North Ridge of Lone Pine Peak Reflection
words by gsg ambassador jameson schultz & partners david rozul & zach auviL
The following is a collective of 3 short essay’s written by Jameson, David, and Zach reflecting on a recent ascent of the aesthetic, North Ridge of Lone Pine Peak, in the Eastern Sierra. Each gives a unique perspective on what was almost a near perfect day in the mountains.
Luck and the North Ridge of Lone Pine Peak
words by GSG Ambassador Jameson Schultz
The North Ridge of Lone Pine Peak (LPP) is a route that is hard to overlook anytime you are traveling down Highway 395. Visible from miles away, this prominent ridgeline and summit dominates the immediate westward skyline from the small town of Lone Pine, CA. Boasting a car-to-car elevation gain of a little over 6,800 feet, this route is conveniently located next to the Whitney Portal Campground, making the “getting there” portion of the trip quite easy.
Both breathtaking in terms of itself and the surrounding area, LPP sits at the forefront of the Eastern Sierra and boasts panoramic views encompassing the Owens Valley, Mount Whitney, Mount Russell, and the East and West peaks of Mount Williamson. A few weeks prior to the climb, a simple bit of scheduling luck showed that we were all able to commit to a weekday climb with hopes of avoiding the weekend crowds. Let the trip planning commence!
Our party of three, Zach Auvil, David Rozul, and myself, had last climbed together on the North Arete of Bear Creek Spire nearly two years prior. A lot of life and copious amounts of climbing had happened since then for all of us, leaving plenty of topics and conversation to enjoy during our intended car-to-car day push up LPP. Our excitement was high and we were ready.
Traveling through the town of Lone Pine on our way to Whitney Portal Campground was a bit uplifting for a few reasons. First, the immense excitement that swelled up at the sight of our rather large objective coupled with the tinge of nervousness was a welcomed feeling after several months of absence from the golden granite of the Eastern Sierra. Second, the town was once again showing signs of life, which seemed to be a little glimmer of hope for one of my favorite areas during these “unique” times. After a quick resupply of beef jerky, energy gels, and sunscreen, it was time to find a campsite. Our goal was to select a site that would maximize our available time and efforts for the approach. Prior to our attempt of this popular climb we had contacted and solicited beta from many of our friends who had completed the route in conjunction with online resources such as Mountain Project and SuperTopo as well as the must have High Sierra Climbing 2nd Edition. Due to our open yet still limited time, we elected to spend the night prior to our ascent at the Whitney Portal Campground, whose campsites are a mere 5 minutes from the Meysan Lakes Trailhead that marked the start of the approach.
As the evening came, our party of three each made their way into the campsite and the briefing began. Over a dinner of 99 cent pastas and three beers, we discussed our plans for the route. We began sharing topo’s, the collected beta, as well as assessing the anticipated challenges and risks. The culmination of our briefing session led us to carrying two short ropes ~40m each, a single rack, a pair each of rock shoes, first aid kit, 3 to 4 liters of water each, and our individual food supplies. With the last of our beers finished, stomachs full, and our bags packed, we gratefully turned in for the night at 9:00 PM for what was sure to be a long day ahead of us.
After four hours of sporadic sleep, we awoke at 1:00 AM and in synchronicity prepared our respective breakfasts, coffees, and way-too-early morning tea. A brief, albeit close encounter with a black bear, whose stealing of David’s Sun Chips a mere arm’s length away during our cooking session, definitively supplied us with more adrenaline and alertness than any caffeinated beverage we consumed that morning (always throw every food item in the bear box). By 2:00 AM we were on the approach trail from our campsites – head torches beaming through an already moonlit campground. Fortunately, two of our party arrived the day prior early enough to scout the approach and loosely estimate our path. Ultimately, this proved to be an extremely worthwhile measure in determining our approach plan and minimized the time spent simply navigating off-trail. As we discussed in the briefing, navigating the approach under the light of the waning gibbous moon was to-be our first crux of the day.
