Fri, Aug 14, 2020
|
![]() |
Etymology Middle Palisade |
Story | Photos / Slideshow | Map | GPX | Profile |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Middle Palisade previously climbed Fri, Aug 12, 2005 |
Day 8 would be the second hardest of this year's Sierra Challenge with 6,800ft of gain over the course of 13mi. Unofficially named Excitement Peak lies on the Sierra Crest in the Palisades region between Disappointment Peak and Middle Palisade. It has little prominence, first appearing in Secor's guidebook as a pinnacle to be bypassed on the Middle Pal to Disappointment traverse. Matthew and I had done just this in 2005 when we did the traverse from Balcony Peak to Disappointment to Middle Pal. Secor gives no actual description of climbing the minor summit and I could find no information online, either. Clearly folks had been to the summit as the locally-derived names suggests it was found to be a spicy undertaking. I didn't know if I would personally be able to reach the summit, but it seemed a worthwhile adventure and why it landed on the Challenge this year.
We had a modestly-sized group of about 7-8 for the 6a start
from the South Fork
trailhead. The trail up
the South Fork Big Pine Creek is a familiar one,
about five miles to Finger Lake if one uses the shortcut to bypass Brainerd
Lake. There are two places that seem to change over the years, the first being
where to cross the creek. Without a fixed bridge,
the crossing can be
treacherous in
high water, more tame late in the season. Today was closer to the latter and I
was able to get across on rickety branches without taking my boots off or, as
sometimes happens, falling in. The second change is where exactly to find the
Finger Lake shortcut. I was on my own for
this section, thankfully,
because despite having used it at least half a dozen times, I pretty much
botched it this time and ended up on terrain both brushier and rougher than it
needed to be. I reached
the outlet of Finger Lake by 8:15a, finding
Mason just on the other side. Others were not far ahead starting up the boulder
fields above the lake. Mason and I
followed a route closer to the lake
that offered no real advantage over the more direct line further to the west and
we got a bit behind the others. Mason was moving slowly today, having not yet
recovered from his 19hr+ outing the previous day, and decided to take a rest
while I pressed on. He wasn't feeling it today and would turn back without
making it past the glacier - similar to where I turned back on my first effort
during the first Sierra Challenge in 2001. I continued up on my own, reaching
the edge of the moraine shortly after 9a.
The moraine is the loose pile of rock left by the receding
Middle Palisade Glacier. Ahead I could see a couple of figures, Zee and Fred
making there way higher still up this loose collection of unpleasantness.
I followed their route across a couple of low-angle
snowfields
to reach
the medial moraine between the two halves of the
glacier in about half an hour. I would have been better off following the others
to the redish rock on the right, marking the standard route up the main chute.
Instead, I was curious about the state of Secor's route, a narrower chute just
to the left. I'd brought crampons and ice-axe for just this purpose with the
added bonus that I'd have the lower half of this route to myself with less
concern for rockfall from others above me. I wandered out onto the glacier at
its
upper edge and found nothing that looked like the class 2 ramp I
recalled when Matthew and I had used it 15yrs earlier. Thinking it was further
left than I could remember, I continued along the upper edge of the glacier
until I was almost directly under Middle Pal's summit and found nothing but
difficult terrain
wherever I looked. I backtracked nearly to where I'd began on the snow before
recognizing the ramp above me. Trouble was, the glacier has receded over the
past decade and a half, exposing some terribly loose and steep terrain below
the start of the ramp. I scrambled up this every so gingerly, but it very
unnerving for that first 15-20ft or so, more like class 3-4 than class 2. I
quickly found ducks above and
the right-leaning ramp that would take
me more easily up to Secor's chute, helping confirm I was on the right route
(later I would find I had
a similar photo
of the ramp from 15yrs earlier that showed it was the same ramp as well as some
changes where rocks have shifted and fallen out of position). It doesn't look
like this route sees much traffic anymore, and with the increased danger I
could see why. At the end of the ramp I followed more ducks around the corner
and into the steep
class 3 chute going straight up. The rock quality
here is pretty descent and makes for some fun scrambling. The chute merges with
the main chute after about 10min where I met up
with Zee once more. He
was moving more slowly now and I
pulled ahead of him as I continued up
the main chute for another half hour to reach the summit by 11:20a.
