Continued...
Following my rest day from the Sierra Challenge, I was back again at Onion
Valley, very much looking forward to a return visit to the Kearsarge Pinnacles.
We had climbed a number of these 13 years earlier, but some of them had eluded
me, including the hardest of them all, Pinnacle #8 which was the focus of this
year's Challenge. My plan was to first climb #5 & #6, then head to join the
others for the roped climb of #8, then head to #11 & #12 to finish up the
collection. I had thought I would be on my own outside of #8, but underestimated
the interest others might have in these easier pinnacles. It turned out that
#5 & #6 were both quite challenging, #8 about what was expected, and #11 & #12
somewhat trivial and hard to pin down. This would easily be the longest day of
the Challenge for me, covering almost 12.5hrs, but it was also the most
rewarding.
at the Onion Valley TH was small at 6a, not even a dozen folks, but
that was because a number of them were still scrambling for parking spaces and
getting ready back in the overflowing lot. With the sun in
an orange/red sky over the Inyo Mtns to the east, we cruised up the Kearsarge
Pass Trail to in an hour and forty minutes. No record, but a
fairly good pace for the five mile distance. We here to
now visible ahead of us, identify target chutes and
plot a course across the Kearsarge Lakes Basin. There's no obvious place to
leave the trail once you start down of the pass. Somewhat
behind the others, I started cross-country without any pronouncement, wondering
how long it would take them to make a similar move. Not long, it turns out.
There were soon about half a dozen of us descending the slopes
, spread out at first, but soon converging as we
traversed the base of Snow Crown's West Ridge. We sitting
cross-legged on a granite boulder in the middle of this,
with a large smile on his face. He and Robert had started earlier than the rest
of us with intentions of traversing the entire set of pinnacles starting with
#1. Somewhere along the way his motivation waned and he took up his seated
position to wait for us. He joined us now as our smallish group headed to
gully between Pinnacles #5 & #6.
Pinnacle No. 5
was easy enough, but once at the crest, #5 suddenly was
looking much harder than I had expected. Secor states simply, "
This pinnacle
can be climbed from the notch between Pinnacle No. 5 and Pinnacle No. 6."
That gives the impression that it is a straightforward scramble, but not so.
found a way to do so, but it was far from easy and much harder
than class 3. I tried to follow him, but the move to get around a large block
was too risky for my blood and I backed down. Tom G would also go up this way,
but not so the rest of us. Looking around the west side of the notch, I
scrambled down a ramp about 100ft to find easier routes up
. The route had other difficulties
to overcome as well and clearly not as easy as from the west side. The two
routes then converge on what would be the crux of the route,
in the class 4-low 5 range. I watched Clement and
go up this feature before giving it . I
tend to like dihedrals and chimneys that I can cram hands and feet into because
they make me feel safer from the exposure. It was a tricky but fun bit of
scrambling to reach the top of it. From that point, it's about 40ft to the
summit with more hard scrambling by one of two routes leading to the top from
the south side. Even at , the final summit block is a thin
blade of granite that takes some muscling , another hard
move (though Clement makes it , I must say).
This one was far from easy and it was only our first stop - it was looking
like it might be a long day, indeed. Michael had the
dihedral and decided this one was too hard without a belay. Unfortunately,
others were carrying the ropes and were nowhere to be found. He would leave this
one unclimbed. There was a makeshift left by Jason "Coach"
Lakey, a very good Sierra climber with a known penchant for mixing weed and
difficult rock scrambling. He had made a traverse of the pinnacles north to
south two years earlier, leaving a collection of such registers. I started back
down shortly after Tom G had arrived, knowing we had lots to do before we were
done. and Scott would also make it to the summit of #5 though a
bit later as we passed each other on the way through the crux.
Pinnacle No. 6
Returning to the notch between #5 an #6, we gathered up gear that had been left
and started up to #6. Four or five others had arrived at the notch by this time,
more eager to ascend #6 after the report they were given on #5. A convenient,
large led up nicely to the west side of #6 at another notch.
From there, the going gets tough, class 4 by up. I
went around of the summit on a shelf leading from the
notch, thinking it might offer an easier way up. I spent about five minutes
exploring that option, but turned back when the difficulties were too great. I
could see atop the summit block only 30ft above me, but
I was forced to return to the notch and go up that way. By the time I returned
I was near the end of a long line of on their
way up from the west over rather
. The small summit was found at the end of a
staircase of these blocks, able to hold 2-3 comfortably, 5 if they are
. This summit, too, had from two
years earlier. I extracted myself from the conga line back to the west side
notch, reshouldered my pack and looked for a way to the next pinnacle north.