The projected weather for the day of our climb was clear skies, low winds, and minimal chance of afternoon thunderstorms, leading us all to approach in light pants and a shirt with an additional jacket if needed. We hustled through the morning approach. Passing markers and key points previously identified on our screen-shotted topo’s that were cross-referenced against our waypoints in Google Maps and photographs of the guidebook. We diverged from the trail at what we thought was the correct location nearly an hour and fifteen in on the actual Meysan Lakes Trail. We were hustling, and successful in directly navigating the approach via the guidebook instructions, which indicated having open slabs to our right until some slight bushwhacking was required to make it across the flowing creek. Zach routinely piloted the initial rocky path up to the approach ramp. With confidence he began to lead the charge up the 3rd and 4th class gulley leading to the ridge proper. Most of this approach section proved to be a combination of easy, interesting, and downright fun warm-up moves that were punctuated by steep unstable sections of scree and talus, which had to be climbed in a staggered fashion to avoid trundling debris onto one another. The “one step forward and one giant slide backwards” was a minor and repeated annoyance, but fortunately constant communication and trust allowed us to gain the ridge without incident. We were beginning to feel the altitude change for sure, but we were feeling great despite each of us having exhausted our first liter of water even before the sunrise.
Cresting the ridge into the approach notch, we saw the first hints of the new day unfold to the east. With the moon still hanging above the western mountain peaks of the Whitney range, we arrived at 5:15 AM to a magnificent 270 degree view of the Owen’s Valley and surrounding granite peaks beginning their ritual morning soak in the orange alpenglow light. On time and in high spirits, we paused for a few moments at the top of the approach. Each of us briefly taking in the moment with a side of some cliff bars, jerky and water.
The Accident (Jameson’s POV):
On the final 4th and low 5th section of the last headwall our party was a mere 20m from a keyhole that led to the summit. Zach and I were at a comfortable series of ledges with him one block above me and the both of us resting about 12m above and 5m or so to the right of David who was scrambling up from below. Having been unroped for much of the climb as well as the past several pitches in vertical terrain, what laid in front of us appeared to be a simple, albeit loose section of 4th and low 5th moves over mid- to large-sized blocks. We pressed forward, still unroped, and ready to get off this beautiful mountain.
We were not exhausted at this point, worn yes, but the perfect conditions, steady pace, and routine stops truly made a huge difference in how we were feeling. We were on schedule for a summit time of just before 2:00 PM, and we were crushing it. All of us had elected to climb without sunglasses, and the prolonged exposure to the dry air and pervasive sunlight was beginning to take a toll on the irritability of our retinas. Though the climb allowed for comfortable climbing in and out of the sunlight, a full day’s exposure took its toll along with our prolonged efforts at altitude. We were nearly done, and my ankles were sighing for relief with the anticipation of walking on flat ground again. Zach peered down to my ledge while he and I conversed briefly about our intended path. Subsequently, we parted ways. He did not want to attempt the downclimb to my ledge and elected to traverse the flakes directly above my path while I scrambled immediately and quickly across to a series of blocks at the base of the keyhole marking the end of our route.
I had reached a safe looking spot and stopped for a mere second before I heard and felt the reverberations of what makes all climbers shutter. Immense, pounding rock fall rattled my ears as I turned around to my right, away from the keyhole now looking down at David. Based on the sound, I assumed that it had been from the looser-looking blocks below where he was ascending the loose face, and instead saw dust and rocks barreling a few meters in front of him. I looked at his face and it was one of shock and breathlessness. I knew what he was looking at, and as if I had no peripherals, solely pure tunnel vision, for a moment all I saw was David and his breathless face. My tunnel vision snapped up to my right, following the barrage of loose rock cascading down the face and ledges where I had just traversed. Comfortably several meters away, I froze and prayed, what I was looking at was my friend and climbing partner Zach, clinging to a slightly less than horizontal flake. His feet dangling over what I assumed was the precipice of a long and uncertain ride. I did not see the slide initiate, though I observed two death-blocks trundling down the boulder-specked face, and taking everything along its path with it, as my gaze moved rapidly, though timelessly, towards Zach. All I could do was watch as he gripped this flake as other loose rock and debris pummeled his hands, jettisoning over him in his crunched position, head-tucked tightly between his elbows. It all happened so fast, though he seemed to hang there suspended indefinitely… until his grip subsided, and he fell.
My breath seized as I watched him free fall feet-first down 7 or 8 meters past the ledge where I traversed landing atop the freshly scraped face of sand and rock. His arms were positioned as if he was holding a basketball, ready to pass it off to the next player, and like a deflated ball, he bounced slightly upward once and then stopped. Small rocks and sand were still falling around him at the time of his release from the wall, but fortunately that was all. He was arrested now some 8m below my new position at climber’s left and immediately began to move. I could breathe again. Had he let go a few seconds earlier there was no question, the blocks would have either crushed him, pummeled him, or worst case, swept him over the cliff face below. There was no apparent loss of consciousness or severe injury as his movements were immediate, and purely a signal that he was in fact alive and able to move. I cannot remember what David and I said to him, but Zach’s response indicated that we needed to get to him to assess as quickly as possible. I traversed carefully down the untouched series of blocks observing some of the contents of his pack scattered in a linear fashion along his fall line. The resulting rockfall severed one of his outside pack pouches during his “hangboard” session. Blood was dripping down the back of his neck, and I felt immediately uncomfortable with the position we were in, turning back up to look at the location of the rock fall and realizing that we were still in it should another one fall.
