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clustiere
Trad climber
Durango, CO
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 3, 2006 - 05:57pm PT
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Sierra Nevada – Starlight Peak 14,200
FA- Pirates Of The Carabineers (Don’t walk the Plank) IV 5.10b/c 5.8x
Kenn Kenaga & Ryan Crochiere
This last summer I had the privilege of taking a few months off of work. My plans fell apart to go to South America back in December and the Cirque of the Unclimbables also slipped away as partners fell to tendonitis. So I returned to my favorite playground The Sierra Nevada, it was a great month playing in the perfect weather of the Sierra high country. Early in the trip I had the privilege of climbing with Kenn Kenaga for a week. Ken has done so much climbing in the Sierras that if you ask him about a route he may have climbed it will take him up to half an hour and numerous guidebooks for him just to recall if he has done it, even then he has to ask his partner Pat Brennan. For years I have been jealous of how many first ascents and first free ascents these boys have done in the range. So when Pat handed down a topo of some unpublished route he had done called Boss Moss on Starlight I was ecstatic to try it out.
On the drive up to the east side Ken and I looked thru the sierra classics book
and decided on Mt Merriam as our big wall style free climb. It was a wonderful route with an ugly fixed line hanging down the entire splitter crack system. On the hike out we had a difficult time finding my stashed backpack and Ken got to watch me have a bonafide temper tantrum after hiking an extra mile in its search. It was the perfect warm up and usually I would call it the culmination of a season but Ken had business in the Palisades. After our hike out we went to the Gong Show Crag, it was a splendid craging experience edges and splitters.
We trudged into the Palisades glacier via the North Fork of Pine creek. Passing Temple Crag to camp was a new experience to me and I could feel that primarily in my legs. The next day we brought all of our gear up onto the glacier and headed up the V notch. Along the way I noticed potential for routes breaking out of the couloir all over the place, they even had a few splitter cracks. After a thousand feet or more of perfect nieve snow we were on the summit ridge and heading for the peak of Polemonium 14,200. The summit was a nice little spot, but we had no idea how to get down. So we chose a random gully that broke off of the summit ridge and it went reasonably well and eventually deposited us in the U notch. After an assessment of the time we decided to head back to camp and skip out on doing the doors of perception (which looked horrid). We returned with empty stomachs to a broken stove and a big can of Spam.
The next day we decided we were going to do Starlight’s Boss Moss. We were up early and crossing the snow bridge in the first rays of the days light. We packed the pack with 2 pairs of crampons and one axe for the descent, my goodness it was heavy. I was learning what Pat was talking about when he said you’ll have do deal with a bunch of other S%&T out there. Off Ken headed up a splitter and with in a few pitches we could tell that Pats topo was made years after he had done the route and of just about no use. So we continued on our own way and found mostly moderate crack climbing with a few loose and scary face pitches. One of the pitches included a flake that protruded out from the crack system like the plank on a pirate ship, hence the name of the route. Another of the pitches including climbing around the scariest time bomb flake I have ever seen, and a committing 5.8 face with no pro. The crux came on pitch 7 with an overhanging off width crack that petered out at a ledge and continued on as a full body chimney. Another pitch of really fun arête climbing and we were close to the summit pillar. Topping out near days end we hustled to navigate the complex ridge over to the Underhill Coulor and a direct decent to the Palisade glacier below. We finally got back to camp late that night and slept in the next morning before heading back to the amenities of Big Pine and Lone Pine. All told it was a fun and successful trip.
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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I wish the powers that be would quit coming up with new fourteeners. Now I must go back and check off another.
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Damon Vincent
Trad climber
the great flat middle
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How about a topo of the new route?
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Words alone can make great pictures!
Thanks for the recount; I want some a that...
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Zander
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Hey Clustiere,
Thanks for the report. I enjoyed it.
I was reading the California Fourteeners Guidebook and I noticed that Rowell has knarly first ascents on almost all of them. It would be cool ( if I could climb that hard) to take a few weeks and climb his best route on each fourteener. It would be kind of a nice tribute too.
See ya,
Zander
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
St. Louis
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I think more details on the bondafile temper tantrum would be nice. Wonder if our styles are similar...
:)
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clustiere
Trad climber
Durango, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 9, 2006 - 09:14am PT
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I will try to enter some pictures, I am lame at this.
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yo
climber
The Eye of the Snail
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Wassup Rhino!!!
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clustiere
Trad climber
Durango, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 9, 2006 - 11:14am PT
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Rain rain and more rain here and Moab. Just started getting pretty good at that crack climbing thing. We should get on the H wall in the Black this spring, eh. Check out the neats foot string er thread, er yarn.
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