After 3 previous attempts to summit the North Palisade (14,242') Russ and I successfully climbed in via the ridge traverse. Total time from camp to camp was 16 hours and racks up as one of the most physically exhausting days I've ever had. The psychological exhaustion was extreme as well. Total time spent on the ridge over 14,000' was 9 and a half hours.
Our technical route was an adaptation of the famous grade IV Thunderbolt-to-Sill-Traverse. "This has got to be one of the very best and most popular traverses in the United States." - Peter Croft, The Good, The Great, and the Awesome.
Overall technical rock climbing we encountered was no more than 5.7 in one spot, however it involved endless 4th class with 5th class moves perhaps every 20' or so. I found the climbing VERY enjoyable, however the altitude and the unknown terrain in front of us kept us on our toes. It should also be noted that the summit block of Thunderbolt Peak goes free at 5.9, and is unprotectable (like most summit pinnacles). We employed the lasso technique to provide protection while I lead climbed it. This was the ONE move I was glad I hauled my rock climbing shoes up for. 5.9?... Ehh I'm not sure about that but none the less, the altitude and sheer exposure on the pinnacle was worth the rating.
Lastly, this would be our first attempt of the mountain from the western side (Dusy/Palisade Basin). Our last 3 attempts have been all from the eastern side (North Fork of the Big Pine). Now being late summer, this would be a strictly rock climbing trip and I was glad to leave the heavy ice/snow gear behind!
Photo Credit: Mark Thomas
The Plan:
- Day 1 - Drive to the eastern Sierra and overnight at the Bishop Pass Trail head.
- Day 2 - Hike 6 miles to Bishop's pass and then cross country 3 miles over to Thunderbolt pass and find a camp site on the other side.
- Day 3 - Climb the Southwest chute of Thunderbolt Peak to gain the ridge and begin the traverse. From there crossover over Thunderbolt Peak, Starlight Peak, North Palisade, and finally arrive at the U-Notch. Descend the Western side of the U-Notch into the Southwest Chute of North Palisade, return to camp.
- Day 4 - Hike out, drive home.
Monday August 18th 2014:
Our drive was a little bit further than normal since we had to drive through Bishop and then up to South Lake. This was my first time up the Bishop's creek and looked like every other eastern Sierra drive - steep. We did however stop for dinner at the Burger Barn in Bishop...some GOOD food!
Bishop's pass has the reputation of one of the most heavily used trails in the Sierra's since it provides (6 miles) instant assess to the back country without massive altitude gain. In fact, the trail head is at 10,000' and the pass is only 12,000'. Pretty mellow for eastern Sierras standards. Once over the pass hikers are instantly in Dusy basin which is a spectacular setting which then drops down in to LeConte Canyon (another beautiful place) and joins up on the JMT. From personal experience it would take 3 solid days of hiking the JMT from any western Sierra trail to arrive at this same location. One can see why Bishop's pass is popular.
Tuesday August 19th 2014:
We launched at 7:00am under mild temps and were treated to nice views as we worked our way up towards Bishop's pass.
Many lakes are passed along the way. In the distance is Mt. Goode with the North Buttress (5.9), another route on my tick list.
As the miles easily ticked away I started noticing the all too familiar rugged rock of the Palisades region. Seen below is "Picture Puzzle", indeed.
A little less than 4 hours had gone by we reached Bishop's Pass just shy of 12,000'. A few day hikers were here as well admiring the views.
We left the trail just beyond the pass and started our cross country trip across fields, slabs, and boulders.
Our objective was to cross Thunderbolt pass (Class 2). This low spot provides passage between Dusy basin and Palisade Basin. However, the last few hundred feet on the north side are quit tedious with glacier moraine. There were several boulders the size of CARS that would wobble under my weight!
We crossed the pass and descended a few hundred feet on the other side to some ponds and flat camping sites. We were greeted by a husband/wife combo camped as well. In fact, they had just retreated from Thunderbolt's SW chute. Somehow a loose rock had pegged him in the leg and he was bleeding. The injury didn't look to bad and the wife admitted she lost her "cool" with all the exposure.
The western escarpment of the Palisade was equally amazing as the eastern side. I thought the western side was much more rugged.
Russ and I spend the rest of our afternoon eating, hydrating, and chatting with our fellow camp mates.
I drifted off in to a nap and awoke to ominous weather and thunder in the distance. The mountains became engulfed in clouds however it never actually rained on us. As the sun set the light show was quit nice!
Wednesday August 20th 2014:
5:00am alarm.....coffee, oatmeal, crap, rack up...Not my first rodeo this summer.
The temperature was actually very mild for over 12,000'. As usual, I made the mistake of not "Go Bold, Go Cold" (a saying RMI guides teach on Rainier). We both overheated within 20 minutes.
We entered Thunderbolt Peak's SouthWest Chute. This route is rated 3rd class and arrives between the South and North summits of Thunderbolt peak. The south summit is the higher peak and like I mentioned before hand is rated at 5.9 So technically this route is "3rd class...if you don't want to stand on the summit."
