The ninth day of the Sierra Challenge featured a climb to unofficially named Ed Lane Peak on the Sierra Crest between Bolton Brown and The Thumb. With some 7,300ft of elevation gain, it would be the highest amount of gain for this year's Challenge as well as the highest summit, topping out at over 13,500ft. Our starting point would be the Birch Lake Trailhead along McMurray Meadows Rd out of Big Pine. This would be the first time we'd used this trailhead during the Challenge and the first time I'd ever been on this trail.
There were 
11 of us for the 6a start at the TH. Five others had either
started earlier or were late in making the assigned start, but all would make a
day of the hike up and down the Birch Lake Trail. 
The sign at the TH
is fairly new and
gives a reassuring level of authenticity to the trail that is not matched by
the evidence in the field. Unlike other East Side trails, this one does not
start with a well-defined tread. It follows an
old Jeep track through McMurray Meadows, an area actively used to
graze cattle. Over the years the cattle have
created their own trails that are as good or better than the USFS one, leading
the unwary hiker astray, ourselves included.
The actual trail follows very closely along the route shown on the 7.5' topo
map, but for some reason we chose to ignore that and followed one of the cow
trails along the north side of Birch Creek until it ran out of gas. Our large
party very quickly split up into various factions, each choosing a different
place to start 
climbing the hillside to the north in the search for
the fabled Birch Lake Trail. I climbed about 600ft above the creek to reach a
rounded ridgeline from where I spied 
Luca and Ephrat below to the
north along what appeared to be the trail. I 
joined them
where the trail went over the saddle
connecting to my ridgeline and together the three of us continued up for another
forty minutes until we lost the trail again around the 9,100-foot level, just
inside the Wilderness boundary. Cows had managed to find edible forage among
the dry scrub at this elevation thanks to a nearby spring, and consequently had
obliterated most evidence of a trail for several hundred yards. While we
got out our maps
and tried to make sense of the terrain, others caught up and
joined in the brief discussion. Bottom line - keep moving uphill.
We refound the trail above the spring and continued up in a
loosely knit group of six or seven. Birch Mtn,
Ed Lane and The Thumb were prominent during much of this climb enroute
to Birch Lake. Joining us were Michael Darter and Pat Baumann. Pat had
showed up unannounced at the trailhead in the morning, a free-wheeling spirit
who moves in his own unique fashion. He had joined us in 2006 for the climb of
Eichorn Minaret and had provided some excitement with his rock scrambling along
the East Ridge of Eichorn that amazed and scared me as I watched. Today he was
sporting a pair of rock shoes and a small bag with an empty platic jug for
water all tied 
around his back with a sling held together with a
carabiner, looking haphazard but probably quite functional. It
was the sort of thing I might expect from Pat. Michael was along to photograph
us for a Backpacker Magazine article that would never reach fruition, and he
paused along the trail just below the 10,000-foot mark where the trail goes
over a saddle and opens to an impressive view of the North Face of
Birch Mtn. While he got various participants to stop for
the photo op, I poached 
his scene before becoming his
subject in turn. Another mile further up the trail winds through some
thick willows growing below several more springs. It was hard to follow
the trail, but harder still to get through the stuff if one lost the trail.
It was just before 9a when I reached beautiful 
Birch Lake,
situated in a wide cirque
below Birch Mtn and Ed Lane Peak. At the lakes edge, just before a snowfield
on the east end of the lake, I found
Sean and Mark taking a short break,
waiting for a few more of us to show up. They had been the lead party making
a speedy ascent, but not so concerned with setting any records once they'd
reached the idyllic setting of the lake. The three of us started off together,
traversing around the 
south side
of the lake before putting on crampons for
the steeper snow rising up from the west end towards the crest. Sean pulled
away from Mark and I going up the 
snow-filled ramp,
soon out of sight and on
his way to The Thumb. An hour and fifteen minutes, plus almost 2,000ft of more
snow and crappier talus, Mark and I 
met Sean
once again, this time on his way
down from The Thumb. He was in cruising mode and looking to tag both Ed Lane
and Birch before heading back down.
Twenty minutes later, not long after 11a, Mark and I reached the summit of The
Thumb. Aside from the aluminum register container, we found
a four-pack of
beers wrapped in plastic and secured with orange tape that Laura had left for
us two weeks earlier. One of them was missing - Sean had taken it for a treat
later in the afternoon on another summit. The register dated only
to 2005, my first entry from 2006 appearing on 
page 3.
