- Mt. Whitney
- Mt. Langley
- White Mountain
- Mt. Tyndall
- Split Mountain
- North Palisade
- Mt. Muir
- Mt. Russell
- Mt. Williamson
- Middle Palisade
- Mt. Sill
- Mt. Shasta
Our original plan was to make an attempt on Mt. Russell but upon reaching the Lone Pine visitor station we were informed all wilderness permits for the "Whitney Region" had been filled. So we opted for plan B. I had done just a little bit of research about the East Face of the Middle Palisade prior to even leaving for our trip in case we did opt for plan B. This proved to be a mistake...
Sunday September 5th 2010:
I had placed a partner ad on the website site SummitPost. Josh from the bay area responded to my ad and our trip or two was now three. Josh drove down to Fresno that morning an rallied at my house. We departed the the eastern Sierra shortly after that. Russ however had previous obligations and was not going to be joining us at the trail head until the following morning. Russ's second objective besides Middle Palisade was to drop his car off at Whitney Portal for his upcoming John Muir Trail hike.
Like I said, our plans had to change instantly upon finding out Mt. Russell wasn't going to happen. My research had showed the Middle Palisade as class 3 which meaning per Wikipeda, "Scrambling with increased exposure. Handholds are necessary. A rope can be carried but is usually not required. Falls are not always fatal." This worried me a tad but the preceding year I've been learning the ropes so to speak about class 5 climbing. I figured this would be no problem!
Josh and I arrived at the trail head for the South Fork of the Big Pine in the late afternoon and setup camp. Too excited to sit still I recommended we go out for a day hike up the south fork trail. We hiked the first two miles until the major creek crossing and called it good. Later that evening we drove down to Bishop for dinner and then back up to the hill to await Russ in the morning.
Monday September 6th 2010:
Russ and the "Mountain Geo Metro Mobile" made an arrival around noon at our camp. We quickly packed up and were on our way back up the trail that Josh and I had day hiked the prior afternoon.
Fist and foremost...Holy moly, the Middle Palisade is a huge mountain! To add to the intimidation factor we were looking at the East Face Route which appeared to all three of us as a sheer cliff. A few words about the East Face by Peter Croft:
"It may be an intimidating sight from miles away but when you get there...it's worse." - The Good, the Great, and the Awesome.
The first few miles of the trail are relatively mellow however upon crossing the south fork creek the trail begins it's relentless uphill climb.
Below: Looking back on the mellow first few miles.
After 5 miles and 2,500' of gain we arrived at Brainard Lake. We decided to take lunch and relax before our cross country section next.
The section between Brainard Lake and Finger Lake (our camp) doesn't have an maintained trail per say but we where able to spot the use trail. Josh is seen below working his way (along with his way too heavy pack) up towards Finger Lake.
5 and a half hours after leaving the trail head we arrived at the pristine Finger Lake. What a place! I had never seen a turquoise color looking lake before. This was from the glacier high above melting old ice and grown up rock which made the color.
We setup our camp for the night, each one of us sporting either our own tents or in the case of myself my bivy sack. Russ started up a fire which was pretty pleasant since the September nights at altitude can be chilly.
Tuesday September 7th 2010:
Sometime during the night a tremendous wind picked up from nowhere and began to howl for the remainder of the night. In fact it was so windy that Russ's tent collapsed and was flatten to the ground. However that didn't stop our summit attempt on the mountain. We awoke at 6:00am and were hiking cross country uphill by 6:45.
Although very breezy, the wind wasn't too cold. We made slow but steady progress to the base of the route. Our first issue was to ascend 1,000' of talus to the base of the Middle Palisade Glacier. Surrounding the glacier was the moraine which made upward progress even slower.
After two hours of upward slogging we arrived at the base of the icy glacier. The glacier is split in two by a moraine pile (see the first picture) which we could gain the base of the mountain. Russ in seen below in the picture traversing the rubble pile below the ice.
Our party of 3 began the split up over time due to various factors and I was the first to arrive at the base of the mountain at 9:45. The surrounding view of the glacier was extremely impressive as well as the wind!
As far as our route (The East Face) was concerned, it looked like a maze of cliff to all of us. My research indicated that a "reddish band of rocks" would lead up to a gully which would eventually merge in to another gully arriving at the summit. From where we stood nothing like that description with the exception of the reddish looking rocks could be seen.
After an honest conversation about the scale and exposure of the mountain Russ said he was out. Josh and I decided to have a look at the reddish band of rocks to see where it might lead too. In the picture below is me scaling the extremely loose red rocks in an attempt to find the hidden gully. Josh and I went perhaps 50' up the rocks before backing off. The rock was extremely loose with insane exposure down to the glacier.
Above: Looking down in the loose reddish rock down the the glacier.
Below: The highpoint for Josh before backing off.
And so by 11:00am all three of us rallied back together and begun our hike back to camp. The wind eventually died down the lower we got.
We hiked out and made it back to our cars by late afternoon. The overall feeling from the group was we were totally under prepared for the scale of this mountain. After dropping Russ's car off at the Whitney Portal parking lot for his upcoming JMT hike, we began the 5 hour drive back to Fresno.
All in all, this being my first major Sierra mountain climbing trip it went as well as it could of. Understanding risk and team dynamics is important. In the following days at home, I sat down and really began to research out the East Face route. I compared guidebooks, trip reports, and Internet photos. I began to see where we went wrong but that didn't make going back to that impressive east face any easier!
