Chair Peak/Northeast Buttress

Friday July 31 - clear, sunny, and hot by 0630. It remained hot all day.

Made a few changes to the way we climbed this go around.

P1: Still pitched it out, despite needing to struggle to find placements for even a single piece. Consequence of a fall is still great. Ended at the obvious tree at the base of the open book.

P2: Set up a gear belay about 15 ft up from the base of the open book. This allowed me to link the otherwise two pitches in the open book into one, and belay from the top-most tree at the end.

P3: Scrambled up maybe 50' to a solid rock that I slung. Set up a fixed line across the east face and anchored to the slung tree on the other side. A 60m just barely reaches.

Scrambled from the end of the fixed line to the summit. We shaved off 2.5 hrs from the last trip removing some of the pitches and setting up the fixed line, but descending the fixed line is arguably too difficult for a basic route, and cleaning the fixed line is also a task that many leaders would find intimidating.

Fortunately had a strong party, but would reconsider this strategy if the party was unknown.