Palisade Traverse, Sierra Nevadas: Fiver 14ers in a day.

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mushroom

Trad climber

Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 18, 2009 - 05:41pm PT

The Palisade Traverse: Five 14ers in a day.
Author: Nicholas Grybauskas
Climbing Partner: Colin Simon
July 2009

Everything changed overnight. For weeks on end we had been rock jocks climbing steep granite, sending splitter cracks and runout faces, perfecting our jams and liebacks, then we talked with Philip during a cool night in Tuolumne Meadows. Philip was on his way to the Northwest for a job with Boeing. He was passing through to sample the rock but he situated an idea in our heads: why not go climb some alpine peaks in the High Sierra? A map was pulled out, so were guidebooks, and the magnificent Palisades appeared before me for the first time.

What are the Palisades? It’s a ridge of five 14,000 peaks, some 8 miles from the Bishop Pass trailhead in the Sierra Nevada, CA. The live up to their name, being formed by jagged granite pushed forth from the inner layers of the earth. Isolated gendarmes, pillars, and pinnacles form an impressive palisade of granite nestled between glaciers, clearly dividing East from West.

The Palisades: including Thunderbolt, Starlight, North Palisade, and Palemonium

We were fit--that wasn’t our problem. But we were lacking in the ways of gear. Accordingly, we went with a super light style of ascent for these mountains. Axes, crampons, jackets, and boots could be expected for this trip—this was mountaineering not NPS trail walking. So we jet set for R.E.I., Stockton and exchanged what we needed.

Gear:
I said superlight, eh? That meant our gear consisted of the following things and only the following things:
Climbing: helmets, harnesses, belay/rappel devices, 4 alpine draws, a cordelette, a set of nuts, a 60m rope, a set of Yax-Trax (one per person, eh?), and an ice ax a piece.
Clothing was conservative as well: one set each, including layering for below freezing, and a (light!) layer for protection from wind/rain/storm. Footwear was approach-shoes (No rockshoes/boots).
First Aid: 2 emergency blankets, triangular bandage, duct tape, ace bandage, advil
Cooking kit: MSR Simmerlite and a liter (?) of white gas, one 1 quart pot, 1 bowl, spoons.
Apartment and furnishings: R.E.I. Half-Dome tent, camping pads, 2 super light sleeping bags for me, a 0*K bag for Colin
We were light: after supplying and getting permits in Bishop we were carrying something like 35lbs a piece for a 5-day mountaineering effort into the hills. Our objectives were still unclear.

Preparations being made in the shade, Bishop, CA.

Some serious peaks were going down, but we still weren’t sure what our targets were. We had a couple of photocopied pages of guidebook beta and we were headed for the west side of the mountains--that much was straight. We knew we wanted to summit North “Pal”, the highest of the peaks and perhaps we’d snag Thunderbolt one of the days. The sun rose and breakfast was cooked. We’d slept a few hundred yards down from the trailhead so we could sleep at about 9000ft for the night.

Bishop Pass Trail

Approach Beta:
The Bishop Pass Trail moderate and downhill according to R.J. Secor. We followed the BPT, first, gently climbing for a few miles along quality NPS trail replete with copious amounts of pack animal sh#t. This trail leads you to a valley with many natural, alpine lakes. This section is amazingly beautiful and attractive. The water is crystal clear and we were drinking directly from these water sources. After multiple stream crossings one follows the trail through talus up to Bishop Pass.

Bishop Pass Trail, before the pass itself

Snazzy scenery

We finally got the beta we were looking for at the pass: “After getting up Thunderbolt, the ridge is pretty cruiser to Mt. Sill!” said some local climbers on a day-hike. Five 14ers were all in a line, so we decided to go for a one-for-all, in-a-day ascent: the classic ridge traverse. Bonsai! This sounded like a capital idea!

We spent the remainder of our first approach day hiking hard for Thunderbolt Pass. Making this pass would give us access to the whole of the Palisade Basin; all the couliers on the west-side of the Palisades would be at our fingertips. By the time we summited this snow-covered pass we were beaten like third world dogs. Sure our packs were light, but we were at 12,000ft and my spinal cord was being ravaged by my daypack with 35lbs of stuff strapped to it. A couple of hours, 8 miles, and a few bouts of elevation change later we were setting up base camp at 12,000ft in Thunderbolt Pass.

Thunderbolt pass

The concept of summit of a pass was never clear to me.

