I climbed Chimney Rock in a single push yesterday. Thanks to amazing reports on this site from Puzzlr and Stefan, we were able to really nail the route up this difficult peak.

We drove out to the trailhead on Friday night arriving sometime past 11. After a couple hours of sleep in the car we were moving before 2am towards Pete Lake with heavy daypacks. I was thankful to be hiking in the cold early morning air as we knew it was going to get hot. A couple hours later, we dove into the brush off of the PCT, found an easy log crossing the creek, and easily located the beginning of the climbers trail that ascends towards the basin below the Chimney Glacier.

first look at Chimney Rock from the PCT

The climbers trail (sometimes present, sometimes not) was well flagged and pretty easy to follow. It didnt take us too long to reach the basin with the big boulders where other climbers often camp. It was horribly buggy in here and we were glad to be day-tripping.

snow art

alpenglow on our route ahead and the south peak

Jake surrounded by a cloud of masquitos

We refilled on water here and then worked our way up around a large rib towards the Chimney Glacier. We were now in the sun and it was hot. We took a funky route getting up onto the rib and struggled up some concrete-packed scree with loose microwave-sized rocks. Good times.

Chimney Rock

And again just before getting onto the Chimney Glacier

There were a few small crevasses on the glacier that are really easy to walk around. Traversing towards the couloir below the peaks of Chimney Rock was awe-inspiring and really intimidating to think that we were going to the top of all that.

Jake with the north peak

Chimney Rock 7-14-18

The couloir to U-Gap was mostly snow and it was firm and steep. There was a large moat near the top. Luckily we found an easy step over from snow to rock. We then scrambled up nasty loose rock to U-Gap. This involved a few moves of class 5 that felt sketchy with our heavy packs. We'd find another way down.

cramponing to U-Gap

steep

earning it

pulling moves below U-Gap

Chimney Rock 7-14-18

We then dropped slightly from the gap and found the slabby class 3 section that would bring us to the large improbable ledge. Its fairly exposed here and would remain so (in varying degrees) for the rest of our climb. Be ready for a lot of exposure if you do this route! The class 3/4 moves getting onto the ledge were easy, thankfully. The ledge traverse was easy but super exposed. As you round the corner on the ledge the main summit of Chimney Rock comes into view.

on the ledge

Chimney Rock's summit looks imposing

We soon found ourselves at the white rocks section of the route. As others have noted, it looks too steep to be correct but it is and its mostly class 3, ledgy and blocky. Still super exposed though.

yes, we climbed straight up from here

Jake and exposure

Just before the col above the white rocks, we traversed right to a secondary notch and could see the ramp that leads to the base of the roped pitches. Almost there!

go up this

mountain flora

At the top of the ramp, we dropped some gear at the deluxe bivy spot and racked up for the three pitches to the summit. I lead all three pitches. The climbing was never difficult, but it is chossy with often runout pro. The pro was so runout for much of the lead that I might as well have been soloing. Our set of stoppers ended up hardly being used, but there are cracks for medium and small cams and some horns and chockstones to sling. The third pitch is probably the most quality, but we didnt come up here for the quality of the rock climb; we came up here to summit Chimney Rock

deluxe

pitch 1

Jake climbing pitch 1

looking down from the 2nd pitch

pitch 3

We were stoked to summit before noon. It was hot on the summit. The air was really clear. quadruple volcano views!

me on Chimney Rock

Jake on Chimney Rock

Iceberg Lake

view west

Thompson and friends

Rainier and Lemah

Hinman and Daniel with North Chimney, Summit Chief and Bears Breast

Eightmile to Stuart

We had heard that the Chimney Rock register was soaked and ruined. When we got up there we found this to be the case. Jake had brought a replacement register. He transcribed the old register into the new as I took a nap. The old register placed by Fay Pullen in 2009 will be taken to the UW Archive to be hopefully repaired and saved.

Chimney Rock 7-14-18

page 1

page 2

page 3

page 4

page 5

After an hour on the summit, we walked over and set up our first rappel. 4 rappels later we were back down to the ledge and our gear.

rapping

rapping

rapping

We made a quick detour before descending to tag the south summit. Man the main summit looks impressive from up there!

south summit scramble

main summit and Overcoat

As we returned to our packs I saw a large winged shadow on the rocks in front of me. I looked up to see a paraglider only a couple hundred feet above me. We yelled and he yelled back. He was so close that we could have had a conversation. Crazy! Where did he come from?

The second paraglider

We took great care descending the white rocks. It was just as exposed as before. The ledge traverse also took care.

descending white rocks

I hope Jakes mom doesn't see this picture

or this one, really

Back at the U-Gap we descended skiers left (instead of skiers right) and found a pretty easy way back to the snow. Unfortunately, the snow was almost as firm as it was in the morning so we had to front-point down the whole thing with minimal boot and axe purchase. Fun stuff.

Jake front pointing down from U-Gap

Once back onto the more mellow terrain of the glacier, we cruised back down to the big boulder basin and ultimately the PCT. We stumbled out of the brush on the PCT at exactly 6:00.

Jake on the Chimney Glacier

Chimney Rock 7-14-18

we just came from there

just crossing a log

looking back from the PCT

Once we passed Pete Lake, the bugs became horrendous. We were hiking as fast as we possibly could and they were still swarming us and eating us alive. We ran the last 3 miles to the car and running only gave us minor relief. We returned to the car and IPAs at 8:05 PM. I probably will not be repeating this climb in my lifetime but it was cool to do it once. ~22.7 miles ~5880 ft of gain ~17hr 45m car to car

[awilsondc]

You guys are incredible. That's some high level bad assery right there!

