Chair Peak Circumnav CCW

April 13, 2024

My first circumnavigation of Chair Peak was in February of 2013 and went clockwise, finishing across Snow Lake. Colin suggested going counterclockwise this time and cutting off the Snow Lake portion with the direct route near Chair Peak itself.

We left Seattle at about 6:45am and started our tour at 8am. It was already hot in the open sections with the sun beating down and isothermal, sloppy snow already. The first section brought us up about 2,000 feet to the shoulder of Chair Peak in about 1 hour and 40 minutes. We stopped for a snack and transitioned to ski mode. The skiing was pretty horrendous breakable crust and wet slide avalanche debris most of the way down to the West edge of Snow Lake, but it was still fun given the ambiance.

We started back up about 2 hours and 15 minutes into our day, making our way up increasingly wet snow beneath Roosevelt, but never seeing significant instability. This climb was about 1,000 feet and we reached the saddle above Chair Peak Lake about 3 hours and 15 minutes from the car. We sat here and had lunch, basking in the warm sun and soaking up the mountain views. Rather than ski down the short pitch to the lake, we traversed on skins down, then across the lake and up to the saddle below Kaleetan just under 4 hours from the car. From here, it was a quick side-hill traverse in ski mode down near Melakwa Lake where we put the skins on for the last time and made our way up to the Bryant col about 4 hours and 45 minutes in.

Given the very warm conditions and clear wet slide debris in Bryant Couloir that we could see earlier in the day, we opted for the safer descent over the shoulder of Bryant. The first few turns were pretty buttery even if they were heavy and the skiing had its moments down into the standard Pineapple Pass descent and then back out the trail to the car. We were back just shy of 5 hours and 20 minutes after leaving the car.

Great day to be outside with a good friend even if the skiing was pretty poor!

Mount Aspiring NW Ridge

December 14, 2023

In December of 2017, Dale, Owen, and I traveled to New Zealand and climbed Mount Cook before the weather closed in, necessitating a shift to a driving wine and cheese tour for the rest of our time on the South Island. Six years later, I returned with my wife, baby, and our friends Jen, Colin, and their baby for a visit. Mount Aspiring had been stuck in my mind since the research for our first trip and so I (easily) convinced Colin to pack mountaineering gear so we could give it a go during our time in Wanaka.

To minimize our time away from wives and babies and with a 2-day weather window, we decided to take the helicopter ride up to Bevan Col. Trip reports online varied widely in terms of durations for the climb and descent from Colin Todd hut. The stats suggested it could be done faster than most estimates, so we hoped an early helicopter ride in on our first day would enable us to traverse to the hut, drop overnight gear, and then climb the mountain starting around 11am. We were dropped off a little after 9am and quickly traversed to the hut across the Bonar Glacier in just over an hour but, upon arriving, discussed with a Czech team of 3 at the hut who had been waiting out weather and wind for multiple days and could see that the wind was gusting at the summit at dangerous speeds, so we settled in for a day of leisure at the hut.

Our Czech friends woke up at 2:30am, which seemed a bit early to us, so we let them head out and then mobilized ourselves at 3:30am to be moving around 4am, expecting it to take about 1.5-2 hours before we hit the rock buttress and more route-finding challenges so we’d be aligned with dawn. We had scoped out The Ramp and the Kangaroo Patch on our hike in, but the snow was quite soft and didn’t refreeze, plus the guidebook suggested the Kangaroo Patch didn’t save much time and was less scenic than the full ridge.

From the hut, there were cairns everywhere on the ridge and we soon found an easy snow ramp heading onto the margin of the Iso Glacier, which we followed up to the saddle and then across onto the edge of the Therma Glacier as we followed the ridge to the right. We benefitted from the Czech party’s boot pack and switched onto the rocky ridge in under an hour. It was easy going and so we kept the rope in the bag. After traversing the gendarme, there was a brief down-climb step that was exposed enough we decided to put the rope on and protect it. It proved easy enough, as did the subsequent terrain, but having a short rope between us and simul-climbing didn’t slow us down and enabled us to place protection here and there. A few sections had snow and drop-offs, so we switched into crampons with axes a couple of times.

We caught the Czechs after skirting the buttress to the left. Our beta showed continuing a rising traverse below the ridge crest, but we could see this took us over steep snow. We followed this while the other party cut right and up to the ridge crest. Our path was efficient for the way up, with firm snow and good rock protection on our right, which we simul-climbed. After a bit more ridge scrambling back out of crampons, we were below the final ramp to the summit about 4 hours after leaving the hut.

We’d been nervous about the winds up high, but as we made our way upwards, we only felt a few gusts that threw our balance off—it was otherwise not too bad. The snow was firm and somewhat icy, but had just enough give for secure steps. After a little over an hour, we reached the summit at 9:15am. It was miraculously calm at the very top and we soaked in the views, including a really cool undercast marine layer blowing up the valleys to the West from the ocean. We could see Mount Cook in the distance.

