High Sierra Topix

Day 72- Climb North Palisade
Today was North Pal Day. Rogue and I had been waiting for this day since our failure over a year ago! The day started as good as any. We had really good conditions all the way up the chute, the weather was great, and everything was good. We got around to the LeConte Ledges fine and then got up Class 4 wall. There was no snow in the chute unlike the previous year. When we got to the first chockstone it was pretty straightforward but a fairly difficult Class 4. Then we got to the second chockstone. Well somehow Rogue made it up and Derek and I couldn’t. A total Class 5, that I certainly didn't consider to have been a Class 5.3. I've climbed 5.3's before and this was much harder. I never felt more frustrated before a mountain. Derek and I yelled obscenities in the chute and I'm sure that chute has heard them before but we might have taken the cake. For I was truly mad at myself and naturally envious of Rogue. How could he make it and I couldn't! Well he made it to the top and there were some climbers above him that were roped up who also made it. We waited below the Class 4 section, which Derek and I descended fairly easily. No idea how he did it; it was probably a friction climb that neither I nor Derek could reach. I tried and we both tried, but there was just no way. When he came back to told us about the insane downclimb he had to do on the 2nd chockstone. He said it was the sketchiest and hardest one he had ever done. Right at the base of the chockstone there was a hard patch of ice, so if you had fallen it would have hurt no doubt. He somehow went up and down in his big leather backpacking boots. He forgot his climbing shoes and I had climbing shoes and still couldn't do it. Derek and I came back to camp real defeated, and it was still fairly early. So Derek and I drank a **** ton to drown the sorrows as best we could. Needless to say if we all had failed it wouldn't have been as depressing. I felt really **** defeated, since I had failed twice now. And what's funny is that the previous year the amount of snow in the chute would have made the second chockstone much easier, since you would have been higher up the wall. The first chockstone was bypassed via snow the previous year. Definitely a serious failure 2 years in a row. Now I can only think that I'll probably be back via the U Notch, and the Clyde Ledges. That's my next option because I seriously don't know how I'll be going up that chockstone. I really would need someone to guide me through it and hopefully I wouldn't feel too sketched out without a rope. Or plan to go when there's still snow in the chute. Alas... that was today... a disappointing failure, but we still had Humphrey's and Middle Palisade to look forward too!
Day 73- Barrett Lakes to Lower Dusy Basin
I forgot to mention the previous day lots of clouds and even the day on Thunderbolt quite a few clouds built but didn't really amount to much. I think it sprinkled potentially just a little bit but that was about it. Derek and I both got up pretty defeated still. We went over Knapsack Pass and that was super easy. We quickly dropped down into Lower Dusy; and found a pretty decent place to camp but nothing too special. The clouds were rolling in all day long and we got a little bit of rain, a bit of hail, and it even snowed at which point it got pretty cold. One of the 4 days of the entire summer we actually got measurable precipitation. Overall a very mellow day.

Day 74- Lower Dusy Basin to North Lake TH
The morning dawned very very cold with lots of condensation. My feet were soaked a little in my sleepign bag. Rogue’s feet were very soaked. His whole bag was soaked in sections. It was just super super **** cold, and the winds were definitely ripping while we ate breakfast and packed up. We looked out and clouds were hugging the peaks and Rogue and I knew our thoughts for the day. It just wasn't ideal at all so we said screw it. I think Derek was a little dissapointed since we just missed out on 2 peaks 2 days in a row. But that's just how it goes.. you win some and you lose some to win another day! No Giraud again for us second year in a row. Decided to bail out and we got out pretty early. We had lunch a little past going over the pass. We got down to the car and Rogue decided he wanted to go do laundry and take a shower. I definitely felt that way too. So the three of us went down to care of that. We made a stop at the store to get a couple little things and then went back up to the trailhead. It was a very cold windy night coming in. The storm was definitely coming in. Snow was forecasted to come in the next day and into the next night. It was definitely very windy when we were cooking dinner. We ate at the benches next to the toilet at the North Lake TH. A fine camp! Haha. Just as we started to get ready for dinner these 2 ladies came out of the woods and asked for a ride. We said we could give them a ride the next day. They found their own little place to set up and said they would meet us in the morning. We all went to sleep amid a very windy and cold night. The wind was howling through my camper shell. But at least I had some sort of shelter while Rogue just slept out in his truck bed.

