Sierra Trip Reports

Climbers: Jon & Nick

Dates: Wednesday, May 15 – Thursday, May 16, 2013

Photos: Jon & Nick (as noted)

Synopsis: Upon returning to our camp at Third Lake after climbing Venusian Blind Arête, we settled in for yet another 4 AM wake-up to go climb Moon Goddess Arête the following day. That night the winds were picking up pretty strongly, clouds were increasing and the temperature dropped pretty significantly.

We woke up very early and got moving again for the early start, despite the frigid early morning temps. Jon moving quickly as the sun rises over Dark Star. Photo: Nick

We got to the frozen snow apron, once again electing to just take ice axes that we would throw down from the base of the climb. The steps we had kicked in the day before helped make the approach go very quick. Photo: Nick

Similar to the day before, we elected to lead in blocks of pitches, including simuling the first several pitches at the base. Fortunately, Jon gave me the first block today and I hurriedly headed up into the sun to warmth. Photo: Jon

The sun was starting to warm up the day a bit, although later in the day we would definitely have the belay jackets back on for portions of the climb. At least the first half of the day was completely blue bird without too much wind. Looking down at Jon below. Photo: Nick

Yet another awesome day, as Jon heads up to where we are going to start pitching out. Photo: Nick

Heading up into some interesting terrain. Photo: Jon

The climbing started getting awesome – really amazing pitches for the remainder of the climb to the top. Here, an awesome traversing pitch around a tower that is super exposed and fun face climbing. Photo: Jon

I really enjoyed that pitch – a shot of Jon following with the exposure. Awesome climbing! Photo: Nick

From here the climbing continued – sustained, well protected climbing on great crack features. Jon leading up. Photo: Nick

A cool shadow shot from Jon on the side of Sun Ribbon Arête. Photo: Jon

Higher up on the route, Jon getting ready to try and find the traverse and down-climb around the next tower. Admittedly, we got a little lost here for a while. The route description was a little ambiguous, although it did stress not to climb too high. Well, we did climb too high at first, but Jon down climbed and eventually found the way to go. Unfortunately, the wind was absolutely howling and I was freezing! Jon, smiling that he thinks he found the way. Photo: Nick

We went around the corner and down and found the traverse over below the next pitch up. At this point, I was warming up a bit out of the wind and wearing a belay jacket, but being out of the sun on a North facing portion of the route was a pretty dramatic change from the other sections. For one, the rock was pretty snowy and wet. Jon traversing over to the next belay ledge. Photo: Nick

I took the next pitch to try and warm up – it was a nice pitch straight up a gully-type system heading for his huge hanging book feature. I could see the sun at the top, but unfortunately my hands were really cold. I zippered up that pitch with gear as I was feeling so stiff from the cold! Photo: Jon

We got back out in the sun, which was awesome! Jon following below. Sweet stance! Photo: Nick

Sitting at the belay stance, riding the bull! Photo: Jon

There is a brief rap in towards the upper portions of the route, before heading up an absolutely awesome 5.8 hand crack system. Getting ready to rap down. Photo: Jon

Here I am, pumped on the climb. Remember when I trashed my hands on the first climb of the Direct South Face of Lone Pine Peak – well at that point they had scabbed a ton. Nothing like some solid tape gloves (with some finger tape) to remedy the situation. I still have them – will be good for crack climbing this summer! Photo: Jon

Nick following along – an amazing route. Photos: Jon

Jon at the top, pumped on the climb. Photo: Nick

Two days, two amazing routes on Temple Crag will put a smile on your face! Photo: Jon

Although, admittedly that was a humble smile. Unfortunately, it was evident some weather was moving in and we wanted to get down to camp. So we pushed down Contact Pass to pick up our axes. When we got there, it was evident the sun earlier in the day had warmed up the lower snow apron and dislodged some huge boulders, creating a wide trench on the snow.

So we look around for our axes for a bit – needless to say the odds were horrible for us and it was clear that the one tiny area of the snow apron this occurred is where our axes were!

Fortunately, we were able to find mine pretty quickly towards the edge of one of the snow runnels. We dug for Jon’s for quite a while. Photo: Jon

One other party had come down at that point from another route (they got off route on Venusian Blind so we are not even sure what they climbed) and also couldn’t find there stuff. Good guys and we were all joking around – they were the only other party we saw up in the area for during our three days up by Third Lake.

Just when we had abandoned all hope for Jon’s axe, he let out a loud howl and took off running – turns out, it wasn’t even in the trajectory of the slide! It was like 50 feet away and we had missed it.

Heading back to camp we were super happy, although worried about the weather putting a damper on the next day. Our primo camp spot by Third Lake. Photo: Jon

At camp we had dinner and discussed our plan. We were too tired that night to try and move camp up to the Palisades Glacier as original planned, so we definitely intended on sleeping there. For a while we discussed the idea of getting up very early (like 2 AM) for a single push to Starlight Buttress, but it became evident neither of us wanted to get up that early yet again. We were also worried about heading all the way up there the next day to only get shut down by the weather – as there had clearly been a shift and storms were moving in earlier in the day.

So we decided to sleep in and head out the next day with the potential goal of climbing Charlotte Dome over the next couple of days.

Fortunately, we woke up and the sky was completely grey and shocked in over the higher peaks – we had made the right call. We packed up and headed down to the car thinking about possibly getting permits and starting the 10 mile hike to Charlotte Dome that day.

On the hike out after three amazing days and one morning up by Temple Crag. Photo: Jon

We got down to the Bishop Ranger Station and checked the weather report. It was calling for snow that night and the next day about 10K. Jon and I both had pretty worked feet at this point from our approach shoes. We debated whether we wanted to make the 20 mile round trip approach to Charlotte Dome. We also were worried that Charlotte Dome was going to get snow at the top and potentially be wet from melting when we were trying to climb it.

So we brainstormed a bit, and decided we wanted to totally change it up and do something with a very alpine feel up in the snow in mountain boots. That way our feet would be fine, and snow on the rock would be no issue (and in fact welcome!). We decided that we would hike into the base of Bear Creek Spire the next day, and climb the Northeast Ridge of Bear Creek Spire the morning after.

So we got permits and headed off to the Green Church hot springs for a soak with a view of the White Mountains. Photo: Jon