Starlight Peak - Northwest Chute / Sept 25-27, 2018

It seems to me no resume of Sierra Climbing would be complete without doing a few of the 14ers along the Palisades crest. I'd done Thunderbolts West Ridge and the Swiss Arete on Sill back in 81 and 79 but have literally one slide to show for those two long ago adventures. Of all the "chute" climbs on the west side of the divide, it seemed like the Northwest Chute on Starlight had the most personality. Perhaps the West Face (5.4) of North Pal is a better option, but I could find zero beta on that route other than the sparse descriptions in various guides. So Starllight got the nod. Going over Thunderbolt Col on a really dry year makes almost no sense because you then need to drop down about 500' to find water. That experience was enough to convince me that after the climb I was going to return to Bishop Pass via the very scenic Knapsack Col. There is alot of beta on this route so I didn't have any issues with the route and near the top took the left hand option to reach the summit. I then climbed up a small pinnacle just SW of the Milk Bottle - one that is maybe 3-4 feet shorter in height and one I've never seen pics of climbers on the coveted boulder problem taken from. That was my summit. On the way down, the loose scree and gravel spoiled what was a pretty good route. I ended up doing 5 raps with a 7.7mm 50m rope. Note: album photo taken in May 2013 After that the three of us set off for the Needles, an exotic locale none of us had been to before. We spent a extra day or two there to climb as much as possible. Restocking the cooler was not a problem as there is was a general store on the main drag.

From there we took it easy and travelled up thru Kings Canyon to Yosemite and up to Toulumne which was about to close for the season. Someone got their signals crossed and the online reservations was telling folks the tioga road campgrounds were still open while the park service was saying the exact opposite. We found an open gate at one spot and a whole bunch of folks poured in for the night. Of course rules are rules so we all got booted. But, we were very low on gas, though the ranger needed to confirm that by having us light up engine. Anyway, he let us camp in the pull out across the road, which by morning was full of other folks who had arrived late.

We set off the next morning for Cathedral Peak and stayed up by Budd Lake. Rookies that we are, the bears made short work of our food bag and we woke to an empty larder. Not to be denied, we did the SE ridge and hoofed it back down to the snack shack at Tuolumne in time for burgers on the last day of the season. Most excellent.

We then toured around to the Buttermilks for some bouldering and free camping. Then it was down into Owen's River Gorge for the day. Some of the folks from the Needles seemed to be on the same tour!. That night we drove way up into the Bristlecone forest in the Whites and got some sunrise shots of the fantastic trees up there. We breakfasted we a fine view of the Palisades before retreating to Vegas for the evening flight home. No burning daylight on this trip.