Day 75- Bishop Day
Today we got up real early; way earlier than I wanted to. The ladies came up to us and said that they were doing the JMT from Happy Isles. I guess they decided it was time to come out that day. Maybe the weather pushed their decision to end it. Definitely an interesting place to hitchhike out of but we were able to give them a ride. I had to ride in the back of the pickup all the way from South Lake Trailhead into Bishop on a very cold morning. I literally had every piece of clothing I had on me including both my down jackets jackets and my rain jacket. I was still feeling the nip a bit. I really had to in the cab to prevent most of the wind from getting to me. Clouds were rolling in that morning but not as strong as the previous morning surprisingly. We got into Bishop and dropped the girls off and we decided it was too early to eat lunch. We were still hungry because we didn't finish our food because they girls came up to us a bit too early. So, we went to Taco Bell and got some breakfast burritos and chilled there for a long time. I actually ended up buying some computer parts that I had research in Cedar Grove over a month before. We then decided to get some Subway for lunch and chilled there for a while. Then we decided to go to Carl's Jr and get some milkshakes. We used their Wi-Fi there to browse for more computer parts. This day probably sounds like a broken record by now... all we did was eat food and relax out of the wind and storm that was raging in the mountains. Rogue’s truck didn't start at one point but we got that squared away. We eventually got our groceries and from there we went to Upper Crust Pizza and got some delicious pizzas. We were very satisfied with that decision. The first time I had eaten there was 2 years prior when I finished hiking with Rogue for the first time. So yeah... all we did was eat that day haha. We drove back up to the trailhead and got my truck and then drove to the North Lake Trailhead. All day major clouds, and major rain/snow storms were raging. We could see the peaks were getting blanketed with some snow but we were pretty hopefully it would all melt out by the following day. So we settled in for another very cold night at the at the North Lake Trailhead where we met up with Derek.
Day 76- North Lake TH to Humphrey's Lakes
We got up and it was a super cold 22 degrees. Somehow I stayed kinda warm. Rogue said there was definitely a bit of condensation. We ate a little breakfast and were ready to head out for our first 2 night trip. What a treat to not carry any real weight on our backs! It would almost feel like a dayhike to us. We actually met some guy that knew us from the forum. He was going in to do a little Loop in to Darwin bench over Alpine Col & out. From there we just headed up the trail. Pretty easy very mellow day. It was my 4th time in the Humphrey's Basin. And I had been up and down the Piute Pass trail many times. We ate our delicious sandwiches at the pass. Rogue and I brought sandwich meat along with cheese and tomatoes and onions... a very deluxe meal for a lunch out here. We got to our camp pretty early. We had camped here 2 times before and each time I've set up in the same spot. And why have we been 2 times before... oh yeah because we were trying to climb Mt. Humphrey's! And twice we had failed before our climb even began because of too much snow. And it had just finished snowing the night before but unlike the previous times there was very little snow visible on the face of the mountain! What luck for us! We actually had a fighting chance now. All afternoon we stared up at Humphrey's. Without a doubt the most impressive mountain I ever dared to stare upon. For some reason it held a higher status than North Palisade even though North Pal was no doubt extremely formidable. It was a very clear beautiful day, with pleasant hiking temperatures and a little bit of wind not too bad. We were very ready to tackle the beast, the King of Central Sierra the following day. The anticipation was high and our nerves were jittery so we went to sleep a little anxious but excited for the challenges of the next day.

Day 77- Climb Mt. Humphreys
A little something about my journal from here on out... All of this is written now in March of 2018! I know that's over a year and a half after I had this adventure but sometimes life just gets in the way. An entire Sierra Summer passed. My life is radically different than when I finished that summer in 2016. I have a girlfriend now and she’s awesome. I love her dearly…My beautiful Janine. I still live with my parents and she lives with me. But, at least I’ll be moving soon to Reno and somehow it worked out that she will too… that’s a story for another book. I’ll be going to UNR for my Masters starting this fall. So maybe I should finish this journal up with the last 6 days of this epic summer adventure. So everything is from memory and some days I'll remember better than others.

