Trip Report
Norman Clyde Peak (Firebird Ridge)
Wednesday May 7, 2014 2:58am
If you want a report with pictures, visit my website, since SuperTopo has deprecated displaying photos from off-site.

2013-06-20
After a tiring approach the day before, Steph and I had recovered well enough to wake up early and climb the first route on our agenda, the classic Firebird Ridge on Norman Clyde Peak (IV, 5.9).

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Sept 2, 2011 - Middle Palisade & Norman Clyde Pk at sunset from the Te...
Sept 2, 2011 - Middle Palisade & Norman Clyde Pk at sunset from the Temple Crag plateau. You can't miss Firebird Ridge. It begs to be climbed!
Credit: PellucidWombat
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There was very little information on the route, which made it more of an adventure, and in the end I think we were pretty much on route. It is a fun climb, and the rock is quite solid for alpine climbing. Basically just stay on the crest, passing most difficulties slightly to the right. The crux, however, requires an exposed, unprotected, off-balance step left into a great 5.9 fingers corner. The route wasn't too sustained, and was more of a Grade III climb than Grade IV, and the 5.9 crux felt easier to me than the 5.8-5.9 crux on Twilight Pillar, which we climbed the following day.


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Day 2, we climbed Firebird Ridge on Norman Clyde Peak from a high camp.


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August 9th, 2010 - Norman Clyde Pk. You can't miss Firebird Ridge. It begs to be climbed!


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Middle Palisade and Norman Clyde seen from the approach slabs

We awoke before sunrise, and were beginning our approach just as the perfect morning light illuminated the palisade above. It is definitely worth setting a camp higher than Finger Lake for these views!


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Norman Clyde on the approach

We scrambled up a steep gully through cliff bands to gain a long ascending traverse on slabs. At the end of this we saw the class 3 approach to gain the ridge crest that would become Firebird Ridge. The scramble is fun and sustained class 3 on good rock. We took a harder, more direct line to start, and found an easier variation on the way down.


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Class 3 scramble up to the ridge. It is easiest to go far left and traverse back right on a cl. 2-3 ramp until you reach the largest corner. From there it is clean, enjoyable and sustained cl. 3 to the top.

From the ridge crest you are treated with excellent views of Norman Clyde Peak and whatever your objective is for the day. This is also the point where you'd rappel if you were continuing into the next basin north.


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Twilight Pillar (left) and Firebird Ridge (right) on Norman Clyde Peak seen from the ridge crest. (Ratings and grade are my opinion)


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Firebird Ridge on Norman Clyde Peak seen from the ridge crest. (Ratings and grade are my opinion)


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Mt Sill from the south side.


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Palisade Crest seen from the base of Firebird Ridge.


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SE Pinnacles Route on the Palisade Crest (II, 5.8) ascends the left dihedral. I climbed that route with Dirk Summers in 2010.


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Base of Firebird Ridge

Despite looking obvious as drawn as an annotated photo, we were really unclear just where to start the ridge. Steph began checking out the sunny face about where we ultimately started, while I continued around the corner on the right to see if we should start there.


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Looking up the NE Face Descent from the entrance-exit. We will descend this way, and it is good to take note of the exit so that you don't descend too far.

I traversed over to the end of the NE Face route, and saw that while we could technically start truer to the crest, it was in colder, darker terrain, on less appealing rock and less interesting climbing - more a series of ledges and ramps that tempt you to go right, away from the crest. So I rejoined Steph in the sun and we started to pick our way up to the ridge crest.


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Steph waving 'hello' from the base of where we started P1. I climbed up to the little notch in the ridge above at about 5.8.

The first pitch was thin and varied, mostly face and crimping moves with an occasional bit of crack as I wandered left and back right, up and over the crest. The next pitch looked interesting, too. This climb looked to be quite the adventure, and not quite as mindless as the vague route description might lead one to believe.


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Looking up P2. It was about 5.7.

I stepped around to the left side at first and spent some time experimenting with going up a corner, but it appeared to be very hard, with no gear for a while. It seemed awfully tough and spicy for 5.9, so I tried the right side of the crest towards a promising 5.7 wide crack.