Surprisingly, it wasn't that loose (Palisade standards) and wasn't sure WTF happened the our camp mates the previous day in the gully. About a third of the way up the 2000' frigging foot long chute, the gully constricts and further passage is blocked by a chock stone. Per the guidebooks, "Look for a 3rd class sandy ledge to climb up and around." Found the ledge (pictured below) no problem.
Oh boy, just another 1,000' to go...
We could tell we where close as the sun light was starting to peek through the gully. One last move to chimney under a boulder and AHHH the light!!
The picture below is pretty telling of the state of global warming. First and foremost, WOW - What a view to now be looking down on the glacier from above. Second and sadly, The glacier was in extremely sad shape. The past few dry winters have been hard on it. It was extremely crevassed and covered by a lot of rock for rockfall.
Seriously, give 5 minutes of your time and watch this:
OK rant over, back to the action. Upon reaching the notch between the South & North summits of Thunderbolt we:
- Put on our jackets, a very cold wind was blowing over the ridge.
- Roped up.
- Committed to route... no turning back!
Russ is seen here with a stunning view of the Kings Canyon back country (looking west). The darkish looking range is Devil's Crag with the middle fork of the Kings Canyon.
A short low 5th class pitch brought us the the base of the Thunderbolt Peak's summit pinnacle. We investigated our options to summit this pinnacle in that it's was virtually unpredictable until clipping the ancient bolts on top. I had read a few articles on varying options to summit this thing. Again, one can free to moves at an unprotectable 5.9. The east face of the summit might be a grade easier but then required a massive step across some serious air and a committing move. There are a few aid options. I've read articles of guys rigging elaborate lines across its summit and then aided the fix lines. Russ and I employed the lasso technique. Apparently Russ was a cowboy in a previous life because just after a few attempts he managed to lasso the summit. I tied off the line and pulled it snug. I now had a "piece" of protection to clip. This gave me all the confidence in the world, and I eagerly switched to my rock shoes. Just a few techie moves and I was on top.
I fixed one end of the rope to the anchor and then tied off loops every foot or so so that Russ had a ladder while I belayed him with the other end of the rope. We both balance for a minute on top and then rappelled off.
Excitement was high after just summited what was expected to be the technical crux (5.9) of our day. However, one look at our ridge raised the anxiety! I'll run through a quick overview of what needed to be accomplished to arrive safely off technical terrain.
- Between Thunderbolt Peak and Starlight Peak is the Underhill Couloir in which we have to pass over dropping some 300' before climbing back up to Starlight Peak. This involves down climbing and two rappels to reach the notch.
- The climb up to Starlight would involve a few pitchs of low 5th.
- Between Starlight Peak and the North Palisade is the Clyde Couloir. Agins a loss of 200' before climbing back to the summit of North Pal.
- From the summit of North Pal we would follow the ridge (mostly 3rd) to the top of chimney which descends in to the U-Notch.
Starlight Peak can be seen far off as a small finger sticking up. Holy moly... we got a ways to go.
Looking back at Russ and Thunderbolt Peak while we look for our rappel station to drop down in to the Underhill Couloir.
We found a rap sling from previous climbers and decided to have a go at it. However, upon inspection of our rap route I determined that it was SO blocky that throwing our ropes was just going to be a mess. I had never employed the "carry your ropes with you technique while you rappel." I did this to try to avoid a total rope salad. It worked pretty well might I say.
This picture below is not mine of course, but you can see the terrain we had to cover once passing the Underhill Couloir. I made mental note of this pic before going and I remembered that the "Dike Bands" were key to going out right. Our actual route was slighty different than the one noted below. We stayed pretty much on the crest of the ridge and even at time on the eastern (left) side below the Dike Bands at which time we bailed right.
From the summit of Starlight Peak we again had two rappels in front of us to reach the notch at the top of the Clyde Couloir.
Photo Credit: Mark Thomas
In this picture, we're looking across to the summit of North Palisade from Starlight peak.
We found our rappel stations fairly quick and two single length raps later we where at the notch. In this pic I'm seen here rappelling down to Russ.
The traverse from the top of the Clyde Couloir to the summit of North Pal ramped up in difficulty. I would guess that it consisted 75% of 4th and 25% of 5th class. Russ is seen here coming up the ridge (West side). The exposure on both sides of the ridge was wild!
What caught both of us by surprise and that I had totally forgotten about until we reached it was ONE LAST RANDOM RAPPEL. It wasn't that long but you had to rappel down a chasm and then PUSH OFF ON ONE SIDE AND CROSS A GAP ALL ON RAPPEL. I should emphasize the exposures while doing this was intense.
Some more 4/5th class scrambling led us to one last technical pitch to the summit of the North Palisade. Though the most technically demanding of the day I found a move of .7 and mid 5th chimney to the top.