Pinnacle No. 7
Pinnacles #7 & #8 are close together, sharing a high saddle from which both can
be climbed. #6 is closer to #7 than it is to #5, but getting between them is
much harder. I went back to the shelf on the north side to look for a way down
from there, but again I came up short, nothing that looked like I could do
safely without a rope. I went back to the south side and descended most of
leading to #6 before finding on the
west side that could be descended. Once down 150-200ft, you have a choice of
descending further to a junction with another chute coming down from the #6/#7
notch (safer) or traverse north around an arete on a somewhat sketchy
to shortcut the route
. I did the latter which got me ahead
of everyone except Clement. Just in front, Clement went up to the #6/#7 notch to
find that was a dead end, then came back as we tried another chute to the north,
this one going to the #7/#8 notch as we'd hoped. He left the chute before
reaching the top to take to the summit, again, too rich
for my blood. I joined him a few minutes later up
route from the notch with #8 after dropping my pack there. Pinnacle #7 was much
easier than the previous two and pretty much everyone who had come to climb #8
would climb this first. In addition to the 3rd of the
day, it has a fine view of of #8 which we would need to
climb. Though imposing, there were several possible lines we could see, but a
rope was would be needed for sure (though Clement made
before retreating to the notch).
Pinnacle No. 8
In the words of Dick Beach, "#8 stops the traffic". Even the best scramblers
would have to pause here to consider it. In his understated words, Lakey
commented "#8 was tricky" and "tough little scramble" in the various registers
he'd left. We certainly had a number of highly qualified climbers to lead the
route - Robert, Tom and Zach. In the absence of the three, I think I would
have given it a try, but was happy to leave it to them. We ended up giving the
job to Zach because he was the only one who really seemed eager to do it.
Almost a full hour would go by from the time we first reached #7's summit until
we started the climb of #8. Some of this was taken up by Zach sorting and
loading a terrific amount of gear on his harness, much of it overkill, no doubt.
The bigger delay was due to for a real rope. We had an 8mm
short rope that could do the job in a pinch, but such a narrow rope is more
difficult to hold a fall and Zach prudently preferred to wait for the 9.5mm
that was being carried up by someone who hadn't yet reached the #7/#8 saddle.
Once the rope was procurred and Tom had him , Zach took only
about 10min the short pitch to a belay ledge
, about 30ft up from the saddle. He placed 3
pieces on pro for the effort. The concensus later put it somewhere around 5.6 to
5.7 in difficulty. We had Zach trailing the narrow rope to get a second rope up
top. I was the next climber up once Zach set up a belay, then took a position
adjacent to him with the second rope so that we could belay two folks up at a
time. With 14 climbers in total, this seemed a good way to save time. We used
for several rounds of ,
until AJ took a fall on the thin rope. The line went zipping through my belay
device for 3-4ft before I could arrest it. If I wasn't wearing leather gloves,
my brake hand would have been burned badly. With the additional stretch of the
rope, AJ fell a total of 5-6ft, stopping just as his feet were about to contact
the ground. He suffered some abrasions to his arms and legs, but otherwise
nothing serious. Those watching below decided the thin rope was unsafe and chose
to wait their turn on the thicker line. Sean had taken over belay duties to give
Zach a break and we eventually had 9-10 at the summit, taking turns signing into
the 4th of the day. Before the last several folks had
come up, we started rappeling down with a third rope set up for that purpose. We
used some webbing to rap off, but as no one in our party had a knife, Robert had
to resort to to severe the webbing before he
could fashion loops around a secure rock. went
, then myself, Tom and others coming soon behind, even as
belayed up. Great fun, this one.
Pinnacle No. 10
Once off rappel, I wasted little time in gathering up my gear and heading off.
I was the only one with plans to head to Pinnacles #11 & #12, so I didn't want
to wait around for the show on #8 to finish. I descended the gully to the
southwest from the saddle several hundred feet before working my way north
around Pinnacles #8 and #9. My route to the last two pinnacles necessitated
nearly in the process, so I decided to stop at its
summit since I was so close. Nothing tricky on this one, just your standard
class 3 with some minor brush. The on this one had some
additional entries, not too surprising since it is one of the two highest
pinnacles and more easily climbed.
Pinnacles No. 11 & 12
Heading from No. 10, the last two pinnacles were more of a
disappointment. As Lakey had pointed out in the #10 register, they aren't
obvious at all where the ridge begins to fall off as it drops to Bullfrog Lake.
I picked out at least four candidates, tagging them all in succession but
finding no further registers. I on what I considered to be
#11 before continuing on to what I might call and calling it a day.
It was almost 4p by this time, and while to descend
with more candidates enroute, I was pretty sure I had already secured what would
pass in Secor as #11 & #12. It took me about 30min to descend
of the ridge over blocky talus and gravel to the base
and return to . From there it would take me another two hours
to make my way back over to the TH. I caught up briefly
around with another half hour
remaining, but he took up jogging again and beat me back by a good ten
minutes (Sean R would take the stage win 25min ahead of Zach). It was 6:25p by
the time
to the parking lot, the longest day of the Challenge, for
me. Seven days down, three to go...
Matt's Video
Continued...