A few moments later, we started down the long section of side-hilling descent back to the ridge, which took us an hour since the snow was still so firm. Back on the ridge, the temperature was rapidly rising and the wind was reducing, so we took off most of our layers and fueled up. We decided to avoid what would now be slushy snow from our path up and stayed on the crest of the ridge as the Czechs had done. This worked well and we eventually found a ramp that traversed back skier’s right as the ridge steepened, which eventually brought us back to our track from the way up.

The rest of the scramble went quickly, now knowing the best path up, down, and around the features of the ridge. At 12:45pm, a little over 3 hours after leaving the summit, we were back on the snow of the Therma Glacier, sinking in about a foot with each step. The rest of the way down to the hut went quickly and we arrived there at 1:15pm, about 9 hours after leaving.

We fueled and packed up at the hut and got moving around 3pm. We’d heard that the Bevan Col descent had wet slide avalanche overhead hazard risk and it was so warm that we decided to traverse the Bonar Glacier all the way to Quarterdeck Pass to go down French Ridge instead. This ended up being just over 4 miles and 2,000 feet of gain on the glacier, which was pretty soft at this point in the afternoon and arduous. Thankfully, the marine layer blowing in from the West provided some cover for us since we’d otherwise have baked to a crisp. That said, it ended up putting us in a full whiteout for about an hour of our journey. It took a little over 3 hours from the hut to the pass, which we crested at 6:30pm.

The descent from Quarterdeck Pass to French Ridge hut was quite quick on the soft snow, which was almost continuous to the hut. Since it was 7:30pm at that point, we decided it was best to spend the night there. Our boots were completely soaked from the wet snow, so it felt really good to get everything off and dry it out a bit. Some kind souls at the hut boiled a bit of water for us and we enjoyed an evening chatting up the other parties. The weather was expected to worsen significantly overnight and through the following day, but we needed to get back to our families, so we got moving with dawn at 5:30am.

It took us about 1.5 hours down the steep ridge and then jungle trail climbing roots through steep sections to the river ford at the base of French Ridge. Just as we reached that point, the rain started dumping and the wind kicked up. We put our heads down and marched down the trail, enjoying the ambiance as much as we could despite being completely soaked and a bit cold. It took about 5 hours from the hut to the car—not as bad as the guidebook suggested. When we got there, we piled straight into the car as the rain dumped down outside and then rallied our way out to Wanaka, meat pies, wives, and babies. Great success!

West Ridge on Mount Thomson

July 16, 2023

Kelsey and I were looking for a single-day moderate alpine climbing objective and settled on Mount Thomson having looked at it a number of times from the Kendall Katwalk but never having been all the way back to do it. We left Seattle around 6:30am and were leaving the car a bit after 7:30am.

Our approach was reasonably quick, getting to the Katwalk for a snack in a little over 2 hours and then pressing on past Ridge Lake and then to Bumblebee Pass in a little over 3 hours from the car. We got a good look at the mountain from here and could see a party on the high slabs. We dropped down past a campsite and then started the lollipop, ascending talus and scree that looked worse than it was (for the most part) up to the West Ridge notch 4 hours and 8.5 miles from the car.

We geared up here and spent a couple of minutes looking around the base of the ridge and up the ridge thinking that it looked improbably steep for low 5th class, but as soon as we got onto the rock just left of the ridge crest to start and then on the crest shortly thereafter, we found very moderate terrain which was plenty comfortable to climb in our approach shoes with a light single rack. We decided to simul-climb with our 8mm 60m rope doubled up and this worked reasonably well, combining the three pitches of 5th class into two simul blocks.

The slab section afforded some great views of Mount Rainier on what was a brilliantly clear day. We scampered across and realized after a short stop shy of the next rock face that there was a tree belay tucked all the way up against it. We moved our belay here and then Kelsey finished the climb up to the final ridge. We put the rope in the backpack from here and scrambled to the top, savoring the great views at about 2pm.

We quickly hit a traffic jam on the descent and decided that at least the first rappel was easily down-climbable, so we did that. The next rappel looked a bit more loose and exposed, so we took the rope out for it since we were waiting regardless. The next rap was an easy down-climb. We scooted past the two other parties once everyone was off rappel and then began the slog out.

We stopped at Ridge Lake for a quick dip, which was marvelous and refreshed us for at least the next couple of miles. From the Kendall Katwalk down felt interminable, with the 18 miles adding up to some serious foot and leg pain, but it all faded quickly with a burger at Commonwealth shortly thereafter. It was about an 11 hour 15 minute round trip for us. Nice to be back on rock after a long time!