Categories
Climbing Nature & Hiking

2019-08-24 thru 26 Priest Lake

August 24 thru 26, 2019

As a short vacation Carly and I visited northern Idaho again like we did over Memorial Day.  We stayed with our friend Rolf at his lake cabin on Priest Lake.  We were able to get a climbing day in at a very cool feature call Chimney Rock not far from Rolf’s cabin.  The feature is very cool tower made from granite.  I didn’t realize the climbing opportunities in the area.  The route we chose was the easiest to the top and didn’t have very good climbing, but the top was great and views were good–too bad it was so cold and windy.

Benchmark on the top of Lookout Peak. The old fire lookout tower is largely dismantled now.
View from where we parked the car for the approach to Chimney Rock. We got only about 100 yards from the end of the road.
The approach to Chimney Rock, left, brings one to a saddle and a eye level view of the feature and the knife edge ridge that once connected it to Mt. Roothaan.
Looking doing the first pitch as Carly and Brett get ready to climb. On the shady side, not that there was much sun to soak up, the wind was making it quite cold.
Brett did a great job on his first outdoor and multi-pitch outing.
View over to one of the other parties on the feature with us. This route looks like it's got some great exposure just before finishing.
Looking down the bombay chimney on P2.
Looking over to Mt. Roothaan.
On the summit. P2 and P3 were super cold because of the wind. Luckily P3 was super short.
For whatever fluid dynamic reason the top was almost calm whereas just 20 feet behind Brett and 20 down the face it was ripping windy.
Taking a look at the summit register.
2019-08-25_38679
Returning back to the car and looking up at the south nose of Chimney Rock. Just to the right of the nose (East side) there was a large rockfall in 2012 erasing some classic routes. The East side is another 200 ft higher than the West because the ground is lower.
Primo bivy site in the bowl below Chimney Rock.
Rolf and Carly walking out to the game camera Rolf's got in the woods. He had some good footage including a bear looking and sniffing directly into the camera.
Song bird in the tall grass at sunrise.

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