I found Sean K and Sean R already at the summit, Sean R getting ready
to start for Excitement. Grant and Clement had already headed off and were out
of sight. Sean K had reached his goal for the day and planned to rest up more
before starting back down. The 1936 aluminum
Sierra Club register was
still at Middle Pal's summit along with a number of booklets covering decades
of ascents. I quickly
signed into it so as to continue on to
Excitement, hoping to take advantage of the others' route-finding. The distance
to Excitement was only about 600ft, but it would take me 45min to traverse
between the two. The route starts off as a standard class 3 scramble
along the ridgeline, losing little elevation until
Excitement comes into view and the ridge drops off steeply. Grant was
already at
Excitement's summit and Clement was close behind, following
its steep and exposed class 3 NW Ridge, directly on the crest. The route looked
reasonable to my eye despite the exposure, until a large block is encountered
about 30-40ft below the summit. I watched Clement make an exposed move along
a thin ledge at the base of this to reach a body-sized crack, then back off
and call up to Grant for some direction. Grant told him he used the crack and
then Clement carefully made the same moves, wedging himself in the crack before
pulling up onto rocks above. It seemed an awfully dicey proposition to me.
Not liking the looks of it, Fred had gone around to the left to look for
another way up. Closer to me, Sean R had just finished reaching the chute on
the north side of the notch between the two summits, and I didn't have a chance
to see how he got there. I called over to him for some help to which he
indicated he'd gone down the northeast side before
traversing across.
With a few missteps, I finally managed to follow a similar class 3-4 path,
meeting up below the notch
with Fred already on his way back. He was a
bit excited, eager to get off such treacherous terrain and probably wouldn't be
able to relax until he was back at Middle Pal. I was feeling similarly, but
internalizing it more and cautiously making my way across. Fred had said that
his route was probably easier and encouraged me to use it. After we parted, I
moved around to
the Northeast Face and was happier with what I saw
there - steep, but looking less exposed and with more than one option. As I was
moving up this face, Grant and Clement came down
to my left, eager to
get on with the traverse to Disappointment. They were calmly having a discussion
about possible route lines as they
disappeared below me. I found the
left side of face had easier scrambling, no more than class 3 with good holds
and decent rock. When I popped out on the summit just before 12:15p, Sean R was
already there, having utilized Grant's ascent route. Finding no
register, we left one of
our own to which we added the names of our
companions who'd already left. The summit was a wild little perch that could
hold a few folks comfortably with a wide-ranging view to the
north and
south. We
exchanged waves with Sean K at
Middle Pal's summit to the west.
Almost as eager as Fred to get off this difficult terrain, we spent
only a few minutes before carefully retracing my route off the NE Face. My
route on the traverse back towards Middle Pal must have been a
variation of the outbound route, because I came across
a rap station
that I hadn't seen earlier.
The return went quicker, only about 30min
to reach Middle Pal's summit. Zee had reached the summit and was
just starting down not far below us. Sean K had left the summit
earlier and was somewhere ahead of Zee. I was very careful to avoid knocking
anything down with others below me, and for the most part kept to the east side
of the chute to minimize having them in the direct line of fire. Near the bottom
of
the main chute, I came across
David Park on his way up.
He was probably about 45min from the summit at the pace he was moving, but
seemed in good spirits and didn't seem to mind that he'd be the last one off the
summit today. I used
the red rock route for the descent, loose and
crappy for the lower part, but not really dangerous. I nearly caught up with
Fred as I reached
the top of the medial moraine, but he decided on a
more direct descent down
the glacier while I took the more roundabout
way along the top of the moraine. I would catch up with him again past the
glacier when he pause to
empty snow and debris from his shoes.
Further
down the route, the two of us came
upon Sean K above
Finger Lake. I struck up a short conversation with the 16yr-old, knowing he
had been eager and nervous to climb the peak which would be his hardest ascent
to date. I asked him if he thought it was easier or harder than he expected.
He replied enthusiastically, "Oh! Twenty million times easier!" He would be one
to watch out for in future Challenges. We descended to Finger Lake where
Sean K paused while Fred and I continued down. It would take us most
of the next two hours to make our way back down (yet another version of)
the shortcut to the Brainerd Lake Trail and then back down
the South Fork drainage to
the TH.
We were the first to arrive at the parking lot with Sean R only a few minutes behind us. I headed off to Independence where I had reserved a room at Ray's Den for the next few nights. I was relieved to be done with the hardest of this year's peaks, knowing the next two days should be considerably easier.
The only change in jersey status today was Zee reaching his 5th Challenge Peak to tie him with Emma for the lead in the White Jersey (under 25yrs). She had left after the fifth day, expecting to be done, but had decided to come back for the last two days, keeping Zee on his toes.
Continued...
For more information see these SummitPost pages: Middle Palisade
This page last updated: Mon Sep 21 18:30:07 2020
For corrections or comments, please send feedback to: snwbord@hotmail.com