Following an initial assessment and moment to collect ourselves, Zach demonstrated that he could still climb out of the now easy 4th class series of moves that remained to the keyhole. I indicated that I did not want to stay in this position and that, barring no substantial pain, we would exit the route and immediately perform an assessment, then clean up whatever we could using our available first aid kit. With little discussion, we moved to the keyhole and found a safe flat section of the summit soaking in the heat of the mid-afternoon sun. I did not think about it until after, but David still had to traverse across this entire new section of cleaned and freshly deposited rock fall, and it took a few moments for him to come up behind us (if I were to be in this situation again, I would’ve thrown a rope down as a precautionary measure). We began to strip our gear and access the first aid kit, and in moments we were all reunited on the summit, safe, and grateful for however Zach managed to stay alive.
FRIENDS AGAINST A RIDGE
words by DAVID ROZUL
We reached the ridge just after 5 a.m. having been on the move for more than 3 hours. I slowly opened the top of my backpack, stuck my hand in and rummaged looking for snacks as I took a seat on a flat rock. Zach to my left, Jameson to my right, we all rested and scarfed down electrolytes and snacks as we watched the skyline light up in front of us. The sun slowly rose with hues of orange, yellow and violet. A deserved pause from the vertical. We enjoyed the moment. This was our starting line. I zipped up my bag. We all stood up and we were off.
We trekked through a sea of granite on the way to the top of the first tower. It was both beautiful and exhausting. One foot after the other, moving slowly up slabs and fractured rock. We each worked our way over boulders and up steep terrain. It became clock work. My mind started to wander as muscle memory took over. Atop the first tower, the remaining ridge opened up in front of us. The morning orange glow hit the tan granite casting sharp shadows. Spikes of rock reached into the sky. It looked like a maze of blocky granite mixed with knife edge walkways, contoured with endless vertical lines. I had never seen anything like it. We all exchanged some words, overtaken by excitement for what lay ahead.
We approached two giant fins of rock. It was like walking through a natural gateway that towered above us at least a hundred feet on either side, welcoming us into sections of serious climbing. I looked below at the exposure beneath my feet and to the left as Jameson and I were navigating pinches and hand jams down a wall of thin vertical flakes. Zach was somewhere above negotiating his way through a different path. Out here in the alpine, sometimes it is the pick-your-own-adventure kind of climbing. Jameson and I got to the bottom of the saddle and looked back at the thin sharp granite face we had just downclimb soloed , gave each other a fist-bump and carried on. There was no time to waste. We reconnected with Zach and continued as a team through the maze of rock.The research and topo we were following said that after crossing a notch to move right 50 feet, then up into steep face climbing that required ropes. Jameson opted to take the lead. We all removed our harnesses from our packs, swapped into our climbing shoes, tied in and Jameson disappeared above. This was the first time all day we had roped up. Curiosity and excitement started to seep into my mind, imagining what type of technical climbing we would encounter above. The ropes attached to Zach and I caught taut and we started climbing up. It was beautiful high alpine granite. The pitch required a mantel move off the deck into three or four slab moves, until you hit a thin finger crack, then continued up and left around a few blocks. We turned a corner and there was Jameson big smiles, secure in a hanging belay. Here we were 10+ hours into our adventure and having a great time. Jameson took the lead again for three more consecutive pitches, Zach and I followed up, and soon there we were proudly standing atop the third tower.
We could see the last tower of rock guarding our summit from where we stood. We each slowly navigated our hands and feet, trusting single holds over airy sections that opened up to the ground floor dotted with miniature ponderosa pines. We downclimbed to get to the final saddle before the tower finish. I looked up at the last 1,000 feet of climbing to the summit, it was so close, yet so far. We roped up for the first twenty feet of climbing up a thin zig-zagging hand-crack that Zach led. Then we unroped again for the final stretch. We each took our own path up boulders and 4th and 5th class climbing. We moved at our own pace, feeling exposed at some sections, and we did what we needed to to ascend: jam our feet in cracks, pull up on lips of rock, and wedge our bodies up chimneys. As we climbed higher the air got thinner, we were now approaching 13,000 feet and were more than 12 hours into the climb. We felt the physical and mental strain of the day, but we kept moving. 100 feet from the top, we all met up and decided to move through the finish together. Jameson took the lead, Zach followed, and in tow. Jameson and Zach scramble over a pile of rocks that led to a shallow platform, I follow and moments later witness the unthinkable.
