Isosceles Peak was on the menu today, a welcome respite from the last few days. By the sixth day of the 2005 Challenge it was time for a short break, an easy peak that might have some technical challenges, but not so many miles or so much elevation gain. This one fit the bill nicely. The peak lies at the far end of Dusy Basin, is rated class 4 by it's easiest route, and is said to command a fine view of the southwest side of the Palisades. Our starting point was the Bishop Pass TH at South Lake.
There were 12 folks signed up for today's Challenge, a large number for mid-week. Probably lured by the possibility of an easy day. Mike Y. and Eric had started an hour early in order to take on the more difficult 5.6 Southwest Buttress. The rest of us were heading for the easier class 3-4 on the NE Face. I counted nine participants just before 6a as I took my usual inventory of those I found in the parking lot. A tenth person, Tony, was supposed to show up today,but I didn't have a lot of faith he would - he was supposed to show up on the first day and had already cancelled out of the first five days. There was another person in the parking lot parked next to me that I didn't recognize. He had a huge assortment of camping gear spread out behind his vehicle as though taking inventory or setting up for a yard sale. I assumed he was backpacking and didn't give him another thought. Of course once you put it down in writing like this it seems the obvious connection would suggest it might have been Tony (which it was). But at the time I just assumed he was a backpacker getting ready for a multi-day outing.
By now, the returning participants knew to expect a prompt starting time, and further, they realized that my watch was a few minutes fast which several pointed out to me. No matter, I declared. My watch was the official Challenge timepiece. And so as it struck 6a, I waved us onward to the trail. The parking lot, bustling with activity a few seconds earlier was suddenly quiet, except for Tony wondering what the hell had happened. "Hey wait up!" he called out, but almost no one heard him. Later that day someone would confess that they heard it from the back of the pack, but didn't give it any credence - leaving unprepared participants at the trailhead was nothing novel.
Though the sun had risen, the Inconsolable Range to the east blocked the
sunlight almost the entire way to Bishop Pass, making for a cool and enjoyable
hike. Backpackers we passed along the way were still asleep in their tents or
under their 
shelters. 
Long Lake
was glassy smooth as we cruised by, Mt. Goode bathed in sunshine
behind it. We made excellent time, and by 8a we had nine of us taking a break
at 
Bishop Pass. While we were resting there, someone pointed out that the
"backpacker" appeared to be part of our group, but got left behind. I felt bad
for not looking into it back at the TH. After we'd been resting some five
minutes, a tired and frustrated Tony arrived, "Thanks for waiting!" Someone
joked, "You're lucky, Bob doesn't usually take this long of a break." That
didn't make Tony feel any better as he replied, "Thank God for small favors."
I did my best to explain to Tony what happened and that seemed to calm him down.
The rest helped some too, and when we were all ready to head out again, it was
one big happy family again.
We left the trail and headed southeast down and across 
Dusy Basin. The
route-finding is trivial for the most part, the peak rising up before us across
the basin, no serious obstacles to negotiate. And a very pleasant hike indeed,
across beautiful alpine meadows punctuated with placid lakes. We hiked around
the west and south side of the largest lake as we headed east along the north
side of Isosceles, and before 9a we were starting up the NE Face. The face is
fairly crappy to put it simply. Boulders to start,
some 
snow to offer relief
from the snow, more boulders to relieve us of the snow slope which wasn't so
nice as we'd hoped. 
The slope
steepens and turns to loose scree and dirt and it
is impossible to keep from knocking rocks down. Though we try to be careful,
"Rock!" is shouted out almost a dozen times as the ten of us make our way up
the class 2-3 slope. The others head for a notch up above, but it looks like
more loose crap to me. I angled to the right hoping for more solid rock above
and a more direct route to the summit. I found the class 3-4 rock I was hoping
for, but nothing really solid. Just before reaching the ridge, I passed through
a narrow tunnel underneath some rocks on the steepest part of the face, nervous
that the rocks weren't held together with anything much stronger than dried
dirt. Above the tunnel the angle relaxed and I attained the ridge.
Following the ridge to the west, I scrambled over class 3-4 rock, now much more
solid, until I reached the top of the east summit. I was the first to arrive,
and spent some time perplexed and scouting out the ridge here. I had expected
the summit to be class 4 as reported by Secor. But to the west was a higher
middle summit,
with a deep notch bridged lower down with an 8-foot window
underneath. This window is easily viewable from the base of the north and south
sides of the peak, making a prominent landmark. I climbed down to the notch,
no simple task, but could not see any easy way up to the higher summit. I heard
voices above from others arriving at the east summit. I climbed back up to find
Ron and others had arrived. Reading a TR from a Sierra Club party, we recognized
that we were at the summit where they had left a register (we failed to find it)
and were similarly stymied by the middle summit. I had treated that last part
of the TR too lightly,
thinking most of those climbers were fairly conservative, but this
time we could do no better. I took a second crack at the window, but again came
up empty. Rats. I decided to give everyone who reached the east summit credit
for summiting on the grounds that it was advertised as a class 4 summit, but
was much harder. All ten of us were able to make it to the summit, something of
a record - the success rate is usually far lower. Another sign that it was too
easy? :-)
The views were as good as we had hoped. The complex southwest aspect of the
Palisades was a dizzying array of aretes and steep chutes rising to the summits
of 
Agassiz, 
Winchell, and the 14er's clustered around
North Palisade. To the east were Mts. Goddard, McDuffie, Black Giant,
and other peaks in the northernmost part of the SEKI Wilderness.
