Attempt on winter ascent of Swiss Arête

After spending too many weekends cragging at Joshua Tree, Patrick and I decided to take our trad skills to the high peaks. A winter ascent of Swiss Arete on Mt. Sill seemed a natural choice - cold, relatively remote and a beautiful way to summit an amazing peak. This had been a low snow year, and I had done the route 2 years ago with Hamik (it was my first multi-pitch alpine route then, or maybe second if I include the club's trip to Chimney Variation on U-Notch/North Palisade in winter earlier that year). From 2, we quickly became 5: Patrick, me, Jon, Josh and Tucker.

This was a fun weekend, pretty much alone in the Palisades, except Vitaliy M.'s 2-person team climbing the L-couloir on Sill. However we failed to achieve our objective by far. This was mostly due to a general lack of seriousness on the team's part given how hard the objective was. A successful winter attempt on Swiss Arete warranted an expeditionary mindset, which we clearly lacked. That said, it was still relieving to actually get out there and spend time with good friends in a very beautiful area.

We did not leave Pasadena until 8PM or later on Thursday 2nd Feb, reaching TH at 1:30 AM or some ridiculous hour like that (the plan was to leave Pasadena at 6.30PM.) After very poor quality sleep, we took >2 hours to get ready, and we did not leave the TH (7800 feet) until 9.15 AM. We set camp at Sam Mack Meadow (11,100 feet) at 5.30PM. The last 200 vertical feet took more than an hour. Our original plan involved taking the gully above Third Lake to directly reach Gayley Camp, but that gully looked quite rocky in parts. So we did not take it. Turned out the alternative of going to Sam Mack and then taking the use trail to Gayley Camp is much longer.

We did not carry snowshoes, and post-holed extensively in the slopes leading up to Sam Mack Meadow. This was a major mistake as the only other team in the area which did have snowshoes seems to have post-holed 0 to minimal and made it up to Gayley Camp first day itself. Vitaliy, who left that morning before us, knew from his friends that the current conditions warranted snowshoes. Note to self: ALWAYS carry snowshoes to trailhead if there is any chance of snow.

Next morning we woke up at 3 AM (after a semi-awake few hours). We left camp at 4:10AM. We followed Vitaliy M and Bryan's snowshoe tracks from the previous day that took us to Gayley Camp. This was not as easy as we had thought it would be, and almost all of us felt either the altitude (leading to slowness) or the cold. Patrick was way stronger than the rest of us on this entire trip, and somehow managed to make no big deal of any of the post-holing. Tucker had fell sick so he stayed at Sam Mack camp.

The combination of lack of sleep for 2 nights, and extensive post-holing with a heavy pack on the approach, had left me very demoralized. I just could not bring my spirits up - even with the sights of my favorite peaks Gayley, the Palisades and Winchell, all glowing bright in the Sierra alpenglow. Vitaliy's headlamps, that we could earlier see in the L-couloir, had now disappeared. At around 7 AM, at around 12500 feet, in full view of the Palisade glacier and the Swiss Arete now coming into sun, I simply gave up.

I told my partners Josh and Patrick that I would be a liability if I continued further with them. Patrick at this time was feeling cold in his toes and fingers, and my giving up was the proverbial last nail in the coffin for our Swiss Arete attempt. Patrick felt he was not comfortable leading 5 pitches at 13000 feet all on his own.

Jon soon joined us, after taking what he called "the biggest dump known to man-kind" (speaking of which, I have always wondered, why is it called take and not give. But I digress.) My low morale had diffused into Patrick, and both of us simply decided to walk back to camp.

Jon and Josh still seemed charged. They switched the objective to Mt. Gayley, and possibly some ice-climbing on the glacier. The latter was promptly dropped since we did not have stuff for an ice anchor. However as we realised later, they could not make it up to even Glacier Notch because of the snow quality and tiredness.

All of us then hiked out. At 5 PM, the TH was still around 20F cold, as per the car thermometer. The donut shop in Lone Pine was a natural destination now. A voluminous 2-scooped hot fudge sundae and some strange groovy MTV videos made me feel a bit better. Patrick drove all the way to Pasadena, the champion of late night post-climb driving that he is. Somehow, this time on the drive back he did not play Mountain Goats' "Ezekiel 7 and The Permanent Efficacy of Grace".

I read this once (perhaps in Andrew Lindblade's book "Expeditions", not sure), that there are 3 requirements from any expedition - come back alive, still friends with your partners, and successful, in that order. I guess we did succeed in 2 out of 3. What makes me particularly sad is that we could have had the 3rd too, if we did a 3-day trip instead of 2, carried snowshoes and in general been a little more careful about the planning.

