Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Mt. Sill better than mont blanc!

on the way home from split mt., sj and i discussed our mountain dreams. he talked about aconcagua, i talke about bolivia. he said how about the alps in europe. I said who needs it. i have the sierra's right here in my backyard. i told him we have the north pallisades its world class. he said yeh, mt blanc is a 15 er. i said we have whitney its right here, and it is only 500 ft less in elevation, whats the difference. he agreed, but i think he still wants to go to the alps. i could care less, europe is off my list for climbing. i have my backyard and it is better than the mt. blanc.
i think i can do with out the petentiousness, the tourists, the trains, the pack trails to the top. i'll take my backyard instead. i'm climbing mt. sill. my alps, a climbers mountain, not a tourist trap.
two days later i packed up my car drove up to lone pine. picked up a permit. carb loaded on some egg mc muffins. made the left up crocker st. parked at the overnight lot. checked and reloaded my pack and away i went, solo.
the trail took me by a horse pack station, above glacier lodge, and then curves to the right above the first falls. after about 1.5 miles the day hike trail meets up with this trail, and continues on the right hillside of the valley. after about another mile the trail switches back up beside second falls. another half mile of straight away to the left is the usfs stone cabin. one more mile of straight trail and a few more switch backs the trail takes you by the first of three awsome lakes, emerald green in color. the lakes are pretty close toghether so they seem to pass quickly. you move above the lakes and pass over a small wooden bridge and then come to a junction. the sign reads glacier trail and 4th lake. take glacier trail to the left and it winds downward. the trail comes out of the trees and crosses a stream and this area is meadow like, and sparsely forested. you then begin the switch backs up to sam mack (mosquito)meadow. about half way through the meadow is a sign reading glacier trail. make a left a cross the river. take off your boots half of the rocks making up the crossing are under water. i began the switch backs up the ridge. at the top of the ridge the trail starts to wind in a south westerly direction, and you end up at the bottom of what is know as the old morraine. from here i followed ducks around the bottom of the old morraine. i picked up the pace for fear of rock fall, or boulder fall. i made my way up the slabs to camp gayley at the base of mt. gayley and the top of the glacier morraine. i found a great place to camp for the night. a natural rock shelter where somebody had built a rock wall in front. i added my tarp to the top, and named it the blue cave. i bet you they don't have the blue cave in france. no chef, no hut, no service here. this is a better way to go. roughing it. melting snow for water and cold meals.
it showered all night, good thing i was in the blue cave. i slept half decently, but feared the conditions would not allow me to make the rest of the climb, but to my surprise in the morning it wasn't so bad.
i packed my day pack and away i went. i travelled along the morraine to the left of the glacier, i began boulder hopping. i stayed high level with camp gayley. boulders and then snow, more boulders and then snow. i stayed between the wall and a band of morraine hiking with my crampons. the going was slow on the morraine, but now a little faster on the snow. past the walls is two vertical strips of debris coming down the glacier marking the notch. i went past this a little and worked my way up and back to the notch. i made my way off the snow, scrambled up the class 3 rock section to the gayley sill saddle. from there i went up the north col. which i felt was easy. i was in the groove, and had the fever. i made it to the apex. i took a break, at the same time my adrenaline kicked in for what was ahead. i stretched my legs and shook my body kind of warming up for the rock section. i was psyced up to say the least. i went up a easy 40 - 50 ft section and then across the class 3 ledge (no sweat). now i made the snow crossing before the class 4 section, my adrenaline now double this part was freaky but easy. i was pumped.
now for the class 4 section i took my time and found the climbing easy except one spot, a chimney sort of deal. i made and undercling with my left and and bolted up the rock with my feet. just instinct really. i had completed the crux move. the rest of the class 4 is unexposed and fairly straight forward. from here it is and easy and fun class 3 ridge scramble to the summit. at the top i had runners high!
i finally made the peak of one the north pallisades. this is world class. forget about mont blanc.
after about 30 minutes i made my way down. at the apex i noticed two climbers going up the col to polemonium peak. the looked like ants. i waved to them but i doubt they noticed me.
now it was time for the whole thing in reverse. down the north col., to the notch, down the notch, down the glacier and toward camp gayley. on the glacier now i heard something. it was rock fall. two rocks came screaming down from the col. that leads up to the apex. one was the size of a truck tire, and rolled down the whole glacier, a killer b for sure. i stood for a few seconds, and i am glad i wasn't climbing that col. today because that would have been my death. i then, carried on happily. made my way back to the blue cave, broke camp , made my way down the slabs, down the ridge to sam mack (mosquito) meadow. where i got eaten alive, then down the trail and back to the car.
again i was feeling somewhat elated to have climbed a mountain in the north pallisades. all i have to say is, i will take this over mont blanc any day.

It's funny that these photos came to mind as I was reading thru your TR. I usually don't make it past the first paragraph on long TRs, but your style of writing kept me reading. The cave, the crap rock at Glacier Notch, the snow climbing, the ramp, the 4th class section...










BTW: there's hidden treasure in the rocks if you walk down a little ways from The Blue Cave (I'm calling it that from now on.) ..... liquid water, so you don't have to melt snow!

Cool beans. Glad you are enjoying other great peaks in the Sierra. So now you have to do the other peaks in your view looking north from Mt. Sill. Will glad to provide beta if you do them. Cheers.

Wow. One should not talk about things that they know nothing about. I have heard a lot of names mentioned in association with the Alps, but "tourist trap" is not one of them. The Sierra's certainly are beautiful and challenging. However, the Alps are completely different mountains that provide classic "Alpine" climbing.

And yes Grenoble, were I was born, is in the Alps.

I'm heading to Mt. Blanc in a month so I'll be able to compare the two. My impression is that Mt. Blanc is very similar to Mt. Rainier - mostly slogging on glaciers with crampons and an ice ax while roped up. On the "Gouter route" there are two nasty sections. Lower down there's a mad scramble across a chute nicknamed the "bowling alley" for its falling rocks and then a scramble up a ledge to get to a hut. Near the top is a terrifying "knife edge"; one side is thousands of feet down into Italy while the other side is a steep drop-off into France. Believe me, when I'm up on that mountain, I will not be thinking about tourist traps or pretentious Europeans.

Of course, I love the Sierras and will be training there in a couple of weeks for the Mt. Blanc trip.

I was wondering whether anyone would take solo to task for his comments.

I haven't seen the French Alps (had more interest in Paris and Normandy), but I have seen the Swiss, Austrian and German Alps. Very beautiful and more intimidating (to me) than the Sierra.

My opinion still is that there is no greater range than the Himalaya though.