North Palisade Oct 1, 2005 Mark Thomas Paul Allegretti Joel Wilson Dan Siebert Rick Kent Log 05:30am - (approx) Left Bishop Pass trailhead 07:41am - Reached Bishop Pass 09:43am - Reached Thunderbolt Pass 10:55am - Left T-bolt Pass 11:34am - Reached base of SW chute 01:20pm - Reached the U-Notch - began climbing the chimney 04:56pm - Last climber finished final pitch above chimney 05:35pm - Reached the summit 05:40pm - Left summit - descended bowl 06:39pm - Dropped back into SW chute below U-Notch 06:47pm - Returned to U-Notch to pick up packs - began descent 08:51pm - Now alone, found a water source 09:20pm - Climbed back up to camp at Thunderbolt Pass I suppose it's fitting that this last one was the most challenging. It was a fairly brutal day. It wasn't that this peak had any greater obstacles than the others. Instead, a combination of factors increased the challenge. There were 5 of us in the group (Paul A, Mark T, Dan S, Joel W, and myself). I thought Mark looked familiar. Turns out he did all 10 days of the Sierra Challenge (amazing!). Dan and Joel did part of the Challenge as well. This was a fit bunch! Starting just after 5am from the Bishop Pass trailhead, we made good time. Since Mark had been up North Pal before via the Chimney Route (above the U-Notch) that was the plan this time too. By 9:43am we reached Thunderbolt Pass and dropped our excess gear. An hour later and we were headed over to the SW chute that leads to the U-Notch. Mark mentioned that the chute is longer than it looks. He was right. It took nearly 2 hours to reach the U-Notch. At this point we realized we had a minor problem. Though we had 3 ropes with us at Thunderbolt Pass, a miscommunication left us with only one 30m rope. No problem. We're mountaineers. We'll make this work. By the time we reached the U-Notch a gusty and frigid wind was blowing. This was very unpleasant and distracting while trying to do a class 5 rock climb. I had left my heavier fleece sweater down at camp (silly me) and was getting pretty cold. My toes and fingers were numb. It didn't help when I took my boots and socks off to put on my climbing shoes. Mark lead the climb above the U-Notch but the 30m rope turned out to be a serious limitation. This required us to do 3 pitches instead of the normal 2. Not surprisingly, this took forever! Dan, realizing the futility, wisely opted to head down. The rest of us, too ambitious for our own good, struggled on. With 4 climbers and a single short rope we had to get creative. We did each pitch a little differently. On the first pitch the first 3 climbers lead the climb (using the pro placed by the lead climber and then throwing the rope back down after completing the pitch). The 4th climber then cleaned the route with a belay from above. On the second pitch (in a failed effort to save time) the middle two climbers (including myself) climbed up using the rope (fixed) left by the leader and a prussic for protection. My prussic worked far too well making it hard to slide up the rope. It had a tendancy to keep pulling me off the climb and once loaded was very difficult to move again. The third pitch was short. Mark lead again. The two middle climbers tied into the center of the rope (belayed from above), climbed up, and then untied letting the slack back down. As the final climber, I was belayed from above and cleaned the final pitch. With the wind blowing so hard it was nearly impossible for us to communicate which occasionally lead to confusion. We knew rappelling was going to be a problem on such a short rope. Halfway up I think we realized that a rappel just wasn't going to work with a single 30m rope but now we were rather committed. We also realized that at the rate we were going we would run out of daylight long before getting down (and we had left our packs with our headlamps down at the U-Notch). Despite these facts we continued. We figured that instead of rappelling we could descend the LeConte route and then climb back up the SW chute to retrieve our packs. It wasn't an ideal solution but was the most sensible. With such a short rope the climb up the chimney route took three and half hours. It was 5pm when we finished the final pitch above the chimney. We now had less than 2 hours of light left and we still had some way to go to reach the summit. At this point there was no doubt we would be dealing with darkness soon enough. I was becoming increasingly concerned about the possibility of descending an unknown class 4 route in the dark. Had anyone said maybe we should head down now, I would have agreed. Fortunately no one did. We pressed on with as much haste as we could muster. We finally made the summit at 5:35pm. Cold and concerned about the pending darkness we stayed on top only 5 minutes. Whether we lived or died beyond this point, at least I had completed all the 14ers! We now descended via plan B (what we thought was the LeConte route). Without much difficulty we followed ducks down a fairly obvious chute below the "bowl" and then traversed an exposed ledge system back into the SW chute. I believe this is an option for the SW chute route described by Secor. At this point I was greatly relieved. We only had a few more minutes