...and a side note:
- On our hike in the previous day to camp we passed a party of four. Upon chatting with them we found it was two guides and a married couple who were completing the "California County High points." In this case the high point of Fresno county was the North Palisade. Tuluare county has Mt. Whitney with it's freeway trail. In fact the North Pal is no easy feat, good call getting guides. They rolled in to camped around 7 in the evening and their planned route to the summit of the North Pal was the to ascend the Southwest chute/Clyde Variation 4th class (The mountains first ascent route in 1921). This route is loose as hell but is non technical. We wished them all good luck and Russ and I went about our way.
- As I pulled the final moves to the summit of the North Palisade, who do I see? - The party of 4 who had camped next to us. They gave us a hoot and holler for pulling off the traverse. This opportunity allowed Russ and I to have our photo taken at the summit.
As just like that, I belayed Russ up to me and we were standing on the summit at 4:15pm. Years of hard work, failure, highs, lows, all lead to this moment. It was as good as it gets!
California's 14er's. To date my successful list consists:
- Mt. Whitney
- Mt. Muir
- Mt. Russell
- Mt. Williamson
- Middle Palisade
- Mt. Sill
- Mt. Shasta
- White Mountain
- Mt. Langley
- North Palisade
- Mt. Tyndall
- Split Mountain
The summit marker and the Palisade glacier.
The SIX of us all began our descent together. However our routes would diverge shorty while Russ and I continued our traverse over the the U-Notch. I did note that the clients were moving extremely slowly and knew that they had a long time to go...little did I know.
For the first time since gaining the ridge the terrain mellowed back to 3rd class and within 30 minutes we had arrived at the top of the Chimney. 3 years earlier I had stood at bottom of the chimney looking up and making the call that we where too slow and exhausted to continue.
We rigged for two rappel shortly there afterwards found ourselves back at the top of the U-Notch. It was 5:30pm and for the first time since 8:00am we could breath a sigh of relief...
Our descent route off the mountain was the western side of the U-Notch, otherwise known as the Southwest Chute Class 4. "There may be quite a bit of loose rock if there isn't any snow in the upper portion of this chute" - Peaks Passes, and Trails. ......................No shit.
This chute was the looses garbage chute of rock and scree I'd ever seen. It was the equivalent of the U-Notch but not frozen sold with ice. It took Russ and I THREE extremely tedious hours to descent out of the chute. Every single step we took sent a barrage of huge rocks down the chute echoing for over 1,000'. I have to admit, the decent of this was the most nerve racking part of the day. I'll solo low 5th class any day over taking my chances in that chute. To add to that, the party of 4 was above us in the another chute (which eventually would meet up with this one). All I could think about was those clumsy clients launching rocks down at us. We kept our helmets ON!
As time went on the sun began to set and the clouds rolled back in for the evening. Below is the last pic I have from the day. Before the mountain was fully engulfed in clouds I could see a few headlamp spots further back up the mountain from the party of 4. I wished them luck but to be honest Russ and I needed some as well.
The sun had set and our headlamps were on. The problem? There was a square mile of landmines (glacier moraine & talus) between us (exit of the chute) and our camp. It would be not only dangerous but impossible to find our tent with no GPS reference. Our plan was to descend all the way to the highest of the Barrett Lakes (11,500') and then find the "stream" that our camp was on where it fed in to the lake. We would follow this "stream" 600' up and find our small and non reflective marked tent with no moon and cloud cover - Solid.
It took 1 and a half extremely exhausting hours once reaching the inlet of what we believed was our stream before we found our camp. I had to give a shout-out to Russ here for really keeping it together. I physically broke down and couldn't move my leg in a forwards direction. Each step forward I would swagger sideways like I was drunk. I even fell over on a grassy ledge and napped awhile. I'm still not sure how he found that small tent but he did and I we both dropped our gear and just crawled in to our sleeping bags. It was 10:00pm, that's all I remember.....
Thursday August 21st 2014:
Apparently, it was a cold night. Everything was covered with frost. Even though we were camped next to the guided party I never woke up to them rolling in to camp later that night.
We both enjoyed a leisurely morning of coffee and not moving.
By 10:00am we had camp packed and began the 9 mile trek back to the car. Spirits were high after pulling off the traverse with the summit! As we strolled by the guided party camp I noted that it was pretty quiet....must be still sleeping? We look over the hill and here comes the guides with their clients. We wait and chat shortly with them to find out the got benighted on the mountain and waited until sunrise to continue their descent. The guides had large bags so I image that had emergency bivy gear but nobody had sleeping bags. That had to be ONE COLD NIGHT.
Our hike out was uneventful and we were treated to a nice light show by moving in clouds.
We rejoined the trail at Bishop's Pass and trudged along the six miles back to the car and arrived around 3:00pm.
As so completes the epic North Palisade saga. This mountain stirs up a lot of emotion with me. It was the sole reason why I decided to learn to rock climb. Upon researching how to summit all of California's 14ers I found that this ONE peak required rock climbing skills. This of course opened a door to a world in which I've fallen in love with. Since then I've now done Big Walls (Yosemite) and Big Mountaineering (Rainier). It was all because I wanted to climb this mountain. The lure of this mountain just grew more and more as each time we would get shut down. This mountain made me work for it and I'm really proud of my accomplishment!
