[bubblehead]

Looks like it's finally my turn to write up a trip report! Selena, Trace and I got Overcoat and Little Big Chief this weekend. The original plan was to go for Chimney Rock north face, but we burned most of our tat getting down off of Overcoat. LBC was not a bad consolation prize, though. We met up at the Mailbox parking area at 0530. We got a good chuckle about the five cars that were already in the lot. Bikes and packs were loaded into the bed of my truck, and soon we were headed down the middle fork road to the Dutch Miller Gap trailhead. Two hours of biking up the old road led us to Hardscrabble horse camp, and the start of our hiking. Boy, was it hot and smokey.

some local wildlife

We had all day to get to high camp, so we took it nice and slow

Camp Pedro

Wild rock formations on Iron Cap

Giant's chair

Camp Pedro was our last break spot before heading off trail. We found easy bushwhacking through blueberry and huckleberry bushes. Crossing the Middle Fork is trivial, as there aren't many drainages that far in. There is a steep, brushy rib just east of the waterfall that leads up to what should be called the Valley of the Chiefs.

Pleasant bushwhacking

Large Boulders

LBC and Summit Chief dominate this spectacular valley

Lots of rocky terrain took us to the large snowfield, and 6140 pass.

Little Big Chief

Me on some snow

Middle Chief

Water break/time to get the cramps on

Selena working up the snow

Trace at 6140 pass with Chimney Rock

From there, we started a rising traverse towards the crux of the approach. The ledges Matt aptly termed "unpleasant". We later saw in the register that Mark and Seth found a pair of underpants at the start of this section and coined it the "underpants ledge." I'd love to see that on a map someday We scrambled up about 15' on solid rock to the upper ledge, then down and across on some compact dirt and scree.

The traverse

The upper ledge was exposed, but pretty easy. The lower ledge looked horrendous from both sides.

Now that we had that behind us, a short bit of scrambling lead to high camp and the end of a long first day. Views were breathtaking.

Lovely little water source before camp

Looking over the Overcoat Glacier

North Peak of Chimney Rock

Finger of Fate on the left and Chimney Rock

Sunset over high camp

Chimney and Overcoat

After a long, windy, buggy, restless night (at least Selena slept well), we began day 2. A short scramble down from the tarn and we were on the glacier. Interestingly, the crevasses were more like vertical drainages. Water was flowing down through every one we passed. There were moulins all over the glacier as well, these hazards were easily avoidable.

Moulins

Selena and the Overcoat Glacier

We were at the base of the East Face in under an hour. The only beta we had on this route was Beckey's great description that basically says climb to the summit. Gotta love it. Trace and I swung leads, I had pitches 1 and 3, he had 2 and 4.

Setting up the first belay

The climbing is runout, but easy enough. Me leading P1.

Our rack was small to medium nuts, single cams 0-0.75, and an assortment of slings. I would've liked to have a #1 where I set up the belay at the top of P1, so I had to stack two nuts to make this work. Trace brought his rock shoes and ended up completely regretting it, as there is some compact dirt and heather on the route which made it nice and slippery for him. Selena and I climbed in approach shoes and had no problems. A few hours of climbing had us standing on the summit with big smiles on our faces and enjoying the beautiful views. The smoke was mostly blown back from whence it came, which was a very welcomed sight.

Chimney Rock

Very intimidating

New lake forming

Tarn Camp from high above

Overcoat Lake

Big snow without the snow

North Peak Chimney rock

Summit Chief

Glacier

Seemed like a good spot to stand

Hibox, Lemah, Chikamin, Huckleberry, Thomson, other snoqualmie peaks

Crawford lake(I think)

SC with Stuart to the east

Summit smiles

The next part was getting down. We had ditched our snow gear at the base of the climb, so that meant we couldn't go down via the standard NE snow finger route. We had tat for about 5 rap anchors, but would that be enough? Luckily, the answer was yes. 3 hours of playing "find the least bad rap anchor" had us back at our gear, smiles still intact. I think it was about 7 raps to get all the way back down.

The route

Back on to the glacier for a short time and then to camp. We packed up and headed down to camp Pedro for the evening. The ledge was much less unpleasant on the way up.

Back at our gear

Descending the glacier

Back down into the Valley of the Chiefs

Glacial remnant below Middle Chief

Summit Chief with less smoke

LBC

Close up. That face is pretty incredible.

Clear skies

Day 3 started like this...

What a sight to wake up to

We were on the trail to Dutch Miller Gap by 0800, and to the gap in no time at all.

