[geyer]

Mount Ritter Dates: 9/17/22 Distance: 23.2 miles Cumulative Elevation Gain: 6.9k ft Route taken: Shadow Lake - Ediza Lake - Ritter - Whitebark Pass - Garnet Pass - Thousand Island Lake -> Garnet Lake Last year, I was graced with the task of traveling to site visits for a project in construction in Mammoth Lakes, CA so naturally I made sure those visits were going to happen on Fridays and I could extend my weekends. I had to fly into Reno, rent a car, and drive another 3 hours down to Mammoth to make a measly 1-hour observation of the construction progress. The first time out, I wasn't sure how much I should push my luck with travel logistics so I decided to stay close to mammoth and tackle a peak that seemed to be universally appreciated in the Sierra, highly prominent, a CoHP, first ascended by John Muir, and given a big thumbs up by Beckey - Mount Ritter. At 13,143 ft, it isn't the highest mountain, and it wasn't technical at all but it was a good excuse to tag a summit for the first time in the Sierra! I rented a hotel room for the night since it was a business trip but checked out around 2 or 3 am to drive to the trailhead. The drive felt very long in the dark and I got stuck behind a slower driver for a while. Preparation anxiety crept in as the pitch-black setting seemed to drag on forever. I figured if the elevation or travel fatigue got to me I would do some exploring over the vast terrain.

At 4:36 am, I hit the trails and made speedy work getting to shadow lake in the dawn glow and nearly made it to Ediza lake by sunrise. From there I traversed west up the slopes to the glacier stepping up one chossy rock at a time until reaching the summit.

From here, I had a decision to make - my original ambitious plan was to backtrack south to Ritter Pass and find a way to essentially circumnavigate the west slopes of Ritter with stops at each of the Ritter Lakes plus Lake Catherine before heading up North Glacier Pass and either coming back south or heading out via Thousand Island Lake. From what I recall, I had some reservations about the unknowns on ice conditions and general travel time this route would take, so I decided instead to head down the mountain and turn north over Whitebark and Garnet passes and exit via Thousand Island.

Despite the mileage, this felt like a very relaxed trip. The mountain ascent took a bit of energy, but the cross country travel was easy going and simple navigation even without a set plan. It was also a bucket list of mine to see Thousand Island Lake in person after a coworker went there while hiking the JMT. The next day I slept in my rental car and woke up on some forest road and drove to a hot spring for a nippy sunrise. An excellent choice

Middle Palisade Dates: 10/15/22 Distance: 14 miles Cumulative Elevation Gain: 6.8k ft Route taken: out and back A month later, I once again found myself in Mammoth Lakes. The trip was put together very last minute so flights to and from Reno were non-existent and I had to fly into Sacramento and drive the 4:20 route before another quick site visit. The one thing on my Sierra bucket list that was truly beckoning me was a summit in the Palisades range. I didn't want to get overly technical, especially as a solo traveler, so I chose Middle Palisade. At, 14012 ft, it is the 11th tallest peak in CA and can be scrambled despite its intimidating vertical relief. The reason behind my excitement for this particular area was its famed alpenglow sunrises. This time around, I did some trailhead camping and started hiking at 3:51 am in an effort to get to the upper basin for sunrise. For whatever reason, this approach route was much more satisfying to me than Ritter's had been. Probably because of the infinite granite choose-your-own-adventure routes to the base of the climb. I chose to go high and left which had me scrambling over boulders and sliding across smooth slabs. The sunrise was a bit of a letdown, though it still had me grinning ear to ear.

The route up Middle Palisade seemed improbable and dangerously steep and was made more dangerous by a dusting of snow and ice left behind by some recent weather. In contrast to Ritter, the elevation of Middle Palisade slowed me down to a snail's pace. The route was nearly straight up so the horizontal speed was essentially 0 and my vertical speed slowed to about 600 ft/hour for the last 100 minutes

Supplementary plans to traverse south of the palisade group using Southern Pass and returning north via Scimitar Pass were canceled when I realized how taxing the elevation was. So I took my time safely descending the icy route and was extremely pleased with the effort and route as a whole.

I finished the trip by driving down south, sleeping in my rental car near red rocks, and flying out of Vegas in the morning. Mount Whitney Dates: 7/08/23 Distance: 9.3 miles Cumulative Elevation Gain: 6.3k ft Route taken: Mountaineers' Route out and back Say what you will about me, but Whitney was never really much of a priority to climb. I hadn't really thought about why exactly that was, but it seems pretty obvious to me now - people and popularity - both legitimate reasons if part of what you seek in the wilderness is separation. But not legitimate enough a reason to prevent me from giving it a shot when I saw a few permits open up on a saturday of all days for the mountaineers route which lined up with my final site visit to Mammoth Lakes. After a huge winter of snow, the site had finally melted enough to finish work on framing so I went out to take a look. The snow is probably also the reason that permits had opened up since a lot of people who sign up to do the mountaineer's route are tourists who hope for dry rock. Avis gave me a Toyota Tacoma, so I drove that down to the Alabama Hills where i found a cozy spot next to a stream to spend the night. there was no shortage of water flowing which meant there was still probably a lot of snow up high.

It is a truck driver's civic duty to take photos of it in nice places (rental)

I started up at 3 am in hopes of Whitnessing the famous sunrises on the eastern face of Whitney and beating the meltout. The strategy worked (and I somehow did better routefinding the stream crossings and zig-zagging slabs in the dark on the way up than in the light on the way down).

pre-dawn

pre-dawn

Sunrise

I was just approaching Iceberg Lake as the sun began to rise and was treated to a special reflection of light that made it all worth it.

Sunrise

Sunrise

Sunrise

With the snow and the penitente-like melt patterns, travel was slow and only got slower the further I ascended. The main gully traveled fairly well in the morning despite no refreeze. After the gully, it appeared everyone had continued on to the class 2 traverse, but I did near-zero research on the route and it looked like there was another gully that went to the summit plateau which I took instead. It was probably not melted out enough to be ascended on dry rock prior to that day. I have since read that it is rated 4th/5th class.

zoom for climber at base of Keeler Needle

High camp at iceberg lake

Russell

Whitney Summit

Whitney Summit

I did not see many people on route while ascending but I did see plenty at Iceberg camp and a lot while I was descending. Several parties were climbing the east buttress too. The people I met at the summit were from all over the world and riding the high that comes with a big accomplishment.

Check out the climbers

Check out the climbers

[Nancyann]

Fabulous pictures of the Sierras. I didn’t get to do my annual trip with my son this year due to the late snow melt out, so much appreciated! I especially enjoyed your Thousand Island Lake and Mt. Whitney sunrise pictures, gorgeous! Also the pictures of the climbers, it took me a minute to spot them!

[Gimpilator]

Very cool report! Very nice to see 3 big peaks in one report. Ritter is my favorite in the Sierras, but haven't done much yet.