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Leading P2, just past the wide part, in the 'runout' flake section, which fortunately was easy. (by Steph Abegg)

The wide part was awkward, but not too bad. It ended with a large flake that was far out from the wall, so after ending the wide section where you are plugged in, you are a ways above gear and have to go a good ways farther to the next piece, but the climbing is easy.

The big twists and turns added some drag to the rope, and when I got to the next crux, it was really unclear where to go, so I made this pitch a short one so that Steph could keep a tighter belay on me while I worked out the crux.


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On P2 I had tried going up this way first, but it seemed too hard and insecure and I found the OW variation on the crest to be much better. The crux of the route is above, and it had me stymied, so I stopped short and broke it up into its own pitch, highlighted above.

Staying on the ridge crest here didn't seem feasible. Climbing on cracks on the face to the right looked like 5.10 with marginal pro. A crack that split the crest above had a fixed nut in it, but I didn't see how one could get to that crack from either side of the crest at a 5.9 level. There was a blind corner to the left, and as I recalled from lower down, there might be a crack in it, although lower down it was a seam.

The problem was that the last 10 ft or so leading up to it had no gear, and you had to step around an awkward bulge to get into the corner. I could barely feel around the corner, but I couldn't find the crack to tell if it would take gear. At the very least I would have to commit to a balancy step around that I could not reverse before I could get in any gear. Fortunately in the end this wasn't too hard, and the 5.9 finger crack after this was really fun and well protected. This was a good reminder, though, on how much uncertainty of following through with committing moves that might not be on a good line adds to the headspace difficulty of these type of adventure climbs!


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P3 spooky step across. Mark couldn't get in his first piece until he reached his current position. (by Steph Abegg)


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Steph following the 5.9 fingers P3 crux. (by Steph Abegg)

After this crux the climbing got consistently easier, but still stayed plenty fun and solid.


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Fun 5.7 finger and hand cracks on P4. Be careful of the protruding loose blocks about halfway up the first step. They are why I went right instead of left.


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Midway up P4.


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False start on P5. Going left here using the leaning crack lined by white is easier than it looks, and takes you to an easy but extremely exposed route right along the narrow ridge crest.


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Looking down on Steph on P5 after stepping around to the ridge crest.


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More P5 climbing


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The remainder of P6 and P7 beyond.


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Steph following up P6


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Me at the P7 belay (by Steph Abegg)

As the terrain eased up, Steph felt like it was easy and predictable enough for her to lead without overdoing her lead discomfort that she has been fighting with since her accident. More mileage on the sharp end!


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Steph leading P7


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View of the final hundred feet of P8.


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Steph nearing the P8 downclimb.

We summitted late enough, with a long and uncertain descent in front of us, so instead of going out of our way to climb over to the summit and reverse our tracks, we decided to head down from here today to make sure we made it to camp early enough for a good night's sleep. We'd be waking early and summitting via Twilight Pillar the next day anyways!


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Firebird Ridge, and the standard NE Face route, which is the main descent used after climbing routes on Norman Clyde Peak. Seen from beneath the Palisade Crest.

The first rappel to the NE Face is easy to find. Not only for the tat, but because it is the first reasonable way to start downclimbing from the crest after you pass Firebird Ridge. You could downclimb it at very steep cl. 4, but with a rope and such an easy rappel, we chose to rapp instead. There was plenty of interesting downclimbing to be had later, anyways.


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Looking back up the first rappel on NE Face, with Mark rappelling. (by Steph Abegg)

The descent was fairly trick, exposed, and sustained scrambling. Definitely harder than the E Face of Middle Palisade or the Rock Route on Clyde Minaret. This is NOT a route you will descend in the dark unless you already know it very well. It is also one that is serious enough and takes a good part of the day. The few cairns that are present seem to indicate the wrong way to go about as much as the right way, as well. So do not underestimate dealing with it after climbing anything on Norman Clyde Peak.


