Sierra Trip Reports

Climbers: Jon & Nick

Dates: Saturday, May 11 – Sunday, May 12, 2013

Photos: Jon & Nick (as noted)

Synopsis: Similar to the winter of 2012, this Winter was a pretty low snow-year throughout the Sierra Nevada. Throughout the Winter, Jon and I had been tentatively planning a week-long ski-tour in the Eastern Sierra. As the months passed along, days grew longer and the weather warmed, we realized that once again the Winter would not provide optimal Spring ski-touring conditions.

On the other hand, the low-snow year lent itself to great, early season alpine climbing opportunities throughout the High Sierra. With that in mind, Jon and I headed with a loaded car down Highway 395 to the high peaks of the Eastern Sierra to try and take advantage of a good weather forecast and climb some classic, big routes.

One of the most fun parts of a week-long trip is the pre-trip gear sorting (and endless emails it entails). We were taking everything – rock gear, ice gear, skiing gear, car camping gear – you name it. We ultimately wanted to be flexible. Just some of the gear I was taking. Photo: Nick

We drove down to Deadman’s Summit by Mammoth to sleep at some altitude on that Friday night, with the goal of heading to Bishop Saturday morning to get permits based on availability.

Between Mammoth and Bishop on Saturday morning, the low snow year was pretty evident. Blood Couloir on Bloody Mountain looking pretty burnt out. Photo: Nick

Mt. Tom – ever looming, but with Elderberry Canyon completely dry. Photo: Nick

We did stop to take pictures with the big lens of the North Face of Mt. Humphreys – one of our potential objectives for later in the week. We had brought ice tools and alpine gear for a potential mixed climb up the face. Ultimately, it never came into fruition due to snow conditions later in the week. Photo: Nick

A panorama of the Buttermilks. Click the picture for the bigger version. Photo: Nick

We had initially planned to begin our trip by hiking in the North Fork of Big Pine Creek to climb at Temple Crag. However, upon arriving at the Bishop Ranger Station early Saturday morning, we had arrived just after a group picked up all 14 remaining permits! All those beta photos above cost us.

As we discussed options in our potential tick list, we were both still a little hesitant about altitude issues so decided to go climb one of our longest, but lowest, objectives – the Direct South Face of Lone Pine Peak.

The Direct South Face of Lone Pine Peak is a Grade V route – meaning, very, very long. Fortunately, it only tops out at around 11,000 feet (give or take), so we were not worried about altitude issues.

On the drive down to Lone Pine that morning, we were first greeted to great views of the Eastern Face of Mt. Whitney (14,505 ft.), the tallest peak in the Lower-48. Photo: Nick

We drove past and headed up towards the Southeastern flanks of Lone Pine Peak, which tops out at 12,944 ft. Photo: Nick

Arriving at the trailhead, we packed very light with the goal of hiking up to the base of the route and bivying for a very early start the next day. Jon and I excited to begin a week long climbing trip. Photo: Jon

The beginning of the approach goes up good trail to an old stone hut (which we would sleep outside of later that night – more on that later). Photo: Jon

On the back corner of the hut, we got our first glimpse of part of the Direct South Face of Lone Pine Peak. While the actual route cannot be seen (as it is around the corner), this gives a good sense of scale of the route (which Summit Post says is 16 pitches, but we definitely linked a bunch of pitches). Photo: Nick

The approach from the stone hut was pretty straight forward – you definitely need to stay high and left in the approach on the opposite side of the canyon. However, our plan of bivying near the base was dependent on one key point – water.

As we continued up Tuttle Creek drainage, we could not find any running water. The only water source was down by the stone hut, but we kept moving towards the base of the climb.

Finally, we realized there was no water up there, so we came up with Plan B. We climbed up the approach gully to the base of Pitch 1, and left all of our climbing gear in a little cave. That way, we could sleep down by water at the stone hut, and get up early with little to nothing to carry to the base of the climb except water.

For future reference, I would highly recommend this approach, as the descent puts you way down the road past the trailhead after the climb – and it would be rough to have to hike all the way back up to the end of the climb to get your bivy gear (unless you wanted to climb with it – but who wants to do that!). The hike up to the stone hut from the trailhead after the climb was not awesome, but definitely not bad as you are at least on trail.

