Chair Peak - 6238' - NE Ridge Class 5.5
October 2015

For my last climb in WA before I would move to Los Angeles to start my new job at Geocomp, I met up with Amy, who I hadn't climbed with in a long time, to climb Chair Peak. We originally intended on doing the east face, but another party ahead of us was taking awhile to climb the first pitch when we reached the base of the route after the approach, so we traversed to the right to the NE ridge. Amy soon realized she forgot her ATC, so she wouldn't be able to belay me. I agreed to lead up each pitch without a belay since I was comfortable soloing at the 4th and very low 5th class grades found on this route. Then I would belay her up each pitch. The first pitch was by far the steepest, and was quite scary to solo. There was one spot of 5.4ish that gave me pause, but I made it to the huge ledge above where I was easily able to anchor to a tree and belay Amy. The second through forth pitches I thought were all class 3, and we topped out a couple hours before sunset with amazing fall views of the central cascades. The party who was ahead of us on the east face amazingly summitted after we did, and we were able to all rappel together on the descent. By the time we got back to the base, and onto the large talus slopes back to the trail it was dark, and I was forced to hike down the Snow Lake Trail using my phone as a light.

Our approximate route in blue/yellow