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“Failure comes not from falling down, failure comes from not getting back up again” – Somebody

Middle Palisade. 14,012′. The East Face. Class 3. Rated *** –  for Awesome. Peter Croft (“The Good, the Great and the Awesome”) says “This route and the East Ridge of Russell are the best class 3 routes I’ve done in the Sierra.” We don’t have enough experience to agree or disagree with Peter, but we can say – the admission price for this climb is high!

Three years ago, Carol and I tried Middle Palisade, and experienced a perfect storm of poor route finding, insufficient conditioning and – more poor route finding (all on me). We did manage to get on the mountain, but it was late, we were pretty tired and we got on the wrong route; a class 4 chute with loose rock. Discretion being the better part of valor, we decided to turn around and live to climb another day.

This time, with almost 2 weeks of acclimatization and some success on Cloudripper under our belts, we decided to try again.

We headed out on the South Fork of Big Pine Creek trail, retracing our steps all the way to what I call “Dinky Lake” – it’s NOT Brainerd – then continuing on up to Brainerd Lake. A nice trail from ~7800′ up to 10260′. There is a use trail from Brainerd Lake up to Finger Lake that climbs 500′ of talus – fun with the ‘ol backpack on.

We found a campsite and turned in early (7 p.m.-ish). Our plan was to get up about 4:30 a.m. – we’ve learned that it’s rarely too soon to start climbing. Off by headlamp about 5:20 a.m., we crossed the Finger Lake outlet and headed up – more talus.

I’ll interject here that the nice climbing on Middle Palisade is about the last 800-1000′; before that you’ll climb mostly talus (with a few snow fields and some heinous scree thrown in) from 10,260’ at Brainerd Lake to ~13,000 feet on Middle Pal. Have Fun!

We made pretty good time (going uphill while fresh) and were on the mountain in climbing shoes and helmets, ready to climb, by 9 a.m. First ones on the mountain. We started climbing and found it was really pretty easy going. Guidebooks and internet trip reports had called it “sustained” third class; we still wonder what this means. About every 10-15 feet was a ledge where I could stand with my hands in my pockets – this doesn’t seem “sustained” to me.

A word about rock shoes – we brought ours and it made the climb more fun, I think. One thousand feet up and the same down, the extra security of rock shoes was well worth the extra weight, IMO.

Up through the initial couloir, then there’s a LH chute vs RH chute decision to make – I chose the RH chute as the rock looked cleaner. We fairly quickly found ourselves on steeper ground, but the rock was good and the climbing was easy. You just DO NOT want to fall, because pretty much any injury at all will become serious here 6-7 miles and 5,000 feet above the trail head.

Topping out, I climbed up onto what I hoped was the summit blocks and – oh, frack – the summit is actually over there, a couple hundred feet away. Some pretty spicy down climbing off the other side and a traverse, then up toward the actual summit. A couple fun bouldering moves to haul up onto the summit blocks and we’re there; it’s about 11 a.m. First climbers of the day to reach the top. Just awesome views.

To the north, the North Palisade complex is in view – Mt Sill, Polemonium, North Palisade, etc. To the south, Split Mountain seems just a traverse away, and it was easy to pick out the profiles of Mount Tyndall and Mount Williamson. Glaciers, peaks, basins for forever. Amazing.

We goofed around, taking pictures and videos, eating and drinking, signing the peak register, watching other climbers approach us for a good 30 minutes or more. A perfect day, no wind, forever views – doesn’t get any better.

With only half the climb done (there’s the whole getting-down-safe thing, too), we sadly departed the

peak and started the long, long way back to camp. We went down via what would have been the LH chute going up, and found we were right – the rock was cleaner in the RH chute. Down climbing 1000′ of third class rock with scree on every ledge waiting to ball bearing your foot off the ledge – requires lots of attention and careful movement.

About 1 p.m. we were off the mountain, onto the glacier and starting the long trip back. The glacier was fun, then the talus and scree started again. Going downhill on unconsolidated talus with relatively tired legs – our progress could have been tracked with a sundial. But, whatever, I much prefer to go slowly and carefully and finish the day uninjured.

After what seemed like forever (4 hours back to camp), we arrived in camp around 5 p.m. 11 1/2 hour day, but we took it easy on the way up to save energy for peaking, and took it easy on the way down just because. As much as I am not a big fan of simple carbohydrates, the GU’s and Skittles a couple miles from camp helped bring me home.

Back at camp, we dug into the bear canister (Carol calls it “that heavy MoFo”) and ate the heaviest things we could find – so we (I) didn’t have to carry it out. Food, water, a little stretching and we crawled onto the tent around 6:30 p.m. I slept for almost 12  hours.

Up at the COD, we broke camp and headed out. Somewhere around noon, we dropped packs and I went and fetched the truck. Shortly thereafter, beer, cheese, meatloaf, chips went down and then a quick trail head nap.

We packed up, headed into Big Pine and stopped at Carroll’s Market for our ice cream treat we had been discussing for, oh, about 3 days. It was 100 degrees in Big Pine and when the clerk asked us if we “were ready for it to get hot” we were kind of confused – apparently, it got hotter later that day – we got outta town.

Stopped at Von’s in Bishop to buy yummy things to eat, then off to the Mono Basin (20 degrees cooler) for an awesome evening.

A great trip, a great Fourteener.

Click here for Middle Palisade Pictures (best viewed as a slideshow).

Namaste, Rick

Some Beta for You:

• Middle Palisade on SummitPost.
• Be careful reading online Middle Pal trip reports. Some writers, I think, over-dramatize the climb (clearly, I have never / would never do that!). The climb on the mountain was really pretty straightforward (ideal conditions); we just were careful not to fall.
• We got some beta that you could not approach the start of the third class climb over the glacier without crampons / ice axe. This is not true when the snow is soft, like it was for us. The glacier was one of the easier parts of the climb.
• You’ll read about the terrible bergschrund – we had no trouble. I stepped right across; I gave Carol a hand both ways just because her reach is smaller.
• IMO, the hardest part of the climb is the approach and exit. Climbing on the mountain (apart from being above 13,000′) was a cruise.