Standing below the base of the climb. Because the wall is very ledgy and leaning, you are really only looking at about half the climb (with the upper-half out of sight beyond the upper most part visible in this picture). Photo: Nick

We hiked up the gully to the base of Pitch 1. There appears to be other awesome walls and spires in the area – not sure what the routes are though! Photo: Jon

Another shot of the first half of the route. Photo: Jon

Don’t slip and fall on one of these guys! Photo: Jon

So we hiked back down to the stone hut and cooked dinner there and just slept on the ground outside the hut (as it was a clear night with great stars). A shot of the Milky Way literally from my sleeping bag. The red light on the trees is from the red night-vision light on Jon’s headlamp. Photo: Nick

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn and moving – the approach went super fast given we had little gear and knew the way from the prior day. Photo: Jon

Jon starting off the climb in the somewhat dirty first pitch. Basically, the first 4-5 pitches of this climb are dirty, have loose rock (in particular if you are off-route) and involve a couple of super tight squeeze chimneys that are very run-out. Great way to start the trip…. Uh, what did we get ourselves into? Photo: Nick

I took the 5.7 squeeze chimney – it is extremely run out and was not fun to put it blunt. I hate chimney climbing, in particular squeeze chimneys with a pack hanging from my harness. I got pretty cut up and dirty, but after that pitch it was more or less smooth sailing and became incredible climbing for the remainder of the route.

I did try and avoid another chimney on the third pitch and went out on the face – the rock is very loose down there. I would recommend staying on route – and once you are beyond Pitch 4 you are all set as the rock is great for the remainder of the climb.

Looking back down after a couple of pitches. The climbing is starting to get good here, with no more chimneys and good looking rock! Photo: Nick

Jon took the next block of three pitches, which were awesome and worked up this corner and below these massive roofs towering above. You can’t even see half the route beyond the roofs! Photos: Nick

Nick following up below – I was loving it at this point. Photos: Jon

Hey Jon, where do we go? No clue man, no clue. Photo: Nick

Things were starting to get exposed high up on the route. Photo: Jon

At this point, there is a 500 foot traverse on third class terrain and you climb through a key-hole, followed by another traverse back right below the wall of the upper half of the route (that you cannot see from the bottom). It was crazy how big this wall is! Photo: Jon

Nick with the coiled rope to head over below the next pitch (we were on a huge ledge with a lot of walking). Photo: Jon

A cool series of 5.7 crack systems heading up. Photo: Jon

Nick leading up – although there were some route finding issues as there was supposed to be some bolts for a pendulum swing that I couldn’t find. We made due and traversed into a gully system heading up with fun climbing. Photo: Jon

Cool shot of Jon coming out of the gully below the final pitch to the top of the route. Photo: Nick

Lone Pine and the valley floor off in the distance. Photo: Jon

Mt. Langley off in the distance. Photo: Jon

The obligatory top of the route shots – plenty of sunlight left! Photos: Jon, Nick

I had not climbed in quite some time before this trip and didn’t tape my hands. I paid the price! For the rest of the trip I made some serious taped gloves, and even climbed easier parts of routes when following and tallus hoping on approaches with $5 leather work gloves from the Bishop hardware store. Photo: Jon

The descent is, well, long. However, as far as Eastern Sierra descents go, it is very easy. There is no tallus, which is great. What is even better is it is endless sand-hills which you can literally run and “ski” down more or less. Yes, your shoes get filled with dirt, but it is fun and very fast. Photo: Nick

And I mean endless scree and sand hills. Nick showing the slow-down technique. Photo: Nick

Unfortunately, at the bottom you are on the other-side of a deep gorge from your car and you have to walk down a road until a “trail” crossing the river is visible. A word to the wise – just walk down the dirt road for a mile or two until the road doglegs sharp left as if heading towards Bishop. That is where you turn for the trail. It is a long way past the car, unfortunately.

We left our gear by the road down there and split up – I sprinted ahead up to the old stone hut to get our overnight gear, and Jon got the gar to go get the climbing gear we just ditched. Worked perfectly and we were able to get down to Lone Pine for Mexican food before they closed! Photo: Jon

Part II to come.