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Story by Scotty Nelson
"Dude, check this out!" my buddy Shawn said, shoving the Sierra guidebook in my face. It was spring, and the Sierras were just beginning to thaw out. Hmmmm….what do we have here…Lone Pine Peak. "This is an impressive peak when viewed from Lone Pine…rock climbers are intrigued by the mile wide, 3,000 foot big wall on the peak's south face." YE-YAAAY! I read on, "Direct South Face…V 5.7 A0 or 5.9, FA Fred Beckey and Eric Bjornstad 1970…a great test piece for the recreational climber who wants to apply his or her crag skills on a wilderness big wall. There are many bivouac ledges, and in early season snow may be available for water."
Two words sprung to mind: "NICE NICE!" "Dude, Shawn, we're there!"
1 A.M., a few weeks later. Barreling down 395, I've got the cruise control set at 95. The night is crisp and clear…it's just the darkness and us. We coast silently through the town of Lone Pine, turn left at "the" stoplight and head west. I skill-lessly rodeo the car up and along the narrow and rough road, sweating bullets. Shawn shows little concern-maybe he would if he knew I just learned how to drive 3 months ago.
We skid to a dusty halt at the Tuttle Creek trailhead. Shawn's pooped, nursing a hangover. We should sleep, but we only have 2 days, and besides, I'm harboring a secret desire to have at it 'hardman' style. I convince Shaw that it'd be a good idea to get to the base tonight. He must have still been drunk to agree, but we start walking. The trail ends at a stone hut, built by some yoga freaks in the 60s.
"I think we're supposed to go this way" I say, pointing up the ridge and into the blackness. "Are you sure bro?" Shawn asks wearily. "Positive" I say, and charge on. Almost immediately we end up hopelessly lost, and spend hours descending nightmarishly loose and steep gravel cliffs into the canyon, hating life. Shawn takes a spill near the bottom, tumbling to a halt at my feet.
"Dude this sucks!" he exclaims. I can tell he feels like shit, but I still want to press on to the base. No way Jose, he says, and insists we get a little sleep. I oblige. It's 5 AM and we can barely make out the silhouette of the menacing South Face.
7:30 AM, the bugs and sun are up. It's hot. We get moving, and endure the second half of the worst approach of my life, thrashing through jungles of manzanita and brush, slogging up scree fields and swatting bugs under a merciless sun. We have no idea where the route starts, and in an act of final desperation, Shawn throws his pack down, points to a random corner and declares it the start of our route. At this point I figure anything is better than more manzanita thrashing, and foolishly agree. I tie in and cast off, wobbling my way up a greasy 5.8 corner, which deposits us on a ledge system. Shawn follows, and we trudge upwards, following endless 3rd class ledge systems up the face. Monotonous progress leads through an interesting needle's eye. Although we enthusiastically try to match this to our route description, it soon becomes plainly obvious that we're lost. After several hours we are sufficiently demoralized and decide to stake out a bivy spot.
"Oh man, I'm STARVED!" Shawn exclaims, "What's for
dinner?"
"For you, my friend, only the best: Skippy Super
Chunk peanut butter"
"Gross! What else we got?"
"Umm...dirt,
twigs..."
Shawn was not amused.
Armed with my spoon, I attack the peanut butter with a wild venegeance, while Shawn looks on disgusted. MMMM. He didn't have any. We made a feeble attempt at a campfire, which ended up producing more smoke than heat, and discussed retreat. I expressed my concern, as today was Saturday, and I had a big test on Monday. Oh course I knew in my heart that retreating from the climb for such a lame reason would be an abomination, treachery on it's grandest level, and an unspeakable wrong. Looking for justification to support my extremely weak case I pointed to a tiny cloud, the only one in the sky, and muttered feebly, "Plus, THAT definitely doesn't look good." Shawn looked at me, then up at the cloud, then back at me again, and shook his head, ashamed.
Dawn. Not a cloud in the sky. Damn! Bereft of excuses, I choke down some Super Chunk and pack up. We're plum out of water, but are lucky enough to find a fresh mountain spring. After filling up we press on, scrambling up into a big chute. A few moments of school childish excitement follow, when we realize we might actually be on route. This fades quickly, as we find we cannot match anything we see to our description. We decide from that point on to disregard the route description and just follow our noses.
We climb a 5th class pitch up the back of wall of the chute, and find ourselves on top of a ridge of some sorts. We continue up this, Shawn leading a runout pitch of 5.7 face climbing. Slogging/scrambling follows, and at this point we make a critical mistake by choosing to continue slogging up a gully instead of moving back up onto the ridge. More slogging, then the gully gets steep, and we rope up. Several pitches on ice-cold loose rock lead to an impasse-a blank wall. Shawn takes the sharp end and makes an impressive 5.9 lead with bad fall potential around this, and announces he's on top. WHOA! I didn't even think we were close.
I follow the pitch, marveling simultaneously at Shawn's boldness and my good fortune (for not having to lead this!). We coil the rope, and hightail it to the top, being greeted by the enormous and perfectly flat expanse of sand and rocks that is the summit plateau of Lone Pine Peak. We skip the trip to the fairly distant summit register and make for the descent.
The descent is OK, just a lot of slogging (but what else was new?) The walk out wasn't too bad either (in the light, with a trail). At one point we might have even discussed coming back, to try the Winter Route (this is a curious trait, particular only to climbers) We hit the car, then the road. By midnight we were back in San Diego. Good thing, too, cause we were fresh out of peanut butter.