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Downclimbing the NE Face. (by Steph Abegg)

At one point we resorted to one more rappel that was very awkward to set up, but it got us back onto easier terrain. The next time down we stayed farther north, and still resorted to one more rappel, but the rappel and climbing were both more straightforward.

Once we reached lower Firebird Ridge, we cached our trad gear for Twilight Pillar the following day (why carry all that weight back and forth, anyways?).

Overall the descent of the NE face, lower Firebird Ridge, and the slabs back to our high camp took us 4:20. We improved on this the next day as we knew the route a bit better. Camp-to-camp time this day was 13:45.



Links
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 2013-06-20 - Norman Clyde Peak Firebird Ridge with Steph Abegg

  Trip Report Views: 8,504
PellucidWombat
About the Author
PellucidWombat is a mountain climber from Berkeley, CA.

Comments
survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
  May 7, 2014 - 04:20am PT
Wow wow wow. Great work, great TR!!

Excellent on putting the pics together, and all the little graphics really make the difference.

Thank you so much! This one needs to go in the Bitchin' Beta archive!
skcreidc

Social climber
SD, CA
  May 7, 2014 - 09:48am PT
Very nice! And it's always nice when you get to see skypilot blooms along the route. Another great TR.
kaholatingtong

Trad climber
The fake McCoy from nevernever land.
  May 7, 2014 - 09:48am PT
yet another excellent TR. I really enjoy the route overlays you put together with your photographs, they realllly work for taking me, along with your writing, on your adventure.
PellucidWombat

Mountain climber
Draperderr, by Bangerter, Utah
Author's Reply  May 7, 2014 - 10:55am PT
But the date...?

Oops! Fixed. My mind has been lost in the future lately :-)
Vitaliy M.

Mountain climber
San Francisco
  May 7, 2014 - 11:08am PT
More great photos and information!

After you recover we should go climb some stuff in the Needles. Your crack-loving eyes will not be able to settle on which climb to do first! And maybe than we will get an awesome Needles guidebook ;)
mhay

climber
Bishop, CA
  May 7, 2014 - 11:23am PT
Very good route photos. Do you draw in the route from memory, or is it a gps track?
PellucidWombat

Mountain climber
Draperderr, by Bangerter, Utah
Author's Reply  May 7, 2014 - 12:38pm PT
Do you draw in the route from memory, or is it a gps track?

On the contour maps, or the photos?

Sometimes the contour maps are pulled from GPS (such as our main hiking paths), but usually not so much on the rock faces as a GPS is less accurate and useful there.

For photos, or maps where I don't use a GPS, I normally try to figure things out and draw a line within about the first month after a climb while my memory is still pretty fresh. Sometimes I am able to figure some lines out much farther out, but they aren't quite as detailed.

Also, I find that once I draw some of the route on some viewpoints, it helps me remember and fill in the gaps as I go. So sometimes I figure it out in a roundabout way, or from switching between several photos and matching features in our climbing photos to features on the faraway shot.

we should go climb some stuff in the Needles

Agg! Needles and Red Rocks are two climbing locales that have been high on my list. Definitely some of the first ones to get to once I am climbing again. Count me in.

I'm also still thinking of that place we found near Mt Emerson. Perhaps some of the others are still interested in joining. Would be fun to make a group thing out of that one.
donini

Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
  May 7, 2014 - 12:36pm PT
Nice! Just might have to do a Sierra trip this summer.
this just in

climber
Justin Ross from North Fork
  May 7, 2014 - 12:45pm PT
Thanks pellucid, really great looking climbing.
Lynne Leichtfuss

Sport climber
moving thru
  May 7, 2014 - 01:03pm PT
Stellar TR and pictures. Wow! Enjoyed even more as I am currently reading "Norman Clyde, Legendary Mountaineer of California's Sierra Nevada" by Pavlik.

Thanks for taking the time to put this awesome TR together.

Cheers, Lynne
H

Mountain climber
there and back again
  May 7, 2014 - 01:27pm PT
Pellucid Dude, Thats a great trip report. Norman Clyde has been on my list for a while. I hope to get to it this year.