The accident.
Zach and Jameson were 40 or 50 feet in front of me. I turned a corner of granite and had a clear view of my friends. We were working our way up a 30 foot wide series of naturally formed ledges, interspersed with patches of dirt. The section was as wide as someone’s front lawn. It felt secure but then slopped off quickly to the right and cliffed out to a glaring and airy landscape, sitting thousands of feet above the ground floor. We were moving through the section separately, Jameson in the lead and Zach three or four body lengths behind him, and I 20 feet behind Zach. We all were moving cautiously but with a lightness in the air, as we had been doing all day. We were about to unlock the summit.
I had a clear view of them both. I watched Zach grab onto a giant flake of rock, something that should have been stable and held. But should have and reality are different things. It was a flake of rock the size of a kitchen table and it sat beneath a giant boulder. As if pulling a Jenga piece, with little effort, as soon as Zach put his weight on the flake, it pulled out from underneath him. He flew backwards. His hands still held on. I watched in horror as a sedan-sized block above him dislodged and came hurling towards his body. I watched Zach rag doll. His arms and legs flew up in the air uncontrolled, his head marked by his orange helmet bounced off one ledge, onto another, then again onto another gaining speed. Rocks fell from all directions, a huge cloud of dust rose. I prayed silently that I wasn’t about to watch my friend get flattened by a giant rock or worse, freefall over the edge of a cliff into the unknown. I watched as smaller rocks knocked loose from above, crashing down all around him. The giant mass of granite and he tumbled in unison, then it bounced a few feet over his head, narrowly missing him. Zach stopped suddenly as he hit a vertical piece of rock protruding from a patch of dirt. The giant boulder kept rolling, taking with it everything in its path, then disappearing over the edge with a long-sustained rumble culminating in a loud crash.
Dust hung silently in the air and there lay Zach in the fetal position. My eyes slowly move from Zack to see Jameson. Looking back at each other speechless, unspoken but understood, “what the hell just happened?” Zach started to move. He was alive. I took a deep breath of relief. God, he was alive. I am glad Zach’s alive.
It seemed like a great idea at the time…
words by zach auvil
It seemed like a great idea at the time. Most of the great climbs in the world trace striking lines so why shouldn’t ours? I was hoping to follow an aesthetic line by completing the North Ridge on the arete-actual instead of escaping out a notch to the side. But hindsight is 20/20 and the words of both Robert Burns and Frost now echo in my head, nothing more than a mouse that should have followed the path more traveled and left with a plan gone awry.
It was roughly 1:30 in the afternoon and though we had been up for 12 hours already, spirits were high. The end was in sight and, acting as a sort of scout, I scrambled across easy 3rd and 4th class terrain to see if the line I envisioned would go. Gaining a ledge, I looked towards climber’s left at the spine of the ridgeline and saw stacks of granite flakes jutting every which way. The climbing seemed like it would be low 5th class at best but being that we decided to unrope in order to cover easy ground quickly, I decided to err on the side of caution and get back to the easy terrain. Besides, we were on schedule and could see the summit not more than 50 feet away. There was no reason to force things now.
Scoping out a path back to the easy terrain that Jameson had followed, I could either downclimb roughly 15 feet of blocky terrain or intersect the path by a traverse using a horizontal flake resting atop a vertical block. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of downclimbing, so I elected to attempt the traverse. The flake was large and seemed to be resting solidly on one massive vertical block while being pinned down by a refrigerator-sized block or two. A positive, 3-4 foot long horizontal rail made up the outward-facing side of the flake and the vertical block beneath had large crystals and that great friction that the Eastside often provides. It felt like it was the hundredth time I had seen a pile of granite blocks like this and, as I started across, it felt like the hundredth time I had climbed on such a stack. I grasped the horizontal rail with both hands and smeared my right foot on the vertical face. Without any hesitation, I lifted my left foot from the ledge to smear on the face when I felt my stomach drop.
