
Trip Report
Chair Peak/Voie de Chaise
Voie De Chaise is still covered in loose rock but it is mostly avoidable on the ascent. The biggest worry for rock fall is when pulling the rope on the rappel. Overall the climbing is great!
- Thu, Aug 8, 2024
- Chair Peak/Voie de Chaise
- Climbing
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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GPX: https://caltopo.com/m/4T7QSD3
Overall the hike is in great condition.
To get to the boulderfield: follow the snow lake trail until the split between the snow lake overlook and the source lake overlook. Follow the source lake overlook straight instead of turning up the switchback to continue on the snow lake trail.
Once on the source lake trail you have about a mile of travel until you come across this large boulder directly on the bootpath: (this picture was taken from the far side of the boulder after passing it)
At this large boulder, turn right and you'll end up in a dry riverbed underneath a very low-flow waterfall. The path looks like it goes straight but you instead want to hug the far right of that riverbed until you get to another trail that switches back from the direction you came at a higher elevation and continues upwards.
(from here on out we were technically not on the correct path, but this shows the path we took)
In this picture you can see the actual trail below us, the trail starts with a triangle shaped rock embedded in the dirt:
We continued up the gulley/dry riverbed instead through what felt like a class 3/4 scramble until we hit close to 4800 feet. At that point we turned to hiker's right to try to connect to the original trailhead.
Here's us continuing up through that gulley
Once we turned hiker's right (northeast) we continued heading that direction along the elevation line until we hit a dense wooded area. We bushwacked through the dense wooded area for about 200 feet until we hit the riverbed which was above the waterfall at the original trail turn-off that we had missed. We continued up this riverbed for a few hundred feet and found a waterfall at the top of the riverbed:
The waterfall was a great point to stop and cool down and filter some water before starting the final approach
We scrambled up the right side of the waterfall and that put us right at the base of the talus field that leads up to the base of the climb. This picture is the view we had right after exiting the trees above the waterfall:
After walking around that cluster of trees we ended up right at the snowfield and finished the rest of the scramble up to the base of the climb:
Total distance from the car to the base of the climb for us was 2.68 miles. The final half mile was entirely on talus. If you are a heavier person like myself you will cause rockslide when walking on the talus so be sure to stagger your group horizontally to avoid injuring anyone below you. The easiest way to finish the approach above the snow patch is by sticking to the far right side against the base of the rock wall.
Pitch 1: The first bolt is pretty easy to spot and is about 10 feet off the ground. The first pitch is very well protected and doesn't wander very far so there is little worry for rope drag.
Pitch 2: The second pitch moves back and forth a bit and has a step-up onto a short slab section that can cause rope drag. An alpine draw is recommended for this pitch to extend the rope below the step-up.
Pitch 3: The third pitch starts by traversing ~15 feet to the right then heading up through a chimney. I highly recommend placing a fully extended alpine draw on the first bolt after the traverse to avoid rope drag. While climbing through the chimney there were a few points where I was unable to see the next bolt. When you get to this point you can just continue straight up and you will easily find the next bolt. It is placed on a flatter section so it cannot be seen from below. I also found myself backcleaning in the chimney to avoid rope drag.
Pitch 4: This pitch was fairly straightforward but does have one or 2 slab moves around the third bolt that require some mantling or some well placed feet to move through. It's not a difficult move but may give trouble to someone without any slab experience.
Pitch 5: This is the best pitch of the climb. It starts with a rightward trending move up a low angle with plenty of ledges and footholds until you reach the vertical section. The first bolt is hard to spot from below but is right before you actually touch the vertical wall. The vertical section feels like gym climbing outdoors. It's not slabby and there's no crack climbing, it is just straight vertical (maybe slightly overhung) with large flat handholds. Unfortunately, this pitch is really short. We were able to combine pitch 5 and 6 with a 70m rope and had plenty of rope left over.
Pitch 6: Pitch 6 is easy climbing following an obvious bolt line. There is a lot of loose rock on this pitch but if you carefully watch your feet you can avoid kicking anything down onto your belayer. The only caveat to this pitch is that there is a separate belay anchor and rappel anchor. The belay anchor is on the left of the bolt line and the rappel anchor is on the right. It will be harder to start pitch 7 from the rappel anchor so be careful which one you go to here.
Pitch 7: basically the same as pitch 6 with the same loose rock risks. There is only one anchor at the top here.
Pitch 8: Pitch 8 is only 2 bolts and then you drop to climber's right into a gulley that you cross with no protection until you reach a tree with webbing and a rap ring as an anchor. This tree is very awkward to belay from above on.
From the tree you can scramble directly up to the false summit and see the clear scrambling trail to get to the true summit before returning to rappel
The rappel:
We brought a 75m static tagline (7mm thickness, 5 lbs) and performed Reepschnur rappels for our descent. Using this method we were able to descend to the base in 3 rappels.
1. Down-scramble to the rap anchor at the top of pitch 7
2. Rappel pitches 7 and 6
3. Rappel pitches 5, 4 and 3
4. Rappel pitches 2 and 1
The biggest danger during the rappel was pulling the rope after pitches 6/7 from the anchor at the top of pitch 5. This caused a lot of loose rock to fall. Fortunately we weren't hit by it though. This was definitely the most dangerous part of the entire trip and should be done with caution. Hopefully with more traffic some of this loose rock clears up over time.
For the descent we chose to cut across the talus field all the way to the snow lake overlook and take the trail the entire way down. This way is .4 miles longer than going straight down through the talus field but we wanted to avoid the direct sunlight and loose rock on our descent. Overall we believe this was the correct choice.