Climbers:
Tim Berger,
Another hiker and
Ingrid
There it goes, my 14er obsession kicking again. Tim Berger invited me to join this untried route to Mt. Sill 14,162 ft. Our information was only based from Google search websites from Bob Burd and Scaruffi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UumAPUdKeus). Every strong climber knows who they are.
So Friday afternoon, we set off and headed to Eastern Sierra. I brought myself a 30m rope, harness, belay device and crampons just in case we needed the gear. Each time I drive along Hwy 395, its always been a long, long drive. We stopped for dinner and re-arranged our backpack in the same place before the final drive to Big Pine’s Glacier Lodge Rd trailhead. Though I’ve been in this trailhead before, I always arrived in the dark and this 14er trip is no different.
We looked around where Tim parked and the hiking buddy noticed the sign “No parking at night”. So we parked next to Tim’s Audi. It was full moon, darkness is not a problem at all except when you are passing thick covered trees.
A day before this trip, I requested my hiking buddy to come along with me. He was too generous to say “yes” when his initial plan for the weekend was to run the Evolution Loop starting the North Lake. Our target destination is to meet Tim at his basecamp site just above Elinor Lake. I made Tim marked his intended camp site on the map of our intended route in this trip [Elinor/Apex route http://hwstock.org/sill12/index.htm].
Hike-in to Willow Lake
The full moon made our trek less harder considering we are hiking in the night to Willow Lake. When we got to the lake though, the cross country route finding made it hard to spot our cairns. So my hiking buddy and I decided to call it a night and start the approach again early morning.
Approach to Tim’s Base Camp
It was funny finding where we camped, we made camp in the actual trail itself. The used trail/water crossing was just off by less than 30 feet. That’s so bizarre.
Hiking buddy wanted to hike without carrying the tents and remaining gear. My preference was to carry everything due to my experience of difficulty finding the exact location of the tent, even if we have the help of waypoints mark in our GPS. A bad weather may come or unforeseen injury – that carrying all gear makes traversing worry free. In the end, hiking buddy got his way, so we left our gear.
Traversing this direct approach to Mt. Sill is no fun. After Willow Lake, it was bushwhacking. Funny how unfit we thought we were, two guys in their shorts and running shoes hiking up, fast past us.
After the painful bushwhacking, the bouldering work appears in the distance. I love talus hopping but not this one. It was a lot of work and not much elevation gain. The good thing is route finding is not an issue, there are too many cairns in this route. I probably complained to my buddy too much, but I cant blame myself, when Im hungry I get irritable and jittery.
I was glad to finish the bouldering part one. The next thing I knew my buddy took steps to another bushwhacked/scree – not my type of terrain. Then my buddy goes on the rockhopping the wrong kind of talus. You can tell a runner who does not have much experience climbing faster. And then we got on to steep slabs and higher ledges – not fun but Im sort of more experienced climbing such route. My buddy was sort of afraid traversing on granite slabs because of his hiking boots. My experience taught me that Scarpa shoes are great for such slab/ledge approach.
I heard my buddy said ‘we are now above 11000 ft. I thought, in 3 hours of traversing, we only gained about just over 1000’. I was not a happy camper. I start to think that we would not summit that day. Almost to 12000’ my buddy and I started to argue. I relied on my gps along with the loaded gpx file. Whenever I said veered right (according to my GPS), my buddy veered left. There’s only one route, Mt. Sill is just up there. The question is, how do you navigate away from the vertical north face ?
Bouldering Part II to Tim’s Base Camp
As my buddy and I continued to argue and my disappointment clearly showed, we heard voices. It must be the two guys we saw just as we started approaching. The voices though disappeared.
When Im frustrated and not getting my opinion across, I get sometimes, not only irritable but can be unwilling to talk. The Palisade is a range of big mountains. It host the five 14ers in California, getting lost is very possible which a note to self by every climber.
Tim’s Campsite (Unnamed Lake)
It might be that our voices were heard by Tim, but I was glad that Tim found us. Suddenly my hope of making it to summit was renewed. Tim first took us to his base-camp site. It was wowser, I mean camping next to a prestine lake was awesome, is an understatement. I could have camp in this unnamed lake if I started the hike the same day as Tim. For me though Mt. Gayle is a 13er so its not a priority for me if I have to be at work.
Climbing Mt. Sill Summit
It was about past noon when we started climbing. I can always tell the difference between the acclimated climber versus the climber that just arrive – the acclimated one has no problem breathing. The good thing was, it was easier to climb than traversing the approach to the base.
Soon we reached the APEX Col., and Tim guided us very well on the “Catwalk”. There are so many scary section on this climb. Its not as bad as climbing Mt. Russell though, at least, the exposure part is lesser in terms of distance.
Just before reaching the summit, we encountered elite rock climbers. They had attempted the Swiss Arete 5.7 route. I was just star struck like I just met a Hollywood star. Of course they are not that famous as the actors but to do the vertical 5.7 route, you ought to have a lot of upper body strength on top of the wilderness/route finding needed to make it to summit.
Little did I know she’s actually in my facebook friend Lori Williams. She mentioned that she got so cold and that she used hand warmers. Ah I thought that’s better than my cycling gloves. I definitely going to retire my cycling gloves I bought during the REI used gear sale. In this trip, its one of the collateral damage this time.
So we made it to summit before 4PM. The king of rock-climbing Tim Berger got us to where we wanna be. We looked for USGS emblem – but wth, where was it? And initially we couldn’t find the summit register. Dang thieves! What do thieves gain from stealing emblems and summit register cans? I don’t know.
As I looked around, I saw a water bottle. I wondered who the climber was to leave such thing when its supposed to be ‘leave no trace”. Then I opened it and voila, it was actually the summit register. Thanks to Sierra Club for maintaining a small notebook for us climbers to leave our name behind.
The Safe Descent and Return to Car Park
Of course, no summit is completed if you don’t get back to car park safely. As usual, the descent was harder than climbing up. Again thanks to Tim for leading us back. This time though, the scree is not my best friend. It is usually safe to boot glissade on this terrain, as I used my boots to descend, the rocks fall and it was scary.
We got back to the base camp to collect the gear we left prior to the final approach before it gets dark. As soon as the sun disappeared, though its full moon, the temperature dropped quickly too. Tim’s expertise on this part of Eastern Sierra I think helped us got down safely.
Now the hard part of finding the tent we left, was not the coolest thing to do. Not only that I did not like looking and traversing something so tiny in the map but it was almost midnight and I was so damn tired being on my feet for the last 16 hours. Then i yelled at my buddy "I told you so". Anyhow, we looked around for the last two hours and it was almost 12 midnight, when the battery life of my buddy's GPS had only 5% left.
Then my buddy found the tent just before the battery died. Can you imagine where we would sleep, without down sleeping bag and tent with a temperature sub-freezing that night? I know how cold it was when we did Williamson and honestly I don’t like to have a repeat incident eh.
Immediately I crashed the tent and sleep. The next day we hiked out back to car park. Its my first time to actually hike the South Fork Trail during the day :) Thanks to Tim for guiding us to the summit. It was my first Palisade 14er finally!
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