Base camp in the pass

A revitalizing day’s rest was taken in the gorgeous Palisade basin before the fun commenced. More time to acclimate was welcome by all parties, and we had a chance to engage our T-bolt Pass-mates in a snowball fight. Being caught off guard and in their underwear, they didn’t find this very funny. We didn’t find it very funny either when we woke up for summit day and they had pooped in our helmets.

A rest day spent wandering the Palisade Basin.

Climbing beta:
Summit(s) Day was straightforward. We ascended the Southwest Chute No.1 at about 7:30am. Hard neve of moderate steepness with sun-cups proved easily passable despite our footwear. Passing a chock-stone we continued up loose talus and scree frozen in place. All the better without the crampons, they were otherwise unneeded all day beyond the first coulier.. Should we have started a few hours later, or the weather warmer, this chute would have been double loose. Our biggest slow-down was the meager oxygen in these parts. It was frustrating to see myself out of breath after only a few climbing moves. Paces were slowed and steady progress was made.

Southwest Chute No. 1, the entrance coulier

Within an hour or two we reached the first summit, Thunderbolt. The coulier led to a notch that we could escape to the summit after about 50-100ft of 4th/5th class climbing. We found throughout the day the granite to be so similar to Yosemite that we roped up very little, notwithstanding constant delving into the lowest of 5th class climbing moves. Besides one moment when I cried for Colin to lower me a rope to belay me below the North “Pal” summit and one section after Palemonium peak, we stayed unroped. I would emphatically recommend bringing a rope on this route--there're some hairy moves, bro!

The notch

The summit block of Thunderbolt was summited via a lasso, then we quickly went to the NW Ridge route that led to Starlight and North “Pal”. This was one of the most involved parts of the day. This grade II section went unroped for us, but not without considerable efforts made on challenging and exposed terrain. This section was an expression of our skills we’d learned this season and we sent it with impeccable style, control, and mastery. Delicate traverses around gendarmes, improbable down-climbs, and skilled stints of 5th class led to the summit block of Starlight Peak. Another 14er bagged and we were off to the next.

Summit of Starlight Peak

North Palisade fell to us without much trouble. We did need to get the rope out, though. A quick rap across a windy notch, and later a short belay for me (previously mentioned) were necessary to reach the summit of North “Pal”. From here, we had acquired the high point of the day and the region. We were surrounded by snow covered Sierra peaks on all sides. The wind was strong, but the weather clear. Nowhere but down from here! The pace carried on steadily as we descended the ridge a ways and made two rappels into the U-Notch between North “Pal” and Palemonium. These three rappels were the only rappels made throughout the day.

A look across the windy notch

Traversing to Palemonium, before the U-Notch

The guidebook said we’d encounter some 5.2 getting out of the U-Notch. 4th class terrain led to a tricky 5th class bit, the rope was used for a short lead, and the ridge was regained and the roped put away. Palemonium Peak fell to us quickly. With much sun still in the sky we peered forward at Mt. Sill. A long ridge away, and another upward climb made me tempt Colin. “We can’t really be bothered with going all the way up there can we?” I told Colin. After a day of long, challenging ridge, the way to Sill seemed trivial and chossy and I was ready to make a return to camp via epic boot ski down the bowl. Colin, a mountaineer less likely to cut corners for corn, told me to keep doing what I love, so that we did.

The ridge to Mt. Sill

The ascent of Mt. Sill proved to be a relaxed and straightforward way to end the traverse. The summit was windless and for a moment we had peace. I recorded our day’s work into the summit register.

Mt. Sill register

Descent beta:
The descent was long, as they sometimes are. We followed a small buttress of talus to the base of the enormous bowl on the west side of Mt. Sill. This would be amazing skiing, I thought. From there we dropped into another bowl on the South-ish side of Potluck pass. Climbing this, we entered the Palisade basin again as the sun was an hour or so from setting. A trek of sorts led us over granite, through boulders, and mostly on snow back to Thunderbolt pass. Snow was melted, rice cooked, and sleep enjoyed. The next day, our fourth, we ventured back to the trailhead.

The way back home

survival

Big Wall climber

A Token of My Extreme

Jul 18, 2009 - 06:19pm PT

Good job Shroom!!

Can you clean up those pix a bit?

Here's to a great day out. Thanks for taking me up!

JOEY.F

Social climber

sebastopol

Jul 18, 2009 - 08:13pm PT

Great TR Mushroom.
It's so wicked beautiful back there,
managed Sill once from the west, took 3 days huff huff
you guys are stout!

