Will aborted quest for 14ers abort 14er quest?

I’m writing this short post to wrap up my bachelor life here in California. Betsy arrives on Saturday!

Much of my time and about 99 percent of my energy since the last post has been devoted to reaching, but failing to climb, Mt. Tyndall and Mt. Williamson.

There are routes to the summits of both peaks that are, in theory, well within my capabilities and experience and I made an arduous three-day, 28-mile hike with an elevation gain of 7,500 feet carrying a heavy pack to reach the base of Mt. Tyndall at the top of 12,000-foot Shepherd Pass, which is steep and still covered in snow requiring crampons and ice ax to negotiate the final 500 feet of gain.

The Shepherd Pass Trail might be my most demanding backpacking experience ever.

But I got there in fine shape, the weather was great and I had plenty of food.

Yet I passed on the mountains. Turned around and went home empty handed.

I’m not sure exactly what my problem is. Age, anxiety, self-doubt?

It didn’t help that I talked to a 20-something kid that slipped descending on the slick snow near the ridge crest of Mt. Tyndall. He said he was well on his way to oblivion until he grabbed a rock ledge and stopped the slide. But he was ecstatic with having reached the summit.

“My first 14er,” he told me.

I had a very similar experience at very nearly the same age (on a Colorado 13er) and have never been comfortable on the steep snow climbs. Maybe it was his story and those memories that spooked me. Would Mt. Tyndall be my last 14er I wondered?

It also didn’t help that the handful of climbers that had used the weekend to get there left soon after I arrived leaving me as, seemingly, the only human being in the daunting vastness of the Pacific Crest. Maybe that was it?

Whatever the reason(s) for my discomfort it may well be that the sentence in my obituary will have to change from; “Mr. Pasley climbed all 75 of the 14ers in the lower 48 states.” to “Mr. Pasley climbed 70 different U.S. 14ers.”

Because I was, potentially, out for so long I tried to conserve power on electronic devices and did not take very many photos. But here are a few of the few.

One of the nice things about the Sierras in the summer is the bomber weather. Weeks pass without any hint of rain or snow. So why bother with a tent? I had hopes of making it all the way to the pass in one day but by the time I reached a place called Anvil Camp where there is water and shade and (compared to most of the rest of the trail) relatively few rocks I was gassed. So I spent my first night here.

Above Anvil Camp there are no more trees (or shade) and plenty of snow fields to negotiate.

It may not look like much but a trail through piles of rubble like this is a godsend, especially with a heavy pack.

Most of the carcass of this deer was half-buried in the snow field a few hundred yards above this point and someone may have moved the severed head here. An omen? On a positive note I also saw several live deer at various points along the trail, and on other hikes.

This is the start of the final ascent, about 500 vertical feet, to Shepherd Pass. It looks a lot steeper when you are standing there...and much steeper when you are standing at the top on the way down!

Believe it or not this is Sequoia National Park. The eastern boundary of this vast park adjoins the even more vast Inyo National Forest near the crest of Shepherd Pass.

That's Mt. Williamson.

This is Mt. Tyndall. The "easy" route ascends the rib on the left to the ridge crest, then left along the ridge to the summit. A lot of climbers used the snow just to the right of the rib. It's not that hard of a climb.

Descending back down the trail.

Still descending.

One of the things that makes that makes the Shepherd Pass trail arduous is that, about midway, it loses 500 feet of elevation to skirt some cliffs. On the return those 500 feet have to be regained to reach the Symmes Saddle which you can see in this photo.

The Owens Valley about four miles above the trailhead. The green spot out there is the town of Independence, the Inyo County seat.