Palisade traverse attempt: Thunderbolt, Starlight and North Palisade

The Palisades keep drawing me back. They stand austerely far away from the glances of the crowds (non-mountaineering folks mostly still are not aware of their existence). It gives me strange joy when someone asks me "so where did you climb", and to my reply "in the Palisade regions of the high Sierra" they respond with an empty stare.

After the Gayley and Thunderbolt trip around May 1st, I had been mostly pre-occupied with research and had been using that as an excuse to sit on my ass all day and eat waffles. I did run a slow 4:37 Pasadena marathon, and made that first in 2011 trip to climb El Whampo (5.7, 5 pitches) at Tahquitz with Dan Berisford. But that's pretty much it - further worsened by Echo Mountain run induced ankle injuries. So scare was a natural state of mind when I found myself facing a 3 day trip to traverse across the Palisade ridge, involving 5 jagged peaks above 14000 feet. Especially because my partners on this trip (The Kedrone, Patrick and Jon the Wiseman) are in common parlance known to be some of the fittest hikers around who also poke you with a stick (or ice-tool) if you lag behind. Patrick and Kedrone had also climbed Russell East Arete the week before, so I was also worried that they will have much superior acclimatization than me. But in retrospect, looks like garlic and gingko IS the way to go (gingko having the additional advantage that you won't be mocked upon by your girlfriend for having a perennial bad breath)!

We set out June 23rd 7.30 PM from Pasadena, and drove up to the high Horseshow Meadows campground to spend the night, next to a gushing waterfall on the roadside. Next morning, after stuffing ourselves with donuts and bagels at the appropriately named "Donut and espresso shop" in Lone Pine, we went to the ranger station and collected our permits. We soon reached the South Lake trailhead, and by 11.30 AM, we were stomping across the trails headed for the 12400' Thunderbolt Col. The hike in was mostly uneventful but had great views as usual. The undulations between Bishop Pass and Thunderbolt Col led to extended swearing and spitting on my part. By 6 PM we reached our small campsite hidden between rocks right at the Col. We melted snow, ate and drank, and soon were ensconced in our sleeping bags. We did not bring tents and the calm and clear night sky full of gazillion stars and occasional shooting stars lulled us to sleep.
Only to wake up at 3 AM. By 4 AM, we were cramponing up the semi-icy Southwest chute #1 of Thunderbolt.
We reached the notch between Lightning Rod and Thunderbolt at around 6.30, and soon thereafter we were at the summit block after some class 4. Peak number 1 done, 4 more to go.

We downclimbed the 5.6 chimney (which seemed much easier) as advised by Stephen. Some class 3 slabs, and we were at the top of Underhill Couloirs. I later saw some other climbers descending the alternate (to the 5.6 option) class 4 slabs, and that was scary (3rd picture below). We then scrambled some exciting class 4-5 to get stuck at a point where we saw rappel slings. Like the Donkey in Shrek 3, who can not but eat waffles wherever he sees them, we could not but rappel when we saw slings. So we rappelled. Jon had stayed back at TB and would descend later on his own.
Now we reached a chimney, which I thought looked easy. I started free-soloing it, but very soon found myself doing 5.7ish moves, and so I stopped at a ledge. Kedron then led it placing adequate pro, and belayed me and Patrick. It was a bad idea to climb that thing in boots since there were some slabby moves which I slipped on (good that the prussik belay held). By 12 noon, we had climbed the phallic Milk Bottle of Starlight Peak. 2 done, 3 more to go.

A couple of fun rappels (including a twist-and-shout one at the gap between Starlight and North Pal), some more class 4 and we were 50 odd feet below North Palisade's summit block. The wind had now picked up. The class 4 route on the east side of the summit was all snow covered and looked super sketchy. So we roped up again and climbed the 5.5 chimney variation. Roping up takes time! Especially with 3 climbers. This meant it was 4.30 PM or so when we reached the summit of North Palisade. 3 done, 2 more to go.


I was here a year ago on the Caltech Alpine Club's winter mountaineering trip, and knew well the way back to U-Notch. The key is to immediately jump down the summit block, and not traverse west. Some more fun scrambling, 2 rappels, and we were at U-Notch. Time was 6.30 PM. We almost immediately started climbing the class 4 to Polemonium. But almost immediately, we also discovered a collective dip in will-power. We knew the terrain now was much less technical and that we could do it if we tried. But it was too windy for our morale, and as The Kedrone said, we decided to sand. We then downclimbed the west side of U-Notch. Some scree, and big crevasse shaped holes left in the ground by the waterfall. But overall an easy downclimb. It was 9 PM when we reached camp. I was too tired to eat or talk, but still pretty happy.
Next morning we woke up when the sun was so high and strong it almost perforated through our sleeping bags. Marmot at the campsite, deers at Bishop Pass going from somewhere to somewhere. The Palisades shone, enticing me to come back to finish the traverse. We hiked out the 10 odd miles, and rewarded ourselves with dinner at Still Life Cafe in Independence.
Peter Croft calls this traverse a Magical Mystery Tour, and now I can see why.

