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Opis:
My partner Roger Romani and I left SF Saturday morning and drove out to the Palisade region of the Eastern Sierra with some 14k foot objectives in mind. The 17/18 season has been a sad one in regard to snowfall so we set our sights on the most glaciated region of the Sierra with the greatest concentration of high peaks in search for some freshies. After a quick stop for some BBQ in Big Pine we hit the trail and set up our camp at Sam Mack meadow before dark. We woke up after a solid 9.5 hours of sleep and skinned up to the palisade glacier where we were met by some of the most aesthetically pleasing peaks of the Sierra. We came hoping to ski both the North Couloir of Thunderbolt Peak and the U-Notch beside North Palisade. We also brought along a small alpine rack and rope hoping to bag both summits. As anticipated, the U-notch was guarded by a burgschrund but to our surprise, the bergschund on Thunderbolt was completed filled in with snow! We skinned to the base and began what became a horrid boot pack up a mixture of ice, waist deep powder, and loose rock intermixed with heavy gusts of wind. This was the first outing of the season for both of us and the altitude really hit hard. We reached the Palisade crest at about 11 am and both agreed to bail on the U-Notch. We had no interest in another boot pack. Unfortunately, the lack of snow forced us to climb up the right branch of the couloir which we knew was out of reach of the true summit but we decided to go for it anyway not know how far it would actually be. I was stoked for the 5.9 move on the summit block but unfortunately after a couple hundred feet of 4th class simulclimbing, I saw the true summit and realized it was just too far away. We downclimbed back to the top of the couloir and put on the skis. The skiing was a bit tricky with all the wind and crust but incredibly fun overall. We got back to camp in the early afternoon and decided to pack up and set up camp lower down in order to reduce our exposure from the incoming storm. Temperatures hovered just above zero degrees Fahrenheit the entire trip but the wind chill temperature on North Pal was forecasted to be -29 that night. We found a spot close to First Lake and ate our delicious Mexican rice meals under a gentle snowfall in single digit temperatures. We woke up the next morning to 2 inches of fresh snow after a miraculous 9 hours of sleep. It was brutally cold that morning but the hike down went quick and we got back to the car before 9 am. It was an epic adventure and it was on this trip which I realized perhaps the most important rule of winter mountaineering... Always be in slightly better shape than your partner and you'll have a good time.
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