[RichP]

Excellent work, fellas. Thanks for preserving the old register and placing the new one. Could this be the first one day climb of Chimney Rock?

[Jake Robinson]

Great trip! Thanks Fletcher for doing all the driving, leading all the rock pitches quickly and efficiently, and putting up with me whining about my feet. A note on the register: The old notebook is in really bad shape. A lot of the entries are nearly illegible. I tried my best to transcribe everything, but in comparing with Puzzlr's photos from a few years ago I've noticed a mistake. The 7/17/10 entry was Jason Griffith and Chris Davidson. If anyone reading this is planning to head up there soon it would be great if you could fix that. Also, we placed a PVC tube with a slip cap on one end - if there's a better method it would be nice if someone could bring a new container too.

First views of Chimney Rock

Looking up from the glacier

Starting up

Climbing firm morning snow to the u-notch

Finding a way around the schrund

Starting towards the Improbable Ledge

Fletcher on the Improbable Ledge

Main Peak looking scary

Scrambling the white rocks

Dropping to the Key Ledge

Primo bivy site

Fletcher leads the first pitch

Fletcher leads the third pitch

Summit

Summit

First rappel

Second rappel

Either the third or fourth rappel, can't remember

On the way back now. Passing through the notch in the dividing buttress to get back to the white rocks.

Fletcher and main summit from the South Peak

Lots of this stuff

Dropping the dirty moraine

Last look

[Fletcher]

Rich, I haven’t seen any other reports for Chimney day trips but given the fact that the mileage and gain stats aren’t that big I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been done.

[gb]

If the route you climbed, which does not look familiar, did not have very good rock, the original 1957 route as described in Beckey is much better. My notes say we rappelled from the Finger of Fate at the top of the glacier to gain the ledge on the north side. I know I down climbed this in 1974 but in 1981 Mark Fielding and I found it difficult to see the descent because of very steep rock at the top. The notes say we traversed right to the chimney that splits the north face (which was not the visible one). On a later trip to Overcoat Peak, where I could see the Chimney route, I described the correct chimney as the eastern one of two that splits the north face. The 1957 description explains that a 20' pitch (which was about 5.4) led to the 4' chimney. The chimney which one stems is actually quite neat on good rock and went at about 5.2. The rack I described included two stoppers and three single and one double sling but I might carry a bit more. This area has changed a lot since the mid-70's when the approach gully to the upper icefield still had a glacier remnant and was easy snow and maybe a bit of ice climbing. That snow and ice is now gone and the gully is nasty when melted out. It can be avoided via a ledge system whose start is fairly obvious to the right of the gully. The ledges run back and forth and at most there is twenty feet of class three near a tree band. The ledge system leading to the ramps is at the base of a wall at 5200'+- and leads across to white rock. It ascends just to the right of a watercourse and a right facing dihedral. It tops out above 6200'. It is a very clean route. This bypass route is probably not described elsewhere. There are many good campsites on the upper mountain depending on where you find snow. The North Face Chimney route is a nicer route than the East Face which did not have as good of rock and was more exposed and runout. The latter is a more serious route, about 5.6-5.7 with many possible variations here and there. Also recommended is the East Face of Overcoat Peak which I soloed in 1974 with Lowell S. and repeated twenty or more years later in another party, using ropes the second time. As you view Overcoat, the route gains an obvious ledge that starts at the eastern base of the East Face and diagonals up and left to just below the summit. It is also about 5.4 and a good rack would include #1-1/2 to #3 friends and a few stoppers. It is somewhat runout but not unreasonably. My notes say that it would be nice to have a couple of thin pitons but it is unlikely most of the modern group would have them. I did not have pitons when I climbed the route. Not recommended is the SE face of the North peak, which we intended to do in 1981, but it looks frighteningly runout and very serious.

[Adampegg]

Bravo sirs! I'm really happy to get some current info on snow and the ar as conditions!

[Matt Lemke]

Wait is it common for old registers to be taken to the university of WA? I have the damaged (but now repaired) Lincoln Peak register. Who do I give it to to be saved and archived? It's also a Fay register. Maybe let her know to use screw caps instead of slip caps when she places those things otherwise they just get frozen/wet/destroyed!

[raising3hikers]

nice job guys I was wondering how your trip went

[LukerBee]

c2c radness, nice work guys!

[mountainflamingo]

Glad to see the register replaced. I was up there last year on Aug. 19 with a friend and the pages were so wet I thought I would tear right through it with the lightest scribble, so we didn't sign it. Good work doing it as a day trip, we were worried about it taking a long time and started at 4 am but then found ourselves back at the bivy rocks at 6 pm and contemplating the hike back to the car. The bugs weren't nearly as bad for us, so we just enjoyed the evening there, but then my buddy managed to put a hole in his sleeping pad in the night, so we might have been better off hiking out. Good work!

[cartman]

Quite the day trip! Fletcher, didn't take you long to make this one happen.

[Randito]

[yukon222]

[Bootpathguy]

I usually don't have the patience to watch a climbing or hiking video. Not even a 3 minute long one. But, I'll compliment you on your video. It is really, really good. You did a excellent job capturing the steepness and exposure ( and the slide alder ) No thank you! It was fun to watch and the music you put to it compliments the video perfectly. Nice job!