I’m sure we’ve all done small feats we can’t explain, when our reaction to an event seems to come automatically and with a speed we can’t account for. I once backstepped during a fall when I was new to sport climbing, and as soon as I felt a slight pressure on the back of my leg from the rope, I instinctively curled into a ball and avoided hitting my head. Just the other day as I opened a cabinet, a ramekin dropped from 4 feet above my counter and I caught it before meeting its almost certain fate. When I lifted my left foot off the ledge my full weight tilted the flake like a schoolyard toy and, stuck on the low side of the teeter-totter, those fridge-sized blocks that I thought were holding the flake in place were pitched towards me. Looking back, it seems like it was a coin toss: hold on or bail. I don’t know why I held to the flake for as long as I did, I could have just as easily chosen to bail off to the ground about 10 feet below, but I held on.
Blocks, talus, scree, and sand trundled around and over me for what felt like too long. I continued to hold on, instinctively tucking my head into the rock when a knock to the back of my head sent a shock through my body and unwillingly released my grip. I began to fall with the shower of scree around me. In that next moment I remember looking down and spotting the ground below as if I planned to land like a superhero on my hands and feet. I hit the ledge below the flake and rolled to the next lower ledge a little further down where I came to a halt. A few remnants of gravel and dust skittered down as I looked at a strange new scene. It had all happened so fast. David was staring at me now, wide-eyed and mouth agape, stopped in his tracks where we had just climbed up from. On his left I could see the massive fridge-sized blocks tumble 15 feet further down from my resting point and disappear over the edge. In awe, both Jameson and David shouted expletives and asked if I was alright and demanded that I did not move. Initially, I ignored them and ran a quick system check, “OK: my legs move, my arms move, no bones are poking out, my torso doesn’t hurt… I think I’m ok…” In the distance I could hear the fallen blocks echo as they crashed on slabs more than a thousand feet below.
With my two friends rightfully worried, I assured them that I was alright, that I didn’t intend on moving yet, and since I didn’t think I had any broken bones and I could speak that we should all just take a breath. Feeling my head begin to throb, I asked if Jameson, who was already carefully working his way down to me, could come check out my skull. I removed my helmet and Jameson gently palpated around a bloody, inch and a half long cut on the back of my head. Thankfully, neither of us felt any softness that would indicate a skull fracture. After a moment or two more of rest I managed to carefully stand up and found that I was ambulatory but with a slight limp. I began to gather the wrappers and snacks from my now tattered pack that were strewn about the ground. Having been forcibly placed on the easy terrain, I followed Jameson, with David in tow, up the path towards the notch and gained the summit.
Jameson and I found a small flat area on the summit and before I could say much, he embraced me in relief. Had I let go much sooner I could have easily been crushed by those massive blocks. Had I kept rolling I would have joined those same blocks in their hasty descent to the base of Lone Pine Peak. Did the massive flake move because no one had touched it before? Or had all those blocks been jostled loose from the earthquake back in July? In any case, this wasn’t the time to focus on these questions or “what if…” scenarios.
David had joined us and after his embrace we started to run through a full assessment of my injuries. Jameson, acting off his Wilderness First Aid experience, dictated to David, who was transcribing diligently on his phone, the time of the accident, a list of injuries, and various symptoms. Unfortunately, being from 0 feet of elevation in San Diego, I have found it difficult to completely avoid symptoms of altitude sickness during these soirees into the alpine. So as my head began to throb more and my stomach began to churn, it was hard to tell if these were symptoms due to altitude sickness or because I had just been clocked in the back of the head by a boulder. Regardless, after a brief snack and rest I expressed my urge to get lower in elevation and ultimately back to camp. We signed the summit register and took off down the descent route.
We followed our pooled beta from friends and other sources to guide us to the descent chute. After the shenanigans of scree-skiing for a few thousand feet, we finally made it back to flat ground – no more vertical. Passing by alpine pools, we gained the Meysan Lakes trail a few miles from the trailhead and began the slog back to camp. Eventually the decision was made for certain that we would not be staying at Whitney Portal for the night. With that settled, Jameson sped down the trail ahead of David and me to tear down camp. Every ten or so minutes brought a drop in our elevation and a slight relief to my pounding headache. Eventually, after what felt like an absurdly long time, we arrived at the trailhead where we found Jameson waiting to shuttle us in his Subaru back to the campsite. Feeling wasted at this point, we cleaned up the last few remnants of our camp and drove down to Lone Pine. That night the three of us stayed in a hotel in town. Following concussion protocol, David and I set our alarms for every few hours and woke up throughout the night to perform lucidity and awareness checks to make sure I was doing well.
The sun had just breached the eastern side of the Owens Valley as Jameson, David, and I walked towards the Alabama Hills Café. We ordered breakfast and ate outside in COVID-19 fashion as we talked and gazed at the full North Ridge of Lone Pine Peak. The trip was over.