I left off on Day 77. What a fitting number for a climb of Humphrey’s. They say 3rd times the charm for lots of things so why not for climbing mountains. All I can say is that we were most excited for this climb all summer. It was the one mountain that had defeated us via the weather twice before but not today! We were determined. From my limited memory I do remember one thing about that morning. It was super **** cold! I mean.. this had to be the coldest night/morning I had ever experienced during the summer. Granted it was late summer but it was technically still summer and it was damn bloody cold. The ice in Derek’s bucket was at least ½ inch thick!! I estimated that it was around 20 degrees. My poor WM Summerlite struggled to keep my warm and I slept poorly. At least the wind was not much of an issue that night. Needless to say I was extremely anxious and ready to get climbing since I knew that would warm me up. We headed up the mountain quite early. We had studied the route up many times the previous year and we had a pretty good idea of where the chute was that we needed to access. We found it quick enough and it was loose but not excessively so. We climbed up until we hit a roadblock or chockstone as they call it. But unlike on North Pal we did not need to climb the damned thing. We went up and around it to the left via a subchute. We eventually got back into the main chute and clambered up to the notch where we got an epic view looking down the North Couloir. It was very impressive and very steep; and quite snowed over. There were patchy bits of snow here and there and along the Northwest face there were some more but nothing that impeded progress. There we were facing up the final major wall that blocked the way to the summit of the king of the mountains! But alas we were here to climb and mountain and so we climbed! Up and up we went and meandered up this wall till we reached the famous Class 4 section. It was no doubt Class 4 but a very manageable difficulty and likely a bit easier than the Class 4 wall on North Palisade. The exposure was wonderfully fun. In other words it wasn’t so gnarly that it made you freak out, instead it just added a level of heart pumping adrenaline that made it fun and enjoyable. The wind was cold and the temperature was definitely pretty cold, which made the rock extremely cold so we all climbed with gloves when we could. But I’d rather take that rather than super-hot. We made it up the first section of Class 4 with no issues and then the second section was bit steeper and more exposed and offered some incredible views. And we made it up that as easily as the mountain made it for us. I think Humphrey’s wanted us to gaze out from her summit. I think she wanted us to see how grand and majestic she was. Maybe I’m a bit romantic giving the mountain these thoughts but I feel a strong connection to mountains and I really believed that this day the mountain was letting us pass knowingly and giving us the green light to achieve victory. It was not but another couple hundred feet and we were on the summit! What a glorious view, what a magnificent climb, and what a exalting feeling to stand atop this majestic beast of a mountain that had denied us passage twice the previous year. I could say so much more but honestly.. just climb it and you’ll know all that you need to. We found a Sierra Nevada Torpedo Can of beer in the summit register box so Derek and I split it and it was the best beer I’ve ever had. Mostly because I was drinking it at almost 14k feet on top of the most epic mountain I had ever climbed! Rogue and I chowed down on our sandwiches. We all celebrated and got our summit photos with a banner that someone left up there. After wishing we could just gaze out over the whole Sierra forever we knew we had to leave. The descent off the Class 4 was tricky but very manageable. Down down down we went and made it back to camp at a good hour. On the summit I managed to get ahold of my buddy Frank who Rogue and I met at Pizza Hut back in Fresno about 3 weeks before. He was in Bishop that day fishing with his dad. We planned to meet up that day. I told the guys that I was done with the cold and didn’t care to spend another night at the Humphrey’s Lakes freezing my ass off so I bailed out of there. We said we’d meet up in Bishop the following day at some point. I said goodbye and booked it down the trail as fast as I could. I got a hold of Frank when I got down to Bishop and he was staying at the Best Western there. I got dinner with him at the Burger Barn which was a first for me and it was delicious and very well deserved after all the climbing I had done that day. Afterwards we went to the bar in town, which I had never been to before and shot the **** for a while with a couple drinks. All in all a great time spent with one of my best friends. I got to crash on their couch in the hotel room. I enjoyed a shower that night which was very much needed after the long hike that day. Sleeping on the couch proved to be quite uncomfortable since it was too short for me and Frank and it was actually too hot in the room. I went from freezing ass cold to stifling heat! Oh well I can’t complain too much considering it was free and a soft bed unlike a cold tent that I would have stayed in at the Humphrey’s Lakes.
So ends the last full week! Week 11 done! Only 4 more days left on this trip. That’s pretty wild to think about. This is by far the longest thing I have ever written and it’s still not over. One major peak down and one more to go! Middle Pal here we come!

Well... here we are. Over a year later I'm finished writing this long long journey of mine. And without further ado. here's the last 4 days of this trip!

Day 78- Bishop to Big Pine Creek Trailhead
I remember waking up many times during the night because I was uncomfortable on the couch. Not only was it too short but it was also too hot in the room. Eventually Frank and his dad woke up and I was able to get out of there. We had our goodbye’s and then I waited for Rogue and Derek to get down the mountain. Honestly my memory of this day is pretty hazy and thin almost 2 years later. I remember reading quite a bit and waiting for them to send a message to me since at the Trailhead there was no cell coverage. Rogue’s truck battery was dead and when he tried to jump it something went wrong. At one point we thought Derek would have to tow Rogue’s truck down to Bishop because it wasn’t just the battery and it was a fuse or something. But eventually that all got sorted out, and he didn’t need to get towed. They came down the mountain not early at all and I was really quite bored waiting for them. We made our way to the Big Pine Creek Trailhead. The parking area for this trailhead didn’t have enough spots for all of us so we ended up parking in the other trailhead slightly further down the canyon. We all ate our backpacking food that night. Rogue and I ate in the back of his truck on his tool box for the final time that summer. We all slept amid a full moon night in our vehicles. Rogue got the brunt of it since he wasn’t under anything and just slept out in the back of his truck bed.

Day 79- Big Pine Creek Trailhead to Finger Lake
This morning we headed out to climb our final peak of the summer. Day 79 had dawned and left us with only 3 days of this trip. The three of us made it up to Finger Lake with no issues. About 15 minutes down the trail I forgot my digital camera but said screw it since we were only out for 2 days. I still had my phone so I was able to photograph anything I wanted. The trail was quite hot and exposed in the lower reaches of the canyon but higher up was far more pleasant. No mosquitoes and a fall nip was in the air around evening. We had definitely gone from early season snowfields and raging water to height of the summer to at long last late season conditions. Rogue and I had been at Glacier Lodge once before the previous year and we had travelled through the North Fork of Big Pine Creek. This time we went on the South Fork which was a first for all of us. We had excellent views of Mt. Sill at first. But as we rounded the corner we could see Middle Palisade and Norman Clyde Peak. Such proud giants stood guard at the head of this canyon. It is very hard to describe the feeling of approaching them knowing that Middle Palisade would be the final hurrah for Rogue and I this summer. Peak number 42 for him and 44 for me just during this summer. Derek got to Finger Lake a bit before us but we quickly found the camping area. Rogue and I decided just to sleep out since we knew the weather was going to stay pleasant. Finger Lake had an incredible beauty of its own. It really is a glaciated lake with the typical glacial flour turquoise color; ringed by steep and high cliffs on multiple sides. This is only the beginning as the lake has the giants rising directly above its shore for thousands of vertical feet along with the Middle Palisade glacier that crowns the region. Derek jumped into the lake several times and Rogue bathed while I only dunked my feet in. The water… naturally was downright freezing. Not a surprise given it truly is glacier fed. If I remember correctly Derek did catch a few fish. We all relaxed in camp and enjoyed a majestic sunset. Derek got quite stoned while I drank the last bits of my whiskey. We laughed and probably acted quite stupidly but all in good fun.

Day 80- Climb Middle Palisade
The morning dawned clear, bright and cold. Today was the day… our last peak. And it wouldn’t be an easy one relatively speaking. A long sustained and in places loose Class 3 route blocked us from the summit. This is of course on top of the over 3200FT of gain that we had to surmount. I believe this was the largest single gain we had done that summer for a peak. Fortunately though our bodies were ready… this is what we had been doing all summer long. Lots of granite shelves mixed with talus fields were crossed until we were beneath the glacier. We met several other parties along the way that had told us the route was clear of snow but had plenty of loose rock. Standing below the glacier was truly a majestic experience. While it’s extremely small compared to all standards it sure is bigger than your average Sierra snowfield. And you can feel its sheer weight and might standing below it. We never had to cross it since it was late in the season and the snow had receded just enough to get to the start of the rock route. We had some very detailed photos of the route so we knew exactly which way to go. There was a band of red colored rock that was exceptionally loose that we had to traverse across to get into the proper chute. Once in the chute the rock was far more stable and put together. Up up up we went for what seemed like forever. This truly was a sustained several thousand foot Class 3 climb. Very few mountains can claim such a route and for it to be relatively pleasant was an added bonus. None of us had any issues climbing it and found the climbing typically speaking straightforward and fun. I kept assuming the summit was to the right as looking up the chute but in fact the summit was on the left.. almost immediately as the chute ends. Directly below the summit ridge we found a cache of some extremely old food. If I remember correctly it was some Hershey’s chocolate bars along with some other food. The expiration on most of the items was almost 20 years ago!! Somebody either never found their cache or was too lazy to get it out of the wilderness. Which is quite hilarious that we found a cache here in this spot since the only other major food cache Rogue and I had found in 2015 was literally on the opposite side of this ridge at the lake below Norman Clyde Peak. The straight line distance would be no more than .5 a mile. Anyways… there was one last obstacle before the summit; a very awkward and tricky Class 4 move to get on top of a large boulder. We all did it and I was nervous about the down climb, but that later proved to not be nearly as challenging. And that was it! We were there on the summit of Middle Palisade! My 2 14er ever, both that summer! The summit block was a little tricky but no worse than the Class 4 move earlier. We all had our victory shots atop of it. The view down to the Owens valley was incredibly impressive and seemed like it was world’s away. Finger Lake was tiny from our vantage point. Actually with the exception of some surrounding peaks everything felt quite small since we were truly standing on the roof of the Sierra! As with all things our time on Middle Palisade had to come to an end. Down we descended to a resting point where there was a beautiful detached pinnacle that was begging to be climbed. We all climbed it and enjoyed a sublime view up and down the chute along with the face of Middle Pal. From there we descended to the red rock crossover point. Here we met a fellow that was climbing up Middle Pal. It was quite late; easily around 3 and this was late summer so the sun did not set very late. I was definitely concerned since the guy did not look completely confident on the rock and Class 3 terrain. He also had an old Cannon film camera around his neck. That reminded me of the days that I carried 2 cameras, one of which was a medium format film one. Anyways we told him the route and wished him luck. From there we still had a very long ways to go and we didn’t get back to camp until slightly before dinnertime. The last dinner we would have out here… what a feeling. We all felt victorious and accomplished since we had just tackled 2 of some of the harder major Sierra peaks and accomplished victory. I was thinking about the guy we met up on the mountain as we were eating dinner and whether or not he’d make it. I figured given his pace that he wouldn’t get off the mountain and back to camp before dark. This was a guarantee since it was such a long way to go and he wasn’t even close to the summit. We all went to sleep satisfied and I know Rogue and I were ready to get home. The wind picked up a lot that night and sleep was not very pleasant especially since we laid out. I woke many times and I could swear that I saw a headlamp around 10PM shining from high up on the mountain. Could that have been the guy that we saw going up? I honestly concluded that it had to have been.

Day 81- Back Home
The morning dawned windy and dry with a smog layer that filtered into our area and the canyon below. It was definitely time to go since I wanted and needed nothing to do with more smoke in the Sierra! We all packed up quickly and bolted out of there. We took a slightly different route down out from Finger Lake. Since there were only use trails and faints ones at that we ended up traversing down to Willow Lake. From there we got back on the trail and ran into the one person we were most curious about. Sure enough David (we got his name) made it up the mountain around last light. From there he knew he had to descend since he didn’t have any gear to stay the night. Unfortunately he told us he lost the route and ended up on the glacier! How he ended up on the glacier is quite puzzling and what exactly he did when he ended up on it was quite unclear… I’m guessing he climbed back up somehow through some gnarly talus and potentially some minor cliffs and got back on route eventually. He obviously could not have descended the glacier without any gear. So it does seem quite likely that I saw his headlamp in the night somewhere on the mountain fumbling his way down. He said he reached his camp sometime around 2AM which is quite impressive and lucky that he in fact made it. After that encounter we practically ran the trail down since both Rogue and I had substantial drives back home. I think we all got back 10:30AM. It was over… 81 days later our summer adventure was done. We started on July 1st and today was September 19th. It was time for goodbyes. I ended up selling my tent to Derek actually since it was a little too damaged for me to trust it for anything substantial and Rogue had another hexamid to sell me anyways. It was weird and hard saying goodbye to Rogue.. he had just spent almost 3 months together literally doing the same thing every day together. It’s a weird feeling and a bond that isn’t like your significant other. It’s impossible for me to describe what it exactly felt like or how it felt but it was surreal and sublime. We all said our goodbyes and we talked about climbing Mt. Tom at some point in the fall. I then began my 4.5 hour drive home.

Getting back home was equally weird and I was working literally 2 days later. My beard was exceptionally long but not quite the longest it’s ever been. I soon had to trim that down. I wasn’t quite living in the mountains anymore but I sure was still living in them in my mind. That never goes away.

What else can I say… it was real trip. 81 days in the Sierra is not for the faint of heart but it provides an experience unlike any you can possibly imagine. You don’t come back the same person… at least I know I didn’t. Did I learn some grand revelation or piece of knowledge? No I don’t believe so. What I learned was actually more important than that… I think I learned how to live a little more peacefully in the world that I’m given.. whatever that may look like.

So there it is… An adventure of a lifetime... but really it's not of a lifetime. It's in my lifetime... living your life as an adventure is the only way I would ever choose to live and as long as my body allows me I'll be roaming my beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains that have been so gracious to me in showing me the beauty of just "being out there".

Thank you so much for letting us share in your amazing adventure!
-Phil

Thank you for sharing such an epic adventure!
I loved reading about your Middle Palisade climb, it reminded me of how great of a climb it was and why I went back to climb it a second time....

Hey! It's Brian, the guy you met at North lake. Good to hear that you made it to the top of Humphreys. The trip reports you guys do are great. You guys have inspired me to try an extended trip, so I'm working on getting 6ish weeks off this summer. Maybe I'll see you out there again one of these days!