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Fired up by our recent successful Mount Willamson trip, Carol and I headed back to the Eastern Sierras with the goal of summiting another 14’er as part of our goal of climbing all of California’s 14’ers. On our primary hit list for this trip are Mount Muir, Mount Russell and Middle Palisade.

After arranging with neighbor Rick S. to serve Her Highness while we were away (Thanks, Rick!) and spending a few days packing the truck and making food, we were off.

Mount Muir and Mount Russell are at the far southern end of the Sierra Crest, so we took off to go around the south end of the Sierras via Bakersfield / Lake Isabella / Lone Pine. Along the way, we stopped at the Indian Wells Brewing Company and picked up a sampler of their microbrews. I already knew I was a fan of their Mojave Red and wanted to branch out and see what else I liked.  The Orange Blossom Amber and Lobotomy Bock are new favorites.

Arriving in Lone Pine, we quickly discerned that the annual Badwater Ultramarathon was in progress, as we were seeing sag vehicles and then sighted runners with tags. We drove up the Whitney Portal road looking for a place to camp and saw more runners. Some were in exactly the condition you’d expect after running 120 miles thru the desert and then turning up the Whitney Portal road. The next morning we drove up to the Whitney Portal and hung around to see an actual finisher. After 135 miles, the field was kind of strung out. We got a few pictures. My cousin wants to run the Badwater someday.

I didn’t yet mention – it was HOT. It didn’t take long for us to convince ourselves to head up high where it was cool and spend some more time acclimating to altitude. A favorite is to head up into the White Mountains with the ancient bristlecone pines and White Mountain itself. The Owens Valley floor is at about 4,000 feet and the White Mountain road starts at roughly 8,000 feet. Naturally, we were doing this in the hottest part of the day, subjecting the truck to its first major abuse of the trip.

Bouncing along the White Mountain road, it occurred to me that with the pressure changes and all the shock, something might have gone awry in the cooler. We stopped to check it out, and sure enough we had broken eggs and milk spewed all over inside the cooler. Tragically, two of my beers had also burst. After some rearranging and a moment of silence for the departed beers, we drove on out to the locked gate and took a Marmot Hike up past the Barcroft Research Station. It’s a dry year, and it was cold and windy (Neil, you were so charmed), so the marmot sightings came farther between than I had promised Carol. For entertainment, we counted the marmots en Español and saw cuarenta dos ratas gigantes.

We then found a beautiful spot to spend the night (at about 10,000 feet), overlooking the Owens Valley and the Sierra Crest.

The next day we went and scouted out the South Fork of Big Pine trail and then drove to Bishop. HOT. We decide we needed more acclimatization, so we drove up to Bishop Pass and hung out at Lake Sabrina. Amazing thing in the Owens Valley, you can be 100 degrees and dying of heat, then drive 20 miles and be shivering in the clouds and rain.

The next day we went back to Mammoth Lakes and got on the bus to go out to the Devil’s Postpile. Disneyland would be envious of the Mammoth Mountain area – it seemed like half of all Californians were there – what a zoo. Nice hike to the Postpile, then we decided to hike on to Rainbow Falls. The Falls – nice. The hike to the Falls – not so much – most the the trail was through a recent forest fire area, and it was hot, dusty and desolate. We were cheered, however, at the Reds Meadow store where we got fruit pops.

After spending the night at Mono Lake, we got up and decided to climb Mount Dana – 3,000 feet of climbing to over 13,000 feet; seemed like an acclimatization dream. Great hike, Carol and I both did great and afterward decided we were ready for a Fourteener – and Middle Palisade was the closest one that a) I hadn’t already climbed and b) didn’t “require” any technical equipment. Little did we know…

A few pictures from the pre-Middle Palisade portion of the trip…

Next day, after getting a permit, we hustled back to Big Pine, packed food, etc. and were on the trail at about 2 P.M., which sounds stupid, but the trailhead is high (~7,600 feet) and it was overcast.

We leave the “Hiker Parking” area on what turns out to be the North Fork trail and by the time this becomes obvious, we’ve got a ways to go to get back on the South Fork trail. Oh well. Up, up, up; we’re targeting to set base camp at Finger Lake. Over the pass, not very far past Willow Lake it’s time to leave the trail and head for Finger Lake. This turns out to be not a simple task – cross country hiking with packs making class 3 climbing moves to get up on the glacial ledges and keep moving up. Eventually, we’re out of gas and low on water; we head over where we hear water running and set up base camp at about 10,400 feet. Yikes – this means tomorrow we have 3,600 feet (at least) of climbing (and then 3,600 feet of descending) to do – we go to bed immediately, a little demoralized, but we set the alarm for 5 a.m. and hope for the best.

We (I) oversleep a little, but we’re climbing by 6:10 a.m. We’ve camped near the creek that is the outlet from Finger Lake, so up we go along the outlet. Right away, we’re in talus and making climbing moves to make progress. Top out at Finger Lake; pretty in the morning. Climbing – oops, I was supposed to tank up on water at Finger Lake, back down about 150 feet (none of this sounds like much but it all adds up) and then we’re off.

