The South Sister Epic
We've had some wild adventures in the mountains over the past few years, but this one really takes the cake.
Our effort to summit South Sister in Nevada's Spring Mountains unexpectedly became an epic battle that took us to the brink of our meager mountaineering skills. |
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Stephen Dale and I originally intended to climb nearby Lee Peak via the ski slopes on it's north side. However, a late snow kept the slopes open for an extra two weeks and the route was closed to climbers. So we opted to drive a few miles eastward and take another shot at a peak known as South Sister (the same summit that had eluded us so famously the previous autumn). Rather than risk a repeat of last year's mistake by attempting to follow someone else's route description, I decided to create our own route as we went along. And so our adventure began.
A frontal assault on the mountain was out of the question. The summit is a sheer rock face. We have no cams or climbing ropes and we are not skilled in technical climbing. Anything above class 3 is beyond our skill set, and I'm somewhat of a stickler for small details... like getting down from mountains alive. On the other hand, I was determined to keep the mountain in sight this time and approach from the south.
So off we went, hopping over several ridges before finding one that seemed to strike at the southwestern base of the summit cliff. We scrambled up the 50-degree incline, clambering through loose scree and over felled trees. After two hours we reached the southern face of the summit cliffs and realized that it was an impossible approach without technical climbing equipment. But people get up this mountain somehow, so there had to be a route.
All we had to do was find it.
We climbed a few class 3 rock formations and succeeded only in getting ourselves in deeper. The climbing was testing our skills, and therefore, our safety. Things were getting dangerous. Remember, at 10,000 feet elevation, danger is relative. A hiker, a mountaineer and a technical rock climber could all face the same cliff and have different experiences. The rock climber would have little trouble with our route. A mountaineer without technical skills would find it more dangerous. For the average backpacker it could be fatal. So you have to know your limitations and have the sense to climb within them, and we were at the edge of our abilities. The route was getting more and more difficult and retracing our steps was out of the question. The only direction we could reasonably go was forward. So we did.
Tired, disheartened and running short on time, I took over the duties of finding our exact route and made a decision: we would traverse the ridiculously steep scree slope on the south and southwestern sides of the summit face and try for the west ridge. If we made it, we might yet find a route to the summit. If not, we would retreat down the mountain the safest way we could manage and accept (another) defeat from The Sisters. This part of the climb was pretty tricky for a couple of non-technical mountaineers. We actually roped up once simply because we had never experienced such steep slopes. This really wasn't a route at all; it was more of an accident. If we could find the actual route to the top, things would get much easier very quickly.
We scrambled down into a ravine and up another ridge that appeared to hold more promise. The next hour was spent climbing that ridge until we came to the summit cliff. We were now working our way around the base of the summit cliff in a south to west direction, clockwise around the summit's base. This route doesn't appear on any climbing log and there's a good reason for that... no sane person would try it. Technical climbers would just attack the face. Everyone else would use the western ridge, which was becoming more obvious to us as we worked our way toward the west side of the summit cliffs.
We finally did manage to gain the west ridge after another spooky hour of climbing, and from there the chute approaching both Midde and South Sister was obvious. Just when we were certain that the day would end in failure, we had found our way up! Boy, were we excited. After being denied the chance to climb Lee Peak, arriving with no maps of The Sisters, working only from memory and failing to summit on the south ridge, this was a real victory.
Stephen Dale and I summited South Sister at 2:10 pm and spent the next hour enjoying our achievement and having lunch atop one of the most gorgeous mountains in the southwest. Unobstructed views were available from 10,000 feet elevation in every direction. The day was perfectly clear and we could clearly see the mountain range west of the California border, as well as the desert valley to the east, just north of Las Vegas. We relaxed, managed to find a weak phone signal to call home, and ate lunch.