As an SPS peak it's fairly popular,
seeing more than a dozen parties in 2010 alone. I spent some time photographing
the register pages and taking in
the views as I sipped one of the beers, all
the while waiting for 
others to join Mark and I. Eventually there
were 
half a dozen folks
at the summit, including Adam, Ephrat, Luca, and Tom. After about half
an hour I was ready to head down, the only one of the group ready to do so at
that time, so I was on my own for a while.
I descended the SW Ridge to the 
Sierra Crest,
then followed that south along
the fractured granite blocks towards Ed Lane Peak. Near the saddle I spotted
Michael Darter
below on the east side, making his way towards me. I waited for
him to climb up, as he explained he wasn't planning on going to either summit
today, but wanted some photos of the participants on the Sierra Crest. So I
posed for a few pictures, the first of several of us that would pass by him on
the way to Ed Lane Peak. Past the saddle the scrambling along Ed Lane's NW
Ridge improves dramatically, becoming a spicy
class 3 affair the longer and
harder one tries to stay on the ridge. Easier ground is found on the west side
of the crest, but I savored the opportunity by staying on the crest nearly the
entire way, one of the better scrambles on this year's Challenge. Just below
the summit I traversed a bit onto the east side of the crest, then climbed
directly up to the summit from the north. I could hear voices as I neared the
highpoint, soon meeting up with 
Jeff and Ron
who had been there for some time,
having forgone the bonus climb of The Thumb. We chatted only briefly as they
were both ready to head down and I took a last photo of Ron near the summit
as he 
started off.
A standard SPS 
aluminum cylinder held a register left
in 1971 by 
Carl Heller and Dennis Burge of the China
Lake Mountain Rescue Group. The first entry was lamenting the loss of the
previous register, supposedly holding a Norman Clyde entry. Disappearing
registers are of course nothing new. There were other familiar names including
Dick Beach, 
Gordon MacLeod & Arkel Erb,
Jim and Louise Wholey, 
Greg Vernon, 
Don Palmer,
Bill Schuler, Bob Pickering, 
RJ Secor,
Jerry Tinling, 
Doug Mantle and Bob Rockwell.
Sean had been the first of the Sierra Challenge group to sign in, now
on his way to Birch Mtn via Ed Lane's South Ridge. Later he would report it as
tricky route-finding, but no more than class 3-4. I had looked at this route
on my way between Birch and Bolton Brown in 2006 and thought it more difficult
than that, so I left it unclimbed. If I'd taken more time and found the route
back then, I'd never have put Ed Lane on the Challenge list. But if turned
out to be a good thing, because all those that climbed the NW Ridge found it
very enjoyable and a worthy choice.
I was only a few minutes behind Jeff and Ron in starting down and soon
caught up with them, along with 
Tom Grundy
who was on his way to the summit.
We took an easier descent, using a steep chute on the west side
of the crest and traversing along below the ridgeline until easier ground was
found onto the crest itself.
Where the steep cliffs on the east side of the crest
finally gave way to the easier gradient of the large cirque on the SE side of
the Thumb, I found a way down to the snow and began my descent back to Birch
Lake. I was by myself again for about 45 minutes, eventually
coming across JD
on his way down from The Thumb. He had been climbing with his girlfriend Liz
who had stopped not far from Birch Lake to let JD go to the summit by himself.
JD thought it best to forgo the second peak as he was already past the time he'd
told Liz to expect him. I found 
Liz napping
on a large flat rock about ten
minutes later and told her
to soon expect JD to be showing up. She didn't look too
concerned about him being late, but she did appear well-rested.
It was 3p before I got back to the east end of 
Birch Lake.
Ephrat and Luca were looking to find away across 
the lake's outlet
when I passed them by on way back
towards the trail. Ducks and a good short-term memory helped me find my way to
the start of the trail which I dutifully followed without losing it all the way
back to the trailhead in an hour and a half. The same cow we had seen loafing
on the way in was still there in the same spot upon the return some 10 1/2 hours
later. That was one lazy cow. Sean had beaten me back to the trailhead by an
hour - and that included the ascent of Birch Mtn, too - most impressive!
Jersey Strategy:
Michael Graupe had gotten up in the morning only to find that his ankle injury
from the previous day had not gotten better, so he decided to quit the Challenge
and drive home. That left me without any competition at all provided I simply
made it the last two summits. With Ed Lane done, I had only to climb The Miter
on the last day.
Tom Grundy spent more than 15 hours climbing The Thumb, Ed Lane and Birch Mtn to maintain the lead for the Polka Dot jersey with 22 summits in 9 days. Bill Peters had played another strategy card, choosing to climb the easier Trapezoid along with Johnson and Gilbert to stay tied with Tom with 22 peaks. The winner would no doubt come down to which one could outlast the other out of Whitney Portal with more than a dozen possible peaks to climb.
Continued...