Almost at the gap

We began scrambling up through the cliffs to get to the large basin above. On the way, we found a neat cave with a key hole in the back of it. Totally unnecessary, but Trace and I thought it would be fun to squeeze up through this.

The cave with the key hole

The basin

Selena and I ascending above the basin

Beckey's 3rd class NE face route... sure. We did the north ridge variation.

It was pretty obvious where we needed to go to get to the north ridge. Through the basin, past a waterfall and a fun 3rd class scramble to gain the ridge. There was an easier way to get on the ridge that we found on the way down if you stay to the east a bit longer instead of going straight up. On the ridge, an exposed downsloping slab lead to the infamous notch. Talk about exposed! Wish I took a good photo of it, but alas, I didn't. The moves look way harder than they actually are, but the step across is AIRY. I lead across and brought Trace and Selena over.

Heading over to the notch

Waptus

Camp Pedro

Malachite, Baring, Gunn and friends

Natural cairn. Sloan and friends beyond

The notch is directly below me to the left. Bears Breast looking foreboding beyond

Action shot

From the notch it was heather and rock hopping in a rising traverse over to the area below the summit ridge. The heather ledges up there are nice and flat, which was very comforting. We began to look for the route to the summit. Beckey says the scramble is at the south end of a snowfield directly below the summit. We picked the route that matched this description (and looked climbable), but we were all in agreement that there were some 5th class moves in there. Beckey 3rd class strikes again To be fair, this may not have been the right route. This pitch was probably about 100' and we solo'd it. Above was some wet heather that lead to the 4th class summit block, which was trivial compared to what we had just come up.

Ramps heading up

Summit ridge. Route up continued left.

Quick summit selfie

We tagged the summit and retreated, as we were mentally pretty worked by then. There was a large boulder above the pitch, so we slung it and rapped off. It almost got us back down, so we just downclimbed from there as it was easier terrain down low.

Bears Breast

Williams Lake, Hinman, Daniel

Middle and Summit Chief

Stuart and Waptus

Looking back up the route, the rope is draped over the notch. The way down remained adventurous for longer than we bargained for, as we chose to try out the direct descent to the trail as opposed to the basin that we had come up. It looked like it would go from above Initially, it was easy terrain for awhile before we ran into some trees above cliffs. I had this funny feeling that we would be alright if we just kept trying to work our way down, so that's what we did. I veggie belayed my way down to the lowest trees and popped out on a nice bench in the waterfall. I peeked over and it looked like I could get a bit further, as Trace was asking if we should find a tree to start rapping off of. I gave the downclimb a chance and it just kept looking like it would work. Down we scrambled, somehow picking our way down the most improbable terrain. We couldn't believe that we had just strung that whole descent together. Trace said we should call it "Rap Refusal." I guess all of that sketch on the upper mountain had it's benefits! Sketch tolerance +1 that day.

Here's our improbable line down

Selena below our descent route

We made our way back down to camp Pedro, packed up camp, and blasted back down to Hardscrabble in less than 2 hours. From there, bikes got us all back to my truck in an hour. As we were driving down the less than stellar middle fork road, it began to drizzle. Luck was on our side for this totally epic adventure, no doubt in my mind. Thank you, Trace and Selena, for being awesome people to climb with. You made this trip all the more rad. We clocked in around 45 miles and 10K vert, my biggest trip yet.

[Tom]

Awesome report and welcome to the site (even if you've just been lurking). Brings back some great memories!

[neek]

Very nice. Conditions look way more serious than when we did it early season.

[Bluebird]

Thanks for the trip report! I'll try to add a few of my favorite photos soon. It was such a good trip, burly and interesting... just how I like my mountains

[awilsondc]

Riley!! You knocked it out of the park with your first trip report here! Great straight to the point narrative, and excellent photography. You've got a good eye. Nice job bagging these two rarely climbed peaks.

[rstoddard24]

thanks for the TR! what would y’all rate the tech difficulty of Overcoat E Face? (low 5th, 5.x ...?) Also any idea what the N Ridge of Chimney rock goes at? That final step before the summit area looks difficult

[Backpacker Joe]

Nice work guys. Great pics.

[hapemask]

Awesome shots! I was on Hibox 8/15 admiring the view in your direction.

[puzzlr]

It's great to see a report of a different and rare route on Overcoat. And the alternate route down Little Big Chief? I hope "Underpants Ledge" sticks

[bubblehead]