Up talus slopes, up over ledges, it’s a grind. We finally get to the Norman Clyde glacier and start traversing across the recessional moraine toward Middle Palisade glacier. This is where we learn about “new” recessional moraines – the talus has not had time to fill and consolidate, and every single boulder (it seems) wants to move, so it becomes the worst kind of concentration and physical effort to keep moving without tumbling talus and either falling or getting pinned under rocks. Meanwhile, for entertainment, the glacier is spitting rocks downslope randomly, and since the snow / glacier is melting hard, there’s lots of water noise to keep one from hearing them coming. Fortunately, none came within a hundred yards of us, but it added a little stressor for sure.

Grind, grind, grind and we’re at the Middle Palisade glacier. We seem to be in good shape timewise; it’s about 10:30 a.m. and we have self-imposed a hard turnaround time of 3 p.m.; it seems we should be up and down by then. Up the glacier to the “3rd Class” route.

First of all, there’s a climbing move to make while straddling the bergschrund and guess what – the cordelette we (by we, I mean Carol) had carried in with us was back at base camp. OK, don’t fall on the first move and get into the bergschrund – and that move is made with wet feet ’cause you’re standing in snow. I get on the route, climb up and at about 20 feet off the deck there’s a move to make that would be no problem on rope, but un-roped it’s pretty exciting. Carol gets off the glacier and onto the route and we’re moving up. At about 60-80 feet in the air, it’s becoming obvious that we’re in the “Zero Mistake” zone – meaning that there can be no mistakes whatever or someone is going to die. The guidebook rates the route as Class 3, which at sea level, fully rested and fed, with EMT’s available within an hour or two, it might be. Here, at 13,000 plus feet with a day of hiking to get out, it’s Class 5 – if there’s a fall, it’s going to be deadly. Even if whoever falls lives thru the fall, they’re going to be stuck at altitude at least for the night, possibly on the glacier, and we’re not prepared for that. The rock is broken and crappy; I’m testing every handhold and sometimes using handholds that are not firmly attached to the mountain…

All this is running through my mind. I stop climbing; Carol comes up and we discuss – we’ve done SO MUCH WORK to get to this point, but clearly we’re exposing ourselves to disaster if we continue. As much as we want to peak, we want to live more and no freakin’ mountain peak is worth dying over. We decide to retreat and come back more prepared…

OK, the first thing is to downclimb what we’ve climbed – unfortunately, we don’t have eyes near our feet so down climbing is much more difficult than climbing up. After about 20 minutes of pucker time (with an occasional rock flying down the chimney; note to self: helmets are in order), we’re both down on the glacier again and it’s time to head back.

It’s slow going – I haven’t mentioned yet that my old friend altitude sickness is with me – despite the week of acclimatization – and I haven’t eaten since breakfast and can’t eat or drink. Going across the recessional moraine, I lose concentration, the talus shifts, and I have a new bruise on my lower back – could have been worse.

Many hours of talus scrambling later, we’re back at base camp, and I’ve got nothing left – Carol is not in a lot better shape as she hasn’t been eating a lot either. We’re in bed by 6 pm.

After a long, long night (I did get to read “Dandelion Wine” by Ray Bradbury, which Carol had carried in and let me read – I read the whole thing before actually falling asleep), up at 6:30 ( I guess I slept in). I have my last protein drink; it’s the last thing that will stay down until we hit the trailhead. Off we go, we’re down at the trailhead by 11 am and I’m starting to work on my calorie and fluid deficit.

We ate and drank all day; spent another night at Mono Lake, and today we’re home safe.

We did get some great pictures.

Carol’s camera went Tango Unicorn and we didn’t discover this until we were far from home so all the pictures are from one camera. This means whomever didn’t have the camera got their picture taken a lot.

Random Stuff:

• After almost a full week of acclimatization, I still got the nausea problem. I’ll have to rethink (re-re-re-rethink) the food problem – whatever it is, there can’t be any chewing involved. This time, I had nothing but nuts, seeds, berries and protein shakes (after the sandwiches and burrito were gone during the hike in) – and in the event, I couldn’t eat anything but the protein shakes.

• Mountain water looks great but can taste horrible – I quit taking Gatorade ’cause it’s too sweet – I’ll have to find something else to cover the taste of the water.

• Thanks to Nadine and her introduction to me of the 800 mg dose of Vitamin I, knee pain was not a problem.

• Carol’s new lightweight sleeping pad (lightweight but the same thickness as my heavy pad) worked great for her – is there a shopping expedition in my future?

• Food, food, food – maybe I’ll try some flaxseed, wheat germ, etc. in the protein shake – and take lots of shakes.

• I’m puzzling over how to protect the down climbs if we bring rope – short of abseiling, it’s not clear to me how to protect everyone.

• We saw a Pine Marten in the talus above Finger Lake – I assume this is a direct result of me telling Carol (after the Devil’s Postpile bus driver told everyone on the bus to look for Pine Martens) that “You’d have to build a blind and lure one in with food and wait a week to actually see one…”

• We saw our first Pinion Jays – a big flock of 70-100 as we were coming out to the Big Pine Creek trailhead. They are so cool.

• I was moving rocks in the desert when I found the scorpion. I didn’t get it at first as I had my glasses on and was close to the rock – I moved it a couple times and thought something was blowing in the wind and when I took my glasses off to see up close, there it was.

• We saw two different sets of grouse with their chicks.

• I have two days to get ready for another trip with longtime friend Don and his son…