Left to right: the 2000 foot east faces of Crooks Peak and Keeler Needle (elevation: 14,240 feet).

May 5, 2000... It's 8:00 A.M. and my daypack is packed with enough food for a day, a first-aid kit, a headlamp, jacket and shell pants, and gaiters. Lashed to the outside are my ice axe and crampons. I am gong to make what I estimate is my ninth ascent up the mostly trailless route of the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek. It's my first hike of the season and I am horribly out of shape. Despite this, I have a burning desire to stand once again before the awesome eastern faces of Mt. Whitney, Keeler Needle, Crooks Peak and Third Needle. The route is steep, gaining 4000 vertical feet in roughly four miles, and brutal. It involves three creek crossings, a 3rd class traverse of the Ebersbacher Ledges, and passage by three alpine lakes. The trailhead lies at an elevation of 8300 feet and my goal is at an elevation of about 12,300 feet. It's a fantasy world up here, unbelievable in it's grandeur and unearthliness. It is so remote from the everyday experience. Gone are the features of everyday life. But also gone are many of the features people might welcome or expect in the wilderness, such as grass or trees. It is just the four elements up here: earth in the form of granite, water in the form of snow, air in the form of unpredictable mountain weather, and fire, possibly presenting itself as lightning. It is a world straight out of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien reminiscent of a foreboding mountain palisade blocking entrance to Mordor. This is the High Sierra and it rises to an altitude of over 14,000 feet here. In fact, the Eastern Sierra presents a nearly continuous crest between 12,000 and 14,000 feet for about 70 miles. Like gaining entrance to the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods, one cannot help but feel a certain reverence, exhilaration or twinge of fear in a place like this. On the left, Pinnacle Ridge, an 800 foot tall wall nearly a mile long abuts into the 2000 foot wall comprised of Third Needle, Crooks Peak, Keeler Needle, and the East face of Mt. Whitney. USGS topographic map of the area: http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=36.5835&lon=-118.2741&s=25&size=s Edited by - bishop_pass on 6/5/00 8:10:44 PM

May of 1995

I''m eating a sandwich in the small town of Independence, California. Isn''t Independence a great name for a town? It harks to a time of lawlessness and frontier life. This is desolate country, replete with history and legend. The now abandoned community of Manzanar lies five or so miles to the south. Manzanar has the dubious honor of being one of the main detention camps of WW II for the Japanese Americans. Over ten thousand were interned here during the War. Looming nearly eleven thousand feet above me is the mighty crest of the High Sierra. As I eat my lunch I try to locate my goal, the thirteen thousand foot southeast ridge of University Peak.

It''s a hot day, probably a hundred or so degrees outside. Blowing down the canyons into the Owens Valley is a warm, dry and dusty wind. I finish my sandwich, get in the car, and begin the winding vertiginous drive up Onion Valley Road to the trailhead at an elevation of 9,300 feet. What a difference it is up here! Brooding gray clouds have rolled in. While I change my clothing, the sky unleashes a torrential downpour. Minutes later it stops, and it appears OK to begin hiking. I proceed to finish packing and the rain begins anew, as forceful as before. Thunder rumbles. All that dry air in the valley rubs against the cool mountain air up here creating massive amounts of static electricity culminating in lightning.

The rain diminishes again, and I begin my ascent up the Robinson Lake Trail. Right from the start I get off route and I''m forced to do a dangerous and unnecessary creek crossing. Even the simplest things aren''t so simple up here. Back on the trail, I gain about a thousand feet of elevation. Patches of snow are becoming more frequent. The rain comes and goes, but mostly it''s tolerable. Thunder continues to rumble near and far. Suddenly, the sky rips open and a crack of thunder like the Fist of God pounds my senses, sending me jumping clear out of my skin. Frazzled, but none the worse for wear, I continue a little more hesitantly. More ominous and powerful bursts of thunder continue. It is like Armageddon now, all at once exhilarating and scary.

Soon I reach Robinson Lake, a small alpine lake set in a hanging valley at timberline. Granite walls rise thousands of feet to the east and west. To the south, an arduous snow climb leads to a higher alpine cirque surrounded on three sides by twelve and thirteen thousand foot ridges adorned with spires and gendarmes.

An icy wind starts to blow, bringing hail. I''m really not that far from the road, maybe three miles. But this place feels remote, lonely, wild.

Today, the mountains seem to be getting the better of me, and I opt for the pleasantries of civilization over an isolated night up here. As I retrace my route back to my car, the sun breaks through, bringing warmth and golden afternoon light to the land.

