MT. TYNDALL
(14,015 ft.)June 29, 2006
By Tim Briese
After our long dayhike of Mt. Langley on Tuesday, Brian and I planned to backpack on Wednesday to the vicinity of Shepherd Pass to get ourselves in a position to climb Mt. Tyndall and Mt. Williamson on the following days.
We wanted to get an early start to avoid the desert heat that can make the lower elevation portion of this backpack very uncomfortable. When we arose at the Comfort Inn in Lone Pine at 5:30 a.m., however, we were shocked to look out the window and see a rainstorm in progress, a most unexpected sight in the desert! Neither of us was excited about backpacking in the rain, so we delayed our start for a while until the weather began to improve. After a couple of hours we drove north to Independence, then followed roads west and south toward the Shepherd Pass Trailhead. Mt. Williamson was a majestic sight a few miles away to the southwest. The last couple of miles of the dirt road were a little rough for our Dodge Stratus rental car, and a short distance from the trailhead we came to a washed-out place more suitable for high clearance vehicles. We could have possibly driven around it as other vehicles had apparently done, but decided to err on the side of caution in this remote place and simply parked and walked the last 200 yards to the trailhead.
At 8:50 we left the trailhead and began our backpack. The elevation was only about 6200 feet here at the edge of the Owens Valley where the desert met the soaring Sierra, towering thousands of feet above. It was mostly sunny now, but still rather damp and cool from the early morning rain. On most summer days this could be a very hot hike. We followed Symmes Creek on a nice trail up a rugged canyon into the John Muir Wilderness. Four stream crossings were necessary, and Brian managed to deftly cross each time on rocks and logs, barely managing to keep his feet dry. The rocks appeared a little slippery to suit me so I chose to ford instead. After the last stream crossing, a mile and a half from the trailhead, the trail turned to the south and we began a long, grueling ascent up to a saddle between the Symmes Creek and Shepherd Creek drainages. The route climbed 2000 feet in about three miles, on a fine trail with a modest and fairly constant grade, accomplished through seemingly endless switchbacks, perhaps 50 or 60 of them in all. On the way up we met a lone backpacker from Las Vegas coming down who told us he had camped in the Williamson Bowl and attempted to climb Williamson, but was turned back by ice in a couloir.
We reached the pass at 12:20, after a two and a half hour ascent from Symmes Creek. We took a nice break here while enjoying a majestic view of Williamson across the valley to the south. From the pass the trail angled southwestward down into the Shepherd Creek drainage, relinquishing 500 feet of our precious elevation gain in the process. I wondered why the trail did not come directly up the Shepherd Creek drainage all the way from the Owens Valley, and concluded that perhaps the lower part of the canyon is too rugged to reasonably accommodate a trail. The sky was now filled with clouds, which provided welcome relief from the blazing June sun. After hiking almost two miles from the pass we crossed a little side creek which provided us with our first source of water in over four and a half miles. A shower of rain, complete with loud claps of thunder, rolled through while we hiked across Mahogany Flats and began ascending long switchbacks toward Anvil Camp.
Anvil Camp is a relatively flat, wooded area at about 10,400 feet elevation that is a popular camping area along the Shepherd Pass Trail. We arrived here at 4:15, having covered about nine and a half miles from the trailhead, and climbing a total of nearly 4700 feet of elevation gain. This was the most elevation gain I could ever recall having done with Brian on a day of backpacking. Earlier in the hike I had proposed the idea of hiking further to camp in the vicinity of Shepherd Pass in order to get ourselves in a better position to climb the peaks. By the time we reached Anvil Camp, however, Brian was spent, and frankly, I had had enough, too, so we decided to set up camp here and call it a day. We found a nice spot to place our tent amid some big rocks in the woods a short distance above the creek. The forest service requires the use of bear canisters for food storage for campers along many trails in the Sierra, but not this one, at least at the time we were here, but we nevertheless tied our food up in a tree with a piece of rope Brian brought along. Fortunately the mosquitoes were not too bothersome here compared to the swarms we had encountered along the trail to Langley the day before. The afternoon rain made for a damp and chilly evening, so it was easy to retire early to bed shortly after dinner.
Our plan at this point was to rise early on Thursday morning and climb either Mt. Williamson or Mt. Tyndall. We had intended to climb them both on this outing, but it was now apparent that this would be too tall of an order given the time, not to mention the energy, that we had available, because we needed to be back in Las Vegas Friday evening or Saturday morning to catch our flights home. Climbing Williamson from Anvil Camp would make for a very long and difficult day, with success uncertain, so in the end we decided to go for Tyndall, reasoning that it would be more fun and also easier, reducing our chances of returning empty-handed. We thought we could climb Tyndall in about 8 hours roundtrip from camp, but this turned out to be laughably over-optimistic, because it ended up taking us nearly 12! On this trip I gained a new respect for the difficulty of the California 14ers!
We rose at 3:40 and left camp a few minutes past 4 in the dark with our headlamps. A few hundred yards above camp we found the trail unexpectedly covered by massive banks of snow. We soon lost the route and proceeded to bushwhack up the rugged canyon on the snow in the dark. A set of fresh tracks in the snow made by a large animal, which we concluded to be a bear, made us a little uneasy. Brian slipped on a snow slope and slid down about 20 feet to rocks below, fortunately suffering no more than scratched fingers. Shortly after this we regained the trail and followed it up the rough talus-filled drainage to Shepherd Pass.
