The rope is moving slowly but steadily. My partner, Sketchy, hasn’t placed a single piece of gear yet, and I’ve just fed the middle marks on our 60 meter through my belay device. The Northeast buttress of Chair Peak doesn’t match the gear-catalog representation of ice climbing: no sun glittering on thick, glassy ice, no plunging frozen waterfalls, no place to put ice screws. So far it’s been one mixed pitch of ice-cemented rocks, two of steep snow with occasional rocks and bushes. One of the steep snow pitches happened to have about 15 feet of ice that could be recognized as a frozen waterfall. We’re now on another snow pitch, which should be the last (supposedly, not that we’ve got a route description with is).

The climbing has felt easy to me, but I haven’t been leading. The protection is what’s sparse, and Sketchy’s a little stressed out, judging by the grumbling and ranting coming from above.

The snow is dust over a styrofoam-like crust over sugar. The crust holds together adequately, but occasionally a large chunk breaks off and dissolves into a bucket load of sugar while it slides down the slope. A chunk comes down following the rope line and I duck left behind the medium sized rock that’s both anchor and shelter. The leader of a party of 3 behind us has climbed past me and is now enthusiastically cursing and digging around in the snow for his own anchor. I hear another large chunk of styrofoam snow sliding down the slope from his position and duck to the right around the rock.

Feed rope out. Duck behind rock. Knock snow off my boots. Repeat.

The rope stops, with just a few feet left. My turn to follow. The biggest challenge has been trying to reach the gear loops on my harness around my puffy down jacket and the waistbelt of my pack. On this pitch I don’t have to worry about that. The single piece of protection is a girth hitched sling that I don’t even have to loosen to pull over its rock, so it doesn’t take long to reach the belay. Actually, I reach Sketchy sitting down in the snow, running the rope around a ridge as the belay.

We’re done with the technical climbing, and the summit is just a scramble away (supposedly, not that we can see it). The last time I climbed Chair it was early summer, and we sunbathed on the summit block while admiring the view. Today, no sun, no views, and, so close to solstice, no daylight, so no summit.

The first rap station is barely visible below, a rainbow of frozen webbing around a very gnarled small tree. Not the best anchor ever, but it’s good enough to be our ticket down the gully-slash-wind-tunnel to a hopefully uneventful walk out in the dark.

Descending

• Chair Peak, Northeast Buttress