I first climbed Chair Peak back in the 1980's as a scramble from the col just south of the peak. Then Kim Colis and I climbed the NE Buttress route and, in the early 90's, I climbed this route again with Bob Pasko. Both of the latter climbs were in early season with plenty of snow still on the peak. They were fun but uneventful except for the loss of my ice axe on the climb with Bob. We were crossing a rather nasty moat low on the peak when my brand new ice axe got loose and disappeared. Trying to drop down into the moat was problematic so I did the rest of the climb without it. That then led to a small problem on the descent from the col where the snow slope is pretty steep.
It is a fun sitting glissade but with no ice axe it would be hard to control my speed. And sure enough I quickly gained speed and then "Whump!" as my feet hit the lower lip of a hidden moat. It was the type situation where your ankles get a real good jolt but I didn't have time to think about that as I was catapulted into the air and spent the rest of the 'glissade' pretty much out of control. There is a good runout so no serious damage resulted and everyone got a good laugh but my ankles did sting for a while.
Oh, my ice axe? I went back up two weeks later and the snow had melted out enough for me to retrieve it.
