Palisades is a group of peaks in the sierras which is not so famous. A trip to palisades is something that I have been thinking about since Scott mentioned to them to me during our trip to Whitney. For this trip we had Kique and Scott as guides and me, Melanie and Christoph as the clients. Kique's friend Christine also joined us for the trip.
We parked our cars at the trail head and started the long 9 mile approach to the base camp. The approach to the base camp was long and arduous but lined with multiple lakes and water falls!
It took a long time to reach the camp ground. Initially we were thinking of camping a bit higher at the moraine but we were pretty tired so Kique in all his wisdom called the Sam Mack meadows as our campsite. The camp site was beautiful. Mountains and hill all around with a meadow and glacier run off in between. After setting up camp Scott and Kique went up to the base to scout some routes while me, Melanie and Christoph did some acclimatization.
 |
| V-notch (left) and U-notch straight ahead |
The next day we started at 3am for our summit attempt. Before the trip we knew we have many options to go up on Palisades. One of the possible routes were Thunderbolt to Sill which cover 5 14'000ers! The three main options that we had were
1) Mount Sill, Swiss Arete Grade III, 5.8 (summitpost)2) Thunderbolt Peak NorthEast Couloir Grade III 5.6 AI2 (summitpost)
3) Starlight Peak, Starlight Buttress Grade III, 5.4 AI2 (summitpost)
To be honest after reading a bit I was more stoked about the famous U-notch!
 |
| Christoph approaching the base of the bergschund |
From camp to the main approach site it was roughly 3 miles of hiking. The hike was simple but the altitude made things a bit worse already. We had to rock skip with moving boulders the size of a car! The sight of snow as always motivated me. We put on our crampons and began traversing the glacier. I always enjoy glacier travel with crampons. The sound of the metal spikes piercing the soft snow gives me the desire to just keep going. At this point we decided to climb the starlight buttress and then if possible descend through the u-notch.
 |
| Kique setting up the route |
Before we could start climbing there was a bergschrund that was required to be crossed. Kique saw this and in his usually self called this "spicy" and started leading it and setting up ropes for us. This was solid vertical ice climbing something that none of us were really prepared for but we managed to do so somehow.
 |
| Some fingers might have been lost |
Once we climbed up the bergschund it was easy going up for the next 6 to 8 hours. We rock climbed pitch after pitch sometimes with a running belay, some times with a short pitch.
 |
| Extreme exposure throughout the climb |
While climbing the rocks I completely lost track of the time. Once we reached the top of the buttress I looked at the my watch and it was 4pm. In all my previous day summit attempts we were well in our camps by this time after tagging the summit. This actually gave me some panic attacks. I totally trusted Kique and Scott but I had seen too many documentaries to know that this is not good news. I spoke to kique and the plan was to push for the summit not because of the summit but because the route down through u-notch would be easier and faster.
Any ways that didn't happen. We tried two different routes to reach the summit but both routes were a no go so we decided to retreat. This is where things began to really spice up. We were a total of 5 folks and we needed to descend around 10 pitches of 60m to reach the bergschrund and then tackle it.
Our retreat involved multiple rappels. Some rappels were 30m with a single rope some were 60m with double ropes. We also tried to speed up the rappels with trying two folks descending at the same time on each end of the 60m but that felt way more secure rappelling one at a time so we switched back. Rock fall was a major hazard. A pretty massive rock hit Kique leaving a massive dent in his helmet while Melanie was hit by two smaller ones. All in all we were all pretty glad to get off the rock face. It was definitely something way beyond ours (Mel, Christoph and mine) comfort zone.
It is one thing to be climbing in the gym or leading a few pitches outside but its a totally different thing rappelling for hours in the darkness, sitting alone at belay points waiting for your turn. We took turns at being the last one waiting at the belay point. On the last repel Scott left his ice tool 6 to 8 feet above the belay point. On a normal trip grabbing the tool would be totally normal but here it really freaked me out. Our belay point was a small string thrown over an outcrop. I was afraid that if I undid the belay point while and someone yanked on the rope I would be thrown over 60m. I mustered my courage and went for the tool and rappelled down the ice wall glad to be done with all long rappel pitches.
Once we reached the bottom there was the inner side of the bergchrund. Kique set up a another rope system so that we could climb out of the moat. At this point it was close to day break. We had been out for almost 24 hours totally destroyed. Melanie had slipped during one of her rappels and me and Christoph were pretty much done.
We gathered all our energy for the exiting the bergschrund and heading to dry land. To our surprise we saw Christine at end of the glacier travel. She was worried sick. She could see us rappelling down at night and thought one of us was injured. She hadn't joined us for the trip as she had massive blisters on her feet from the previous day so she decided to hike back and forth on flip flops carrying all our sleeping bags, a bivouac, food and water.
I was pretty happy to see the back of the vertical wall. It was definitely an adventure and I swear I must have thought never again but mountaineering amnesia is real. While writing this blog two months after the even I am sure all three of us would love to go back.