USGS topographic map of the area
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=36.7581&lon=-118.3394&size=s&s=50

OK, this thread is not going to go away. Just to spite all of you, I will continue to post real adventures.

So what is the deal? Most of you are probably fans of sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, exploration, etc. But you can appreciate this so much more if you have a taste for the real thing. Do all of you just glue yourselves to the computer screen all day long?

How can you expect to create simulations of adventure without appreciating or participating in the real thing? Now I''m not saying you have to appreciate my adventures, but do you not have any experiences of your own?

Perhaps that is why computer games are so one dimensional. It seems if it is not a medieval/magic saga then it is a space saga. You need to step out of the mold and look elsewhere.

How about a setting with the flavor of the Sonoran desert a hundred or so years ago replete with banditos, gunslingers and cantinas? Or maybe a mysterious estate on the cliffs above a stormy New England coast? Perhaps you could draw inspiration draw from the ancient Anasazi. Or how about the lawless society of a successful silver mine?

Many real adventures to follow.

My partner Jon heads towards Bishop Pass. Mt. Agassiz is on the left.

Inset of arete

Late July of 1995

1995 is a heavy snow year, and despite it being well into summer, there is still a vast quantity of snow up here in the High Sierra. We are about five miles in from the trailhead and have opted to setup camp here below Bishop Pass (elevation 12,000 feet). Our intent is to climb Mt. Agassiz (elevation 13,981 feet) tomorrow. We didn''t bring a tent this time, instead opting for lighter weight bivy sacks. Our camp is near Saddlerock Lake, at about 11,400 feet, right around timberline. Timberline is where the environment becomes too harsh for trees and shrubs to grow.

This is a fairy-tale world up here. Granite spires rise thousands of feet precipitously above us. Green meadows flank the shores of the lower lakes.

Night settles in and the sky becomes ablaze with the light of ten billion stars. At high altitude away from the lights of the metropolis or suburbs, the Milky Way''s true magnitude becomes more evident. Your mind reels from the implications as it attempts to digest this vast and infinite vision. My eye catches a tiny dot of light moving across the heavens: a satellite. I lose it, gone from my vision. A moment later, I spy another. And then another.

In the morning it is so cold the lakes are glazed over with ice. I have to crack the ice so I can pump water through our filter. As the early light bathes the crags to the west in alpenglow, we locate the route to the top of Bishop Pass. Picture Puzzle looms to the east, a myriad maze of buttresses, spires, and chutes. We ascend to the top of the pass, taking advantage of the summer corn snow, frozen from the night before.

Mt. Agassiz''s west face rises 1900 feet above the pass in a gradually steepening slope of talus and fractured granite ridges and headwalls. The first half of the climb is mostly a tiring slog up the unforgiving talus. The altitude is unforgiving here - thirty feet, and rest, thirty feet, and rest.

At last the ascent has funneled us into one of Agassiz''s numerous couloirs. A formidable headwall presents a fearsome face to us above. After some consultation, we opt for the left hand arete above us. Up and around I go, until I gain the ridge of crumbling rock. On my right, the ridge drops into a chasm below, the very chute we were in earlier. On my left, the north flanks of Agassiz drop nearly two thousand feet to the base of Bishop Pass.

My partner ascends from below and takes the lead. Exposed now to the wind, he carefully picks his way up the arete as I follow. The arete ends, and we step down onto the very top patch of a thousand foot plus frozen snow couloir.

We have gained the final ridge of the mountain now, a narrow plateau composed of granite blocks rising to the summit. We are walking in the sky now, with awesome expansive views to the south, east, and north. Mt. Winchell''s magnificent summit spires now reside at our eye level, so close to the south. Scale is lost here, and Winchell''s summit appears as if it is only a couple hundred yards away, yet is more than half a mile distant.

The summit is near, I think. It is so hard to tell, because the summit is often obscured by nearer fake summits. And then it is upon us, almost a surprise, and continuing would send us plunging down the vertigonous east face of Mt. Agassiz. The summit boulder is perhaps the size of desk, and is perched precariously near the east face. We do our obligatory stand upon the perch, and settle in to have some lunch. Three hours from the base of the pass.

Mt. Agassiz is the northern most summit of the fantastic Palisade group, a spectacular and nearly continous wall of granite comprised of six peaks over fourteen thousand feet in elevation. Among them is North Palisade, one of the High Sierra''s most sought after summits.

