dervin

You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. you know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”
~Winston Churchill

What is it about mountains that is so alluring? I like the lack of civilization. There are more basic challenges like keeping your food from the bears, or pulling water from a frozen lake. All the trivial things we deal with on a daily basis just fade away. More than that it fulfills dreams I think we all have. Whether it be becoming an astronaut, or an engineer, for me climbing mountains just makes me feel like I have done something great, and could do greater things than that. Oh, and then there is the fear thing. Have you ever sat up on a ledge with nothing but air below your feet, causing this irrational dread that your going to be smashed falling to a gruesome death. Climbing mountains is a way to face my fears such as that.

Most of all climbing mountain is a way to realize my faith. When you get on a mountain it dawns on you how really small we are in the sweep of things. How great must God be to make such majestic mountains and let me play in them.

Earlier in the fall my Brother phoned and told me he was coming out to the states for a business trip in November. Immediately we both agreed we had to climb a mountain. Shortly thereafter, we narrowed the mountain down to North Palisade, arguably the most desirable mountain in the Sierra Nevada range. the rest of the team coalesced and we started planning for the climb.

We planned on doing the U-Notch coulior as an doable snow/rock climb to the summit. Unfortunately the coulior is covered in ice this time of year, and none of us has had any experience climbing ice. As a alternative we planned on climbing Starlight buttress, summating Starlight, and North Palisade.

My brother flew in Thursday evening straight from London. We drove down to Big Pine that night. The next morning we got our packs together at the campground, and weighed them. 60+ pounds! My shoulders and waist were uncomfortable after only a short hike with the pack I had, and that amount of weight. So we shouldered our packs and made our way to Second Lake (5/6 miles). After eating lunch, and snapping a few photos of the impressive Temple Crag we continued on the trail. I think at this point excessively heavy packs started to wear on us. After Third Lake the trail forks, and we took the turn toward Sam Mack Meadow. By the time we got to Sam Mack we had a good idea of how short the days are high in the mountains during November. As the hike in had exhausted everyone we decided to camp at the meadows, saving the talus fields below the glacier for the next day. We waited to long to fill our water in the stream that evening. A freezing wind had come up, and worst of all the water filter sprayed water all over the our hands freezing them the bone.

The next morning we got going around dawn. The hike started well as we went along the ridge above Sam Mack. Where we lost the trail in the snow I made the decision to follows the cairns that lead to Mount Sill (where some of us had been earlier in the year). This trail consist of a lot of boulder hoping as there was not enough snow here, and put us far to the left above the glacier. I can tell you from experience that boulder hoping with a 60 pound pack is not fun. Regardless, we worked our way back down to the glacier before noon. After clear snow from the rock shrouded campsites we pitched our tents. Jeremy, and Brian were feeling the elevation, so after lunch Dustin, and I went to reconnoiter a route to the base of Starlight buttress.

From our vantage at the camp site we were not sure if the direct route right of the moraine lake would be feasible. Going left around the lake would take much longer and involve crossing a steep talus slope. After determining that the lake was solidly frozen Dustin, and I scrambled across to an a short ice flow that lead to the glacier. This being the perfect opportunity to try out all that heavy ice gear we had lugged up, we threw on our crampons. Using an ice axe and old school ice hammer we pulled to the top of the flow. I was surprised at how much effort this took at 12,000+ feet.

On the glacier we were in for a surprise. The snow we thought we were going to walk across the top of turned out to be fairly fresh with only a weak crust on top. Most of the hike up was going to be post-holing. Some of the snow had blown thin leaving ice ridges. These were much easy to hike on, so we sought them out. The ridges did not seem to go on very continuously, and left us wallowing between ridges. Three quarters of the way to the ridge I was out front breaking trail, and my left foot broke through the snow into nothing. At first I didn’t realize what had happened. Laying in the snow with one leg buried to the hip, I role over and look down into a chasm. I had walked into a small crevasse. Fortunately it was no more than 18” wide. At this point Dustin, and i were thinking maybe we should have brought a rope up from camp with us. The crevasse of unlikely doom quelled our reconnoitering spirit, so after a couple hundred more yards we took some pictures headed back down to camp.

That night was cold, and over way to early.

Summit day. Our alarms went of at 4AM. It was very cold. For this day I remember much moaning, and oaths that people would never go on a trip with me again. Can’t say I blame them to much.

The whole slog up the glacier I never warmed up, or felt like I had much energy. The previous day I had been running over the boulders, but today I just couldn’t get going.

Half way up the glacier Jeremy showed us how to tie our ropes for glacier travel, in case we ran into another crevasse. When the sun was supposed to rise we found clouds. Pausing on the glacier below the Palisade crest with no sun coming, and the air still bitterly cold we decided to abort. As an ill conceived back up we headed towards Mount Agisse. Post-holing all the way. We crossed over the snow fields below Thunderbolt. When the Agisse Col came into sight we stopped for a break. Brian, and Dustin decided to head back to camp at this point, and get out of the mountains as soon as they could. At this point Jeremy headed of for what we thought was the Agisse Col. We made it to the col and to an elevation of about 13000 feet. Feeling defeated, and not desiring another cold night in the mountains we too turned around heading down and out.

We made a few mistakes on this trip. The scope was probably to large. The approach was to long, we had to little of some gear, and to much of other. We should have brought photo copies of the guide, so we could have done an alternate mountain. Apparently you need to hide gear better. Plan the right trip for the season. And many other things… Most of all I want to go back, and make the summit. To another day when I am older, and wiser.

I have been out three times now. I find the move from snowboarding to tele skis, to be not bad. As a rule I do better if I don’t have alcohol while skiing, though. After a few more times out I should be ready for the backcountry.