I believe that Labor Day weekend 2011 was unofficially the "Palisades Weekend" - everyone and their grandmother is posting something about a route or a peak they got up in the past couple days over there. Congrats to all you folks. Casey Flowe (snowmanrn) and I thought it a good idea to drive up to South Lake and head over the Bishop Pass - take a shot at the Thunderbolt to Sill traverse. What a trip. I feel like this might be my new favorite spot in the Sierras.
The Dirty:Slept in the dirt at the South Lake Trailhead around 10,000 feet. Hiked out in the morning past all those beautiful lakes to a spot just over the Thunderbolt Pass.
Camped at 12,300.
Woke up early and headed up the Southwest Chute closest to the Pass, but ran out of time and water on the summit of Polemonium. Mount Sill will have to wait until next time - maybe Swiss Arete? 4 out of 5 ain't bad.
To Thunderbolt: We'd hoped to summit at sunrise, but heading up the boulderey/scree-ey chute in the dark took a little longer than we though. We ran into snow just before the chockstone, and it had a layer of rocks embedded in it which provided friction for walking. You can also skirt the snow on the side in spots along the way. I chopped a couple steps in the final feet to get over a steep section, but without the axes we'd have been okay. No crampons, btw. At the chockstone, we questioned our chute choice. It seemed a lot hairier than the reports we'd read, and looked nothing like the video I'd seen of the bypass on youtube. It was dark, we didn't have our climbing feet under us yet, and the tiny little downward sloping dirt covered exposed (40 feet?) ledge didn't seem like a fun choice. Eventually we squeezed up and around it, and then continued up the chute. Wasted a lot of time here, and I don't think we were in the right spot actually. I think we were above the proper bypass...wouldn't be the first time I've done that. Sun came up as we entered the upper chute. If memory serves head straight up until it seems like a final big fork is in front of you, then head up that right side of it. At the top, we looked down at the glacier on the other side, then headed up the exposed 4th class ½ pitch to the summit. I still didn't feel comfortable doing it unprotected ( still early in the day ), but I just didn't look down. Casey took a slightly different path than I did, but we both made it up. Summit register was just a crappy plastic bottle with no lid? Strange. Casey led the block with little issue - we were both sketched out by the penalty for falling there/difficulty in protecting, but his rock shoes stuck and he made it just just fine. The hardest part was just getting on the wall, rest was cake. I followed in my approach shoes, no issues.
To Starlight: We traversed back on the little slab to our packs, and made a beeline for the next peak. Solo climber ran into us at this point - nice guy named Brad. He was moving fast, suggested we all take the 4th class downclimb which is on your left as you look at Starlight. What a rush it is to downclimb a long section like that, I could see Casey below me and it looked like free space below him. No time for lots of pictures really - Brad was behind us and we knew time would be an issue anyway with trying for all 5 peaks. I took a lot of mental ones. After a long downclimb, you traverse over to obvious slabs. Good holds, but major exposure on the way over ( detecting a theme?). Slabs were really easy to navigate down, and once at the notch between the two mountains, we stared up at a jumble of potential spots to climb up. We made our way up mostly 3rd class with some 4th tossed in, sprinkled with exposure here and there and no protection. The route seemed to head up from the notch, then skirt back around southwesterly, then up for a bit, then back northeasterly to the notch towards the top, finishing below the milkbottle on the rocks facing Thunderbolt. That probably makes no sense. Protecting the milkbottle also a little shakey from the bottom, but climbing it is a piece of cake. I led it in my approach shoes with no issues - both hands on the edge, high step right foot onto the top, and then walk up to a couple great hands for another smear/high step. All done. Casey followed with no issues as well.
To North Palisade: Brad took off on his own again after Starlight, and after we packed everything up, we followed his path, squeezing between two tall boulders right by the bottle. We saw him way over on the other side going up N Pal, and he yelled that he downclimbed the whole thing from where we were. Cool. We did the same, chowing down on some more exposed 3rd/4th class shuffle towards the notch between the two mountains. We came to the infamous "creative rappel", so we roped up for a quick rap down and step to the other side. You could almost jump across if you had some padded shoes on. We traversed the backside of the mountain a bit, taking care to appreciate all the opportunities to die. Not too far below the chimney were some nice moves up a face with great feet, but major penalty for failure. We place a piece here, and a couple later for good measure up the chimney to the summit. We also discovered how drastic the difference in temp was in the sun vs the shade - we stood by in a nook while a few gents rapped off the summit down the way we were coming up. Summit was warm and had terrific views.
To Polemonium: We found a rap anchor a short distance from the summit towards the southwest, and our 60 meter rope reached perfectly to some mellow terrain below. Following a white-ish streak, we headed towards the U-notch, which took us up and along a little ride to a slabby wall just behind two sets of rap anchors. These were just above the 2-pitch 5th class chimney coming up from the notch. We had a fun rap down to the notch below, watching a few people "rappel" down the 40 degree slope from the top of the U-notch towards the glacier off a little cord anchor. Every so often we heard "ROCK!!!!" coming from the snow side of the U-notch, that thing was a circus that day - I'll think twice before heading up that thing with all the folks above testing out their crampons for the first time. Yikes. Once across the notch, we headed up an obvious crack which lead to a leveled-out traverse out of the notch and to the southwest. The research I'd done said to look for a 5.2 finger crack which was the crux, but Casey and I didn't see anything that looked like that. Long story short, we ended up slinging a horn, lowering me down about 15 feet as I swung to my left, grabbed a couple step-like features which lead to a decent resting spot - another cam placed, climbed up the crack to a spot where I didn't really have good feet and only a good left hand. Ended up smearing, pulling up on my left arm and finding a spot for a stopper with my right hand so I could pull up with both arms. Placed another stopper in a horizontal crack at waist level so I didn't fall off the slopey ledge I was on, took a breath, and then headed up the rest of the way to an obvious rap anchor. I think we were close to the right spot, but per usual made it harder than it needed to be. I set up a top-rope for Casey from there and he climbed a 5.8/9 crack directly above him to reach me. I'm not great a judging difficulty, but Casey climbs cracks a lot and estimated this to be the case. If we'd had smaller pro, he would have just lead that from the start instead of me doing the strange pseudo-aid garbage. A nice scramble up the ridge was all that was left, and we were at the top. Neve Penitentes on what I think was the Polemonium glacier looked pretty nice from the top.
We were out of water, and realized we'd be going back to camp in the dark as it was. Sill would have to wait. Two quick raps back into the U-notch (cleaned the route of gear on the way), and we were heading down the back side towards the southwest. That chute was SO LONG, and we exited just as it was getting dark. A series of ups and downs and ups and downs, with a stop for some water from residual snow, and we were back at camp, exhausted but pumped on the day's accomplishments. In spite of the frustrations with route-finding in spots and running out of time/fluids, we had come away with great memories and probably a couple more gray hairs. What a blast!
The Gear: #1,2,3 C4 cams, couple small mastercams, 2-3 medium sized stoppers, 60M rope, few slings and rap rings, ice axes ( nice but not necessary ).
More Pics here, and videos below...
, what a stud. I was crapping my pants on Russell last Saturday and here you are shooting down 14ers in the Palisades like ducks.
"Turtles, Frogs & other Environmental Sculpture"