The first 800 feet of our descent was a bit scary as well. We still had no maps and no route available, so I picked out the west ridge as our guide and did the rest with compass and dead reckoning. After half an hour, we were past the 50-degree scree slopes and shortcutting through the ravines that led back toward the main road where our car was parked several thousand feet below. The trip back was blessedly uneventful, and we were delighted to have overcome what was - for us - one of the biggest climbing obstacles that we'd ever experienced and finally summit the peak that proved so elusive the year before.
A frontal assault on the mountain was out of the question. The summit is a sheer rock face. We have no cams or climbing ropes and we are not skilled in technical climbing. Anything above class 3 is beyond our skill set, and I'm somewhat of a stickler for small details... like getting down from mountains alive. On the other hand, I was determined to keep the mountain in sight this time and approach from the south.
So off we went, hopping over several ridges before finding one that seemed to strike at the southwestern base of the summit cliff. We scrambled up the 50-degree incline, clambering through loose scree and over felled trees. After two hours we reached the southern face of the summit cliffs and realized that it was an impossible approach without technical climbing equipment. But people get up this mountain somehow, so there had to be a route.
All we had to do was find it.
We climbed a few class 3 rock formations and succeeded only in getting ourselves in deeper. The climbing was testing our skills, and therefore, our safety. Things were getting dangerous. Remember, at 10,000 feet elevation, danger is relative. A hiker, a mountaineer and a technical rock climber could all face the same cliff and have different experiences. The rock climber would have little trouble with our route. A mountaineer without technical skills would find it more dangerous. For the average backpacker it could be fatal. So you have to know your limitations and have the sense to climb within them, and we were at the edge of our abilities. The route was getting more and more difficult and retracing our steps was out of the question. The only direction we could reasonably go was forward. So we did.
Tired, disheartened and running short on time, I took over the duties of finding our exact route and made a decision: we would traverse the ridiculously steep scree slope on the south and southwestern sides of the summit face and try for the west ridge. If we made it, we might yet find a route to the summit. If not, we would retreat down the mountain the safest way we could manage and accept (another) defeat from The Sisters. This part of the climb was pretty tricky for a couple of non-technical mountaineers. We actually roped up once simply because we had never experienced such steep slopes. This really wasn't a route at all; it was more of an accident. If we could find the actual route to the top, things would get much easier very quickly.
We scrambled down into a ravine and up another ridge that appeared to hold more promise. The next hour was spent climbing that ridge until we came to the summit cliff. We were now working our way around the base of the summit cliff in a south to west direction, clockwise around the summit's base. This route doesn't appear on any climbing log and there's a good reason for that... no sane person would try it. Technical climbers would just attack the face. Everyone else would use the western ridge, which was becoming more obvious to us as we worked our way toward the west side of the summit cliffs.
We finally did manage to gain the west ridge after another spooky hour of climbing, and from there the chute approaching both Midde and South Sister was obvious. Just when we were certain that the day would end in failure, we had found our way up! Boy, were we excited. After being denied the chance to climb Lee Peak, arriving with no maps of The Sisters, working only from memory and failing to summit on the south ridge, this was a real victory.
Stephen Dale and I summited South Sister at 2:10 pm and spent the next hour enjoying our achievement and having lunch atop one of the most gorgeous mountains in the southwest. Unobstructed views were available from 10,000 feet elevation in every direction. The day was perfectly clear and we could clearly see the mountain range west of the California border, as well as the desert valley to the east, just north of Las Vegas. We relaxed, managed to find a weak phone signal to call home, and ate lunch.
The first 800 feet of our descent was a bit scary as well. We still had no maps and no route available, so I picked out the west ridge as our guide and did the rest with compass and dead reckoning. After half an hour, we were past the 50-degree scree slopes and shortcutting through the ravines that led back toward the main road where our car was parked several thousand feet below. The trip back was blessedly uneventful, and we were delighted to have overcome what was - for us - one of the biggest climbing obstacles that we'd ever experienced and finally summit the peak that proved so elusive the year before.