of daylight left, but at least we were back in the chute. Unfortunately we still had to climb back up to the U-Notch and we were already quite tired. Thirty minutes later we had retrieved our packs and were on our final descent. We had to climb down most of the chute in the dark but the chute is pretty straightforward. As with all chutes in the Palisades the biggest problem was rockfall. Despite being as careful as we could rockfall was inevitable and we were constantly yelling out "rock!". Fortunately there were no incidents and we safely exited the chute and proceeded to cross the moraine back to Thunderbolt Pass. For me, this was probably the hardest part of the day. I was exhausted and the endless boulder hopping (think Dusy Basin but worse) was extraordinarily tedious. I also hadn't eaten much all day except for a few bites of a sandwich and a handful of trail mix. My energy reserves were depleted. Mark and Joel headed back to Thunderbolt Pass at an admirable pace. Paul and I, knowing that there was no water at the pass, headed lower to fill our bottles and quench our thirst. Soon I stopped to remove my harness and swap out some layers. I was now alone. I could see Paul's headlamp occasionally off in the distance as he searched for water. I proceeded onward. Before long I found myself standing above a high cliff that dropped off into the darkness. How had I managed that? In the distance I thought I heard a trickle, but how to get to it?. Navigating around the cliff and over more boulders I finally heard the unmistakable sound of running water. Unfortunately, though I could hear it, there was no water to be seen. It was running below the boulders. I kept descending. It was just like in "Touching the Void". I kept descending further and further but still could not find an opening. The whole time I was driven mad by the sound of running water that I could not reach. I knew that if nothing else I would eventually reach one of the Barrett Lakes. After descending much further than I wanted to the trickle of water finally became accessible. There was no pool deeper than an inch, but it was all I needed and it tasted good. After drinking my fill and topping off my water bottles, I had one final task left: to climb back up to camp at Thunderbolt Pass. While I would only need to regain 500-600 feet of elevation this proved challenging. Again I managed to find the most difficult terrain. Massive house-sized boulders posed significant navigation challenges in the dark. Each step was slower than the last, but finally I crawled back to camp at 9:20pm. By this point the wind that had remained higher descended upon us and it got cold quickly. I took a couple bites from an apple and then attempted to set up my sleeping gear. Whether it was from my lips being so cold or my lungs being so tired, I could scarcely produce enough air to fill my sleeping pad. The whole time I was becoming colder and colder. Though I was still starving to death, warmth was a bigger priority. I climbed into my sleeping bag and zipped up. It probably took nearly an hour before I had regained some warmth. The entire time I was just too cold and tired to eat anything. The wind blew all night. I was thankful I decided to bring my bivy this time since it did keep the wind off my face. Eventually I warmed up to a comfortable temperature but as usual got very little sleep. I don't know about the others but for me, it was a long night. My goal accomplished, the next morning I packed up as I watched the others have a go at Thunderbolt. It was still windy and cold. Their plan was to do both Thunderbolt and Starlight. I admired their stamina and will-power. I got one last look at them high up in the chute and then I headed out. The hike out was uneventful. Back in Bishop I treated myself to pizza and beer at the Pizza Factory. As I did so I wondered how things went for Paul and the others. As windy as it was down lower I could only imagine what it must have been like up on top. EPILOGUE I got the following reply from Paul on Monday: You could say it was a bit windy up there. The top 100ft to the notch was under 2-3 ft of sugar snow and most of the ledges on the cl.4 face were covered in snow. Mark's gloves were letting him down big time and couldn't bend his fingers very well (the temp was 15 w/ 30-40 mph winds). He and Dan turned back to find a sheltered spot to wait for Joel and I to come back. Joel stayed at the base while I went up the first 25 ft.of the 4th class (sketchier than Sill was) where it just got worse. The wind was really whipping over the summit and we figured we'd have a tough time doing any rope tricks over the summit block. I really wanted to free the summit block but knew that there's no way I could with the wind chill being what it was. Not wanting to down climb I found a small block to slide some webbing around and rapped back into the chute. Trying to put my harness on while standing on a snowy 1 ft. ledge with spindrift flying all over is something I don't plan on repeating. I'm not disappointed at all for not summiting since the conditions were pretty bad and not worth the risk. There's always next year.....congrats again on finishing em all. Paul