A number of the participants expressed interest in going to nearby
Columbine Peak, the nearest named peak to Isosceles.
Michael, Evan and myself headed down the South Ridge first,
heading for the saddle between the two peaks. Matthew
was a short ways behind when we reached 
the saddle,
the others still up by the
summit ridge. The Northeast Ridge of Columbine was a bit more interesting than
the descent off Isosceles. The lower section was an easy
class 2 scramble.
Higher up, Matthew and I started playing around on the better
class 3 scrambling found along the very crest while Michael and Evan took the
easier class 2 by following off the east side of the ridge a short distance.
The scrambling grew more interesting and spicy the higher we went, and soon the
others were well ahead of Matthew and I. We were having too much fun to care
when we got to the summit and besides, it was still going to be an easy day
with just these two peaks. The blocks grew bigger, and the ridgeline more
exposed. We wandered out a short distance on the very
steep 
west side of the ridge to get around one obstacle.
We balked at a class
4 ledge with poor handholds that seemed to be pushing the game we played a bit
too far. The hardest part was traversing across a 
bottomless gap
in the rock,
an awkward little problem that had us laughing and a bit scared, too. In all
the ridge took about an hour from the summit of Isosceles - a very enjoyable
scramble.
The four of us relaxed on the summit, waiting for the others to join us. After
about 15 minutes it occurred to us that maybe nobody else was coming. They
weren't - they'd all gone back. We considered heading south to Knapsack Pass,
but it seemed a good distance (less than half a mile as it turned out) in the
wrong direction. No one really wanted to go that far out of our way. Matthew
checked his route beta. Secor mentions a scree chute on the west side that
"provides a good descent route." We could see the chute heading off down from
the South Ridge a short distance below the summit. Matthew and I decided to
check it out while Michael and Evan headed back the way we came up. The chute
isn't on the west side but rather the southwest side, and the hoped-for good
descent chute wasn't so good as it turned out. Loose scree, not deep enough
to boot ski, but enough to keep us slipping and grasping for anything looking
solid. It was difficult to avoid knocking rocks down on each other, and the
only thing it had going for it was it was better descending than it would have
been to ascend.
Near 
the bottom we got off track a bit before Matthew found
a way around some cliffs in the chute and we emerged onto the southwest side of
the peak. We contoured around the 
west side of the Columbine,
noting some fine-looking rock climbing, better in fact than what we could see
on the 
southwest and 
west sides of Isosceles.
I came away with the impression that Columbine was a much finer peak than
Isosceles though it certainly isn't treated as such in the guide books.
Looking south, 
Giraud was not so far away, but
there was no interest in heading that way to climb it as we had wishfully
imagined before the day began. I would save it for the next year's Challenge.
Heading north, we left Columbine behind us as we approached Isosceles. Looking
up the Southwest Buttress, we spotted two climbers atop
the west summit - Mike Y. and Eric, no doubt. They had successfully climbed
the class 5.6 route, having just arrived atop as we were contouring around the
base.
We had a fine walk back through Dusy Basin towards Bishop Pass. We passed by
numerous 
lakes, some filled with tadpoles, others with small fish,
none that had both (conclusion: fish eat frog eggs).
Shortly before the pass we spotted Evan and Michael a short ways off heading in
the same direction. We beat them to the pass by a few minutes, then regrouped
and learned then that the rest had gone back, never attempting Columbine. Just
as we headed down the 
north side of Bishop Pass we came across Tony
resting alongside the trail. He was the only other participant we came across
in the hour and forty minutes it took us to return to 
the trailhead.
We were
surprised to find that we were the first to return - where had the others gone?
As we were to find later, Ron and Jeff had gone up to Agassiz, while Rick G.,
Mark, and Mike L. had gone to Chocolate Peak. The two that went to the west
summit found similar difficulty reaching the middle summit, so none of our
group made the true highpoint, but I credited all with the peak nonetheless.
Knowing the day was going to be a short one, and this being our last evening
to stay in Bishop, we planned a pool party at the motel following the climb.
Since I was the first one back to town, I headed to Vons to pick up supplies for
burgers, sides, and margaritas. The ever-resourceful Evan had a portable blender
that we used to mix 
the margaritas in the motel room, in addition to a
gas BBQ that he fired up on the back of his camper truck next to the pool. We
had some 18 people show up for the party, which was pretty successful
despite the fact that I was the only one to go in the pool. So successful, that
we'll have to have more of these next year!
Continued...