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Ascent of Chimney Rock on 2013-07-20

Climber: Franklin Bradshaw

Date:	Saturday, July 20, 2013
Ascent Type:	Successful Summit Attained
Peak:	Chimney Rock
Location:	USA-Washington
Elevation:	7727 ft / 2355 m
Ascent Trip Report From PTC find old trail at 3500' to edge of forest. Trail continues at 35-3600 along creek. Go to end of basin Boulder City. Left and up slope to basin. then keep going left of North peak (on your right). Top off to see Main and south peaks. We left snow due to moats half way between high snow on right and the East Face (gulley). Took a very dicey traverse and a cl4 pitch up to get to cl 3 and heather ridge. Would be better to do more left. Try 100+' north of East Face gulley. Taking you to south end of cl2-3 heather ledge. Our route went direct up and left on ledge two. At it's south end up cl3-4 to a nice broad ledge. Then a traverse right (awkward -to quote Smoot) to a piton at waste height. 30+' above is a rap anchor. Next pitch south of the mini arête (out of rockfall from piton belay) up cl4+. Good holds and generally sound rock. Pass rap anchors every 27-29m to ridge rap station. Left (south) to heather -up about 20-30 feet. "Key Ledge" is on left, next pitch is on right. A steep 3-4' offwidth. One pitch up cl4-5+. Climbing just gets better up here. Now up and right easier cl3-4 past King Rap station. Then up obvious chimney with fun cl4 climbing. Rope runs out just below a small chockstone. Good place to belay in the cools cavish feature. Used a #2BD and a .2BD in cracks in cave. From here a move or two and within 20' off to left to summit ridge. Rap anchor more right gives a weird angle for protection. Summit was very high wind. Several protected and some lofty bivy sites on summit. A rap, downclimb and rap get you back to the key ledge. Planning to bivy on the key ledge in great weather would be an awesome option. We rapped the same route we went up. All anchors looked a min. of 3 years old. Most composed of white/grey bad tat. We followed the last ledge to the far south end to find a 70's era sling (rainbow stripes -inside where sun didn't bleach) webbing on two pitons. Rebuilt with a ring and a 20-25m rap to the snow. A ramp leads down and north. Would be easy access up. This is a serious climb and felt more than I expected from the beta. Perhaps I'm just a wimp. Leading with a large pack was very much a hindrance (often). Take plenty of tat for anchors 9-10) or take the U Gap route back over/around south peak. East Face snow was very steep and big moats/shrunds at the time of our ascent.