(All pictures courtesy: Patrick, Kedron and Hamik)

Palisades: Gayley and Thunderbolt

29th April - 1st May was when the Caltech Alpine Club did its annual veteran's trip to the Palisades. The objective was to climb Thunderbolt (14003 feet), and perhaps some other peak(s) too. On 29th April, 5 of us (me, Bill, Patrick, BG, Odin) did the 11 odd miles approach from Glacier Lodge Trailhead to Sam Mack Meadows. Temple Crag and a frozen Second Lake on the way:



We then set up camp at Sam Mack Meadows, around 11,000 feet. The plan was to head up 800 feet the steep looking chute you see in this, but the snow looked funny, and the trees at Sam Mack seemed better from shelter perspective (especially since 50 mph gusts were in the forecast), so we stayed at Sam Mack.



Day 2 was allotted for climbing Mt. Gayley (13510 feet), as an easy class 3 acclimatization peak. Leaving camp at a leisurely 7.45 AM, we climbed up to the Palisade glacier, traversed on it admiring the sights of the Palisade ridge and climbed up to Glacier Notch. From the time I had climbed Mt. Sill, I remembered the climb up to the notch to be an easy scramble. But now it was full of snow, so was a little funky, and gave the satisfying pleasure of listening to the sound of crampons scratching on loose tumbling rocks. I had forgotten my helmet and was promptly scolded by BG for it.






All of us on the summit of Gayley:

We then decided to downclimb the southwest ridge itself, as we were concerned about descending the steep icy snow especially since there was loose rock around.

We then descended the notch, ran across the glacier amazed as we saw skiers everywhere on the mountain. There was a group climbing up the L-couloir on Sill, with skis on back. There was another group that had climbed up U-notch to ski it down, and was now climbing up the V-notch to ski! Unbelievable! I had left some food at the top of the notch. When I got back i saw that the garlic naan was gone (probably taken by birds that were circling around as we were climbing up, or by the skiers on Sill). But once again, my trusty Nutella was untouched!


We were lucky enough to find a small patch of breakable ice in the lake above Sam Mack. We broke through it and filled up stomachs and bottles with as much water as we could, accompanied by loud water burps (the kind Calvin makes to irritate his folks).


We were back at camp by 2.30. Very soon we were joined by 4 other climbers: The Kedrone, Erik the Red, Theo, and Hamik. Much laughing and gossiping ensued. A lazy dinner and we were in bed by 6 PM. The last night had been pretty cold, and the morning had greeted some of us with frozen boots and ice bottles instead of water bottles. Thus tonight our sleeping bags were especially full with all kinds of smelly crap to avoid freezing. Next morning we woke up at 3-3.30 AM, and were up and climbing by 4.30. My head lamp seemed lazier than me, and I spent 10 minutes doing kala jaadu on the batteries. We climbed up the first 1000 feet in 45 minutes, pretty good for 12000 feet elevation. We were then lucky enough to see an amazing tequila sunrise and alpenglow: Winchell in alpenglow below (Patrick, I and others climbed last June when we climbed Sill too).


Spindrift was pretty constant and most of the day today looked as if it was snowing. Our route was the North Couloir. The first challenge was the bergschrund - yes, that same bergschrund which had tried twice to eat some of us. Luckily it seemed pretty full, so we happily stomped across it. So we climbed up the North Couloir and soon reached the top of it. Now we downclimbed a little into where the Southwest Chute comes, and then climbed up some 45-50 degree snow to attain the notch between the Lightning Rod and the real summit.




Hamik now fixed up a line for everyone to take to the summit. I clambered around to find an easier looking class 4+ chimney route, which I free soloed up to be greeted at the summit around 8.15 AM by a surprised Hamik's "WTF!". Everyone else gradually reached the summit. The next challenge was to climb the 5.9R summit block. We tried a little to lead climb it, but the combination of cold and tiredness made it difficult. So the two French in the group joined forces to lasso the summit block after which all of us climbed it.


A quick rappel from the summit, and then we retraced our way back to the camp. The snow bridge on the bergschrund was still strong. We reached camp by 3ish, and hiked out between 4 to 5. Temple Crag lured me again, I guess she wants me to come back and climb her. OK, soon my dearie. We were back at trailhead by 7-8 PM on Day 3, and were soon stuffing our mouths with food at the Subway in Lone Pine.




(All pictures courtesy: Odin, Patrick and B.G.)