Smoky fun with a Chipmunk-August 24, 2013

Went with Nick this weekend to brave the smoke-filled Sawtooth Mountains and give the Four Horsemen route on Chipmunk Perch a try.

Four Horsemen ascends the obvious east ridge with 4 large towers (horsemen)


We left town after work on Friday and just managed to catch the last shuttle of the night from Redfish Lodge. We finished the hike to Saddleback Lakes by headlamp


As we were racking up at the base of the climb, Nick realized that he had accidentally packed two different types of climbing shoe. This is the last known photo of the white shoe . . .


Most of the climbing on the first 3/4 of the route consisted of short cruxes separated by easier scrambling


Nick, at his "cave belay" on top of pitch 5, halfway up the 3rd horseman:


After Nick's cave belay, I slung a large rock horn for my first piece of protection, moved up about a body length, and then pulled a chunk of rock the size of large suitcase off the mountain, and I went tumbling with it. Fortunately the horn held, and I was able to heave the block over my shoulder as I tumbled backwards to avoid getting squashed. Nick was belaying so there was nobody to take a photo, but fortunately Black Diamond had the forethought to take a photo of somebody doing a preemptive reinactment. He's even wearing the same shirt as me! The only difference is the rock that I pulled off was much larger than this :P


The aftermath of my mountain whipper. Lost a little skin, but otherwise, jolly fine.


Nick at a comfortable belay near the top of the ridge:


Looking back at the Elephant's Perch and the smoke.


After topping out Chipmunk's Perch, we ran over and tagged Goat Perch as well. Shortly after this photo was taken Nick accidentally left his climbing shoe on top. This prevented us from climbing a route on Elephant's Perch on Sunday: