Trip Date: August 11-13, 2000

Chimney Rock Climbing Trip

Pete Lake
Sunrise Knob
Chimney Glacier
Chimney Rock: main peak aka Main Chimney Peak (7727 ft)

Trip Report Summary

Region: Central Washington Cascades

Sub-Region: Snoqualmie Range

Area: Alpine Lakes Wilderness

Starting & Ending Point: Pete Lake Trailhead on Cooper Lake Road (Elev. 2800 feet)

Way Points: Cooper River & Pete Lake & Lemah Meadow & Chimney Creek & Sunrise Knob (trail hike & off-trail hike & rock scramble)

Campsite: Sunrise Knob (Elev. 4650 feet)

Summit: Main Chimney Peak (snow climb & rock scramble & rock climb via Chimney Glacier—East Gully—Upper East Face)

Approximate Stats: 19 miles traveled; 6000 feet gained & lost.

Related Post

>>> Chimney Rock: south peak via Pete Lake—Chimney Glacier—East Gully – August 1999

Full Trip Report

The Main Peak of Chimney Rock is a vertical tower of black rock that lords over the Alpine Lakes Wilderness core and tantalizes climbers from numerous vantage points throughout the central Cascades. During our first attempt to climb her last year, we did not allow enough time but managed to summit the South Peak. This year, we gave ourselves a full day to climb the Main Peak.

Day 1: Trailhead to Sunrise Knob

Jim and I started out on the Pete Lake trail around 3:00pm Friday afternoon. The trail is dusty, but is in great shape.  We left the trail at the first switchback in the avalanche path, just as Beckey’s book mentions, and proceeded up the Chimney Creek drainage to our base camp. There is a climber’s trail that begins at an obvious logjam that provides an excellent creek crossing. It is faint to start, but becomes more well-defined. Beckey describes the climber’s trail as 200 yards into the forest from the avalanche slope; however, we found that the trail is only about 20 yards inside the forest, adjacent to the avalanche path. It is marked in places with orange flagging. We bivied on the top of a high rock buttress that we named “Sunrise Knob” (4.5 hours from TH), just below the moraine and overlooking the waterfalls.  The multiple peaks of Chimney Rock tower overhead.

Day 2: Chimney Rock Summit Climb

The next morning, we left camp at 6:00am and started up the moraine to the base of the Chimney Glacier. The easiest (and least glamorous) way to reach the upper glacier was a grungy, wet gully in the rock band. The icefall had opened up considerably and left barely enough room to skirt by on a short pitch of hard, 45-degree glacier ice. The bergschrund was large, but enough ice blocks had tumbled into the moat and formed a ramp and platform from which we could easily access the rock.

The climb to the notch between the South and Main peaks (“Main Notch”) has a few, short fourth class sections on wet rock, then mostly third class scrambling on exposed ledges.  We were roped most of the way, using running belays.

From the Main Notch, we traversed up and over a short rock knob toward the Main peak, to try to find the ramp that leads to the broad ledge below the summit tower. What Beckey refers to as a “blind chimney” is actually a very loose, dangerous, grungy gully.

After a foray into the grunge, we climbed back out in search of a better way. We descended the rock ridge on the north side of the gully (third class) to a small notch, from where we could descend a third class ramp, cross the gully, and ascend the third class ramp to the broad ledge.

An even easier way to access this small notch is to downclimb from the Main Notch about 50 feet and look toward the Main Peak – a fairly obvious reddish ramp (third/fourth class) leads up to this small notch. When we reached the broad ledge, we changed into rock shoes. From here, the route was fairly obvious – starting in a shallow slot.

This pitch has some low-fifth-class moves on generally sound rock with decent protection (slings, stoppers, and some 1/2 and 3/4 inch cams). The second pitch starts with a short traverse across a small, heathered ledge and then continues up a very exposed fourth-class face.

The last pitch ends in a delightful low-fifth-class chimney that tops out just a few feet from the summit cairn.  We were on top at 4:30pm (8.4 hours from camp).

The descent was as much of a challenge as the ascent, but fortunately there were good rappels (using a single 165-foot rope) from the summit to the broad ledge.  From the broad ledge, downclimbing to the gully is very feasible, with a short up-climb to the Main Notch. This was followed by a long down-climb of the third class ledges, two rappels near the base of the rock over the wet fourth-class sections, and a final third class downclimb to the bergschrund.

We returned to Sunrise Knob Camp in twilight under a full moon (6.0 hours from summit), not fully comprehending the fact that we actually summited Chimney Rock – the mountain that had haunted us for a year!

Day 3: Sunrise Knob to Trailhead

We had a mostly uneventful hike out in the morning sun.  However, the bees were out and seemed to have bad attitudes; I was stung three times on the hike down the climber’s path!

Approach Route Sketch

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