Good job.
Vitaliy M.

Mountain climber
San Francisco
  May 7, 2014 - 01:30pm PT
I'm also still thinking of that place we found near Mt Emerson. Perhaps some of the others are still interested in joining. Would be fun to make a group thing out of that one.

Yeah I wanted to go there but didn't out of respect since we eyed it together and I didn't want to go there w/o you. Could be really fun. I bet it has many climbs up there, but since we don't know of them it will be like doing FAs.

Red Rock kicks ass. I was there for another week. Just returned this Sunday. WOW. I thought Yosemite was fun, but I think I like RR much more. A lot more variety and on many of the climbs the training we do at the gym actually IS useful!
Sierra Ledge Rat

Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
  May 7, 2014 - 01:52pm PT
Classic line, looks like fun!
PellucidWombat

Mountain climber
Draperderr, by Bangerter, Utah
Author's Reply  May 7, 2014 - 02:03pm PT
What's that approach like?

Approach is pretty reasonable. Same as for Middle Palisade, but from the Middle Pal glacier, hang a right, aiming for the low point on the ridge to the north. It took us a bit over an hour at a strong pace from our high camp to the base of the route, as I recall.

From TH to the route, there is only a small bit of easy bushwacking, and some bits of talus, but not much that was that loose. A lot of the higher cross-country is on slabs and meadow-like ledges. Overall, from the TH to the base of the route is probably about an hour or two longer than the approach to the standard Middle Palisade E Face route.

Yeah I wanted to go there but didn't out of respect since we eyed it together and I didn't want to go there w/o you.

Thanks, V! Yeah, maybe since December is when I can start climbing again, it can be a good mod-late winter outing to do, especially if it is another dry winter.
Bruce Morris

Trad climber
Soulsbyville, California
  May 7, 2014 - 02:41pm PT
If that P3 5.9 crux was next to the road I'd do it every day. Sure looks like a classic climb in its own right. Great looking route overall. This summer or the next for sure.
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
  May 7, 2014 - 04:39pm PT
As always, your TR is superb. I'd never had this route on my tick list because it seemed a bit contrived, but your pictures tell me otherwise, so now I have to add it back.

Thanks much.

John
Ezra Ellis

Trad climber
North wet, and Da souf
  May 8, 2014 - 06:45am PT
. There was plenty of interesting downclimbing to be had later, anyways.
A great line in typical wombat understatement!!!! Made me laugh !!!!!,

Thanks Mark, you are a TR machine!!!!
crankster

Trad climber
No. Tahoe
  May 8, 2014 - 10:34am PT
Excellent report!
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
  May 8, 2014 - 11:32am PT
Dood, you keep giving this shiz away for free and there ain't gonna be no book deal!
PellucidWombat

Mountain climber
Draperderr, by Bangerter, Utah
Author's Reply  May 8, 2014 - 03:15pm PT
It's just too hard to keep it to myself! :-)
pell

climber
Moscow
  May 8, 2014 - 05:00pm PT
Seems to be a fun climb. Thanks for sharing this with us!
dee ee

Mountain climber
Of THIS World (Planet Earth)
  May 9, 2014 - 04:54pm PT
Great TR!

I will never forget the year round snowfield that gave this route it's name. It was there all through my youth and defined that section of the face. RIP.

But, let's not talk about global warming.
PellucidWombat

Mountain climber
Draperderr, by Bangerter, Utah
Author's Reply  May 13, 2014 - 07:46pm PT
I will never forget the year round snowfield that gave this route it's name.

Wasn't Thunderbird Wall named after that snowfield, not Firebird Ridge?

Also, I thought the snowfield was either the current one beneath Twilight Pillar, or one that formed on the ledge that links that snowfield to the Thunderbird Wall route (south/left of the snowfield beneath Twilight Pillar)?

Not too certain here, but making sure I have my naming & history straight!
Leggs

Sport climber
Made in California, living in The Old Pueblo
  May 16, 2014 - 05:40pm PT
Nice TR...
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