Thanks!

mushroom

Trad climber

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 18, 2009 - 09:03pm PT

pictures are fixed

hungry man

Trad climber

around

Jul 18, 2009 - 10:29pm PT

Good TR! That place looks crazy.

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Jul 18, 2009 - 11:06pm PT

Now that's COOL !!!

Crimpergirl

Sport climber

Boulder, Colorado!

Jul 18, 2009 - 11:08pm PT

Nice stuff - thanks for sharing!

marty(r)

climber

beneath the valley of ultravegans

Jul 18, 2009 - 11:24pm PT

Well done lads! How did the going look south of Sill? Hard to imagine there's another several miles of ridgeline to link...some day.

August West

Trad climber

Where the wind blows strange

Jul 19, 2009 - 02:12pm PT

Nice trip report. I've eyed that traverse for a while now.

I've also eyed alternatives to crampoons. How do you like the Yax Trax?

Only 4 draws and a set of stoppers? Really? Is it even worth carrying a 60m rope in that case? I guess it gives you options for rapping, but if the rack is that light, I might only take 15~20 meters of rope to break out for a move or two.

Ezra

Social climber

WA, NC, Idaho Falls

Jul 19, 2009 - 02:16pm PT

Great TR,
Thanks for sharing
-e

rhyang

climber

SJC

Jul 19, 2009 - 02:28pm PT

Very very nice work !

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Jul 19, 2009 - 02:44pm PT

Oh yeah,
Almost forgot...
Nice touch with the Arabian scarf get up !

leavinglasvegas

climber

escondido

Jul 19, 2009 - 02:50pm PT

radness!

Roxy

Trad climber

CA Central Coast

Jul 19, 2009 - 03:37pm PT

Yeah! Thanks for sharing an inspiring TR!

Les

Trad climber

Bahston

Jul 20, 2009 - 11:32am PT

Very cool TR, dude! I'll be in the Palisades (climbing Temple Crag) in about two weeks, so thanks for the stoke!

mushroom

Trad climber

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 20, 2009 - 04:28pm PT

Regarding heading south from Mt. Sill:
Definitely doable. At least directly south from Sill would be easy. Sill is a very mellow mountain and even though it looks chossy, it's actually made up of really stable piles of talus. I would hesitate to call it talus because it looks like it went through a different formation than the typical stacking via gravity of most talus fields. It seems like it rose from the depths of the earth in that fashion, it's all strategically stacked by the architect, more or less. I'm no geologist so that's all I can say.

Regarding Yax Trax: the shoes situation was this, I had a pair of cirque pros with mostly full grip, and I was fine getting up the coulier with the help of an ax. My buddy's approach shoes were very worn to polished rubber. He wore the Yax Trax to get up the coulier but did not wear them for the rest of the day. I can't say much for them, but he was very glad to not have brought crampons. I can't remember getting an opinion from him on the yaxtrax, but I would guess he was happy to have them.

Regarding the rope:
Ya, it's a bummer to have the thing all day and hardly use it. The trouble is getting from N. Pal to Palemonium requires getting in the U notch. There is a chimney system that leads from the U notch to N. Pal that you can rap with two 30m raps. I would guess you could probably do it with two 50m raps and a bit of downclimbing. I don't think you'd want to down climb the whole chimneys though, they look to be at least 5.6. There could be alternate ways down to the U-notch but we didn't take the time to search them out--we had a rope.

If you are sponsored/have a job then the perfect set up would be a 30mx8.5mm(or so) line and a 30m pull line so you can make full length raps. The raps are clean and should not hang up ropes.

Also, getting onto N. Pal from Starlight is tricky. The beta we had mentioned some 5.5 flake or something.... we never saw this flake. The memories are quickly fading, so trust this with a grain of salt: we rapped through the windy notch, passed the huge gendarmes on the East side heading up a super easy slab with cracks, then dropped onto the West side of the ridge and climbed a bit of a rotten chimney with some snow. Exiting the chimney on the left (this is where I had had enough soloing, the rock was very iffy) on a wonderfully exposed move to a steep bouldery finish. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the route finding can be tricky at times and you wouldn't want to go the wrong way, just to figure out things get harder/rotten and there's no rope. But a 30m would definitely be sufficient.

I think we were high on Yosemite too. We did a fair bit of super exposed stuff; I could see more casual parties wanting to bust out the rope for a few more moves. I hate to hype it, and in fact it was all quite easy. 60m, besides the raps, is otherwise not required.

Cheers for the positive remarks,

Nick