Far below, the alpine tundra drops away in basins, cirques, and hanging valleys, dappled with numerous turquoise lakes and meadows. For a time we admire the grand spires and gendarmes of nearby Thunderbolt Peak and Starlight Peak. We identify Mt. Sill further away. We are tired, and must descend. We must be alert and cautious for exhaustion and carelessness is a killer up here.

As far as High Sierra ascents go, Mt. Agassiz is rewarding, yet considered relatively easy. Such are the humbling ways of the mountains.

Kivas

About thirty miles east of Santa Fe, New Mexico, lies the small town of Pecos. And a few miles south of this quaint little town, set amid the evergreens, is Pecos National Monument.

Hoping to get some good photography of the mission ruins, I enter the monument. To my surprise and delight, I discovered there are two kivas here. Kivas are below ground chambers, often used for ceremonial purposes. Kivas were frequently built by the Anasazi, a mysterious culture that lived a thousand years ago. I am unfamiliar with the origins of the kivas here.

I enter the kiva. It is perfect. Light cascades in from above, creating a diffuse orange glow on the sandstone walls. I setup my Nikon 8008s on a tripod to shoot. Becasue I am using Fuji Velvia ISO 50 film and I set the aperture to f22, the exposure requires 30 seconds. I do the shot.

I was not dissapointed.


Edited by - bishop_pass on June 26, 2000 9:04:49 PM

Man, I really wish I had the chance to go out and do that stuff. That''d be the greatest thing in the world! Alas, I''m only 17 right now with a $5.15 per hour job and school & marching band coming up in about a month...I hate my life.

P h a n t a s m
"I'd feel safer if the helicopter had an ejection seat."

Well, I''m glad to hear somebody is reading my posts. And I''m glad to hear there are others who have that adventure itch...

quote:Original post by Phantasm

Man, I really wish I had the chance to go out and do that stuff. That''d be the greatest thing in the world! Alas, I''m only 17 right now with a $5.15 per hour job and school & marching band coming up in about a month...I hate my life.

Although I do admit to having thousands and thousands of dollars of ''gear'', it''s not always money which is the barrier. Gear can be borrowed, made, or creatively done without, but it seems to be time which is the hardest resource of all to come by. One of my favorite ways to cheat time is the ''one day assault'': get up at 3:30 AM, drive 250 miles, hike, climb, or explore for ten or eleven hours, and drive home, back by midnight. Crazy? Perhaps. But it makes things happen that otherwise wouldn''t.

Buckskin Gulch - Part 1

About forty miles east of Kanab, Utah, an extraordinary canyon snakes its way through twelve miles of sandstone before its confluence with the Paria. This canyon, known as Buckskin Gulch, has the grand honor of being the longest slot canyon in the world. For nearly twelve miles, Buckskin Gulch maintains its 'slot' character: hundreds of feet deep and only five or ten feet wide from top to bottom.

Parked at the Wirepass trailhead, my pack is loaded with my 4x5 monorail camera (a large format camera with an accordian bellows) and I am prepared for my first foray into the 'Gulch'. About a mile of walking down a dry wash sees me at the entrance to Wirepass, a slot canyon in its own right. Entry is gained through a narrow cleft in the sandstone cliff. And there I am, amidst sandstone walls only a few feet apart and perhaps fifty high. A prelude of things to come? The slot narrows further, and I have to turn sideways to continue. I descend some chockstones, and eventually arrive at the confluence with Buckskin.

It is here where I locate some petroglyphs, perhaps drawn by the Anasazi a thousand years ago. Numerous 'glyphs depicting deer are here. Higher up I see handprint 'glyphs, often present in what were considered sacred areas. Ahead the true entrance to Buckskin lies, in the form of a gigantic opening in the cliff, perhaps a hundred feet high and ten feet wide. I enter.


Edited by - bishop_pass on June 28, 2000 12:14:55 AM

OK, in the interest of sustaining my ongoing monologue, I have decided to disseminate some more tidbits from my vast collection of wisdom upon my silent audience.

A Terrain Rating System

The difficulty of traversing across and climbing terrain has been quantified into a system that is now known as the Yosemite decimal system. Originally it comprised of 5 classes, ranging from easy to difficult, but climbers and mountaineers soon found it to be inadequate to accurately describe the difficulty of harder climbs.

And so, in the ''50s, Chuck Wilts, along with Royal Robbins and Don Wilson, while developing a new guide for Tahquitz (a splendid 1000 foot tall monolith of granite near Idylwild, California) came up with the Tahquitz Decimal System, This system further subdivided class 5 terrain into (at that time) 10 separate levels ranging from 5.0 to 5.9.