We arrived at the base of the pass about 5:30 a.m., in the early morning light, and were surprised to see the bear tracks again on the trail. This rocky wasteland seemed to me an odd place for a bear, but perhaps it was drawn here by the scent of humans and their food. The northeast-facing couloir below the pass was filled with snow, typical for this time of year. We climbed a rocky slope to the right of the snow as high as we could, then put on crampons and climbed up on nice solid, frozen snow the rest of the way to the top. We arrived on the crest of the 12,000 foot pass about 6:30, where we were treated to an impressive view of Tyndall off to the south. It stood grandly in the early morning light beneath a brilliant clear blue sky. We studied the two common routes up the peak and settled on the northwest ridge route, in the belief the north rib route might prove uncertain or even hazardous due to ice and steep snow.
After a short break we left the pass at 6:45 and embarked toward Tyndall. There were a couple of backpack tents set up in the vicinity of the pass, and I was now glad indeed that we had not tried to backpack all the way up here the day before, after seeing what was involved to get from Anvil Camp up to the pass. We headed south over snow and tundra, then west across talus to reach the base of Tyndall=s northwest ridge at about 12,600 feet. We got on the right side of the knife-like ridge and began a grueling climb up on very steep and loose talus. At about 13,300 feet I headed off to the left toward the ridge crest to check out the view on the other side, while Brian continued straight up over the talus blocks. When I had gone about a hundred feet Brian suddenly yelled out in alarm for help, because a rock had rolled and pinned his leg! I encouraged him to remain calm as I hurried over to help. The rock weighed perhaps 150 to 200 pounds, and I was just able to lift one end of it to free his leg. Miraculously he was not injured except for a small bruise. Fortunately the rock was not larger, too, because there were plenty of bigger ones on this slope that would have been impossible for us to move. This was indeed a close call, and help was a long way away. This incident reinforced the wisdom of not climbing alone in remote places when hazards are present.
We climbed higher and came to a snow slope and cramponed up about two or three hundred feet on steep snow. Just above this we reached a notch where the northwest ridge meets Tyndall=s west ridge. A towering gendarme greeted us on the other side of the notch. Porcella and Burns= guidebook says to go to the right of the gendarme, but the terrain looked steep and impassable, with no obvious route apparent. We proceeded instead around to the left of the gendarme and presently found ourselves on steep, exposed slabs with snow below. Brian decided to crampon along the top of the steep snow slope to get on the ridge crest via a gully about a hundred yards ahead. That route didn=t appeal to me so I climbed back around to the right of the gendarme, went a hundred feet down a steep gully, and climbed on steep rock along the right side of the ridge below the gendarme. This route was steep and exposed, and I very carefully climbed upper fourth class terrain in a couple of spots to get back up close to the crest of the ridge. I never did see a reasonable way around the gendarme on this so-called Aeasy Class 2 route@ ! Once past this crux, however, the climb simplified into an easy boulder hop along the right side of the ridge crest. I saw Brian ahead, and was glad he had successfully negotiated the crampon traverse.
I arrived on the summit at 10:50, about five minutes after Brian. I found him sitting on the incredibly exposed Class 4 summit block when I arrived. We took turns taking pictures of each other on it, then enjoyed the grand views from this fantastic summit. It was an incredible perch from which to gaze around at the Sierras, from Mt. Whitney to the south around to the rugged peaks off to the north. A frozen lake lay a dizzying 2000 feet below at the edge of the rugged Williamson Bowl. Directly across to the east, Mt.Williamson looked Aabsolutely frightening@, as Brian noted, and we tried to pick out the standard route up its convoluted west face. After looking over what was involved to climb Williamson, I was glad we had not attempted it today!
We were blessed with great weather on this fine day, the best we=d seen since arriving in California. This was the day we needed it the most, too. The sun shone pleasantly upon us in the pleasantly invigorating 45 degree air.
We left the top at 11:55 and scrambled back along the crest of the ridge to the short gully Brian had come up on the north side. We decided that a descent on snow down the north face would be far simpler than going back down the brutal talus slope, so we proceeded to crampon a thousand feet down on steep, soft snow along the left side of the north rib. The descent was fast and easy, taking only an hour. I was not totally comfortable with it, though, because I do not have a lot of experience on alpine snow slopes and do not trust their behavior. As we hiked across the basin below the peak we turned to look back at Tyndall, and noticed an area to the right where a slab of snow had apparently broken loose and slid down the north face that day. Perhaps our descent was not really as safe as it had appeared!
I was very thirsty by this time, and was glad to reach a pool of water in the basin where we filtered and drank to our content. A handful of other hikers were in the area now, mostly headed in the direction of the Williamson Bowl. We cramponed down on soft snow from Shepherd Pass back to the rocky trail below. I was getting very tired by now. We had not covered a lot of miles today but the type of climbing we had done had taken a toll on my body. We passed a foursome setting up camp at the west end of Anvil Camp who told us they were contemplating climbing Tyndall the next day, and they queried us about what to expect on the climb.
We returned to camp at 4 p.m., after covering seven miles and climbing 3600 feet of elevation gain today. We had earlier considered packing out today if we had time after returning from the climb, but that seemed ridiculous now! I could barely walk down to the stream to get water, let alone pack out! I had sorely underestimated the amount of conditioning required for this expedition. After cleaning up and eating dinner I dozed off in the tent by 7:30.
On Friday morning we rose at first light at 5 a.m. and packed up to leave. By 5:45 we were on the trail, in the golden early morning light, and quickly progressed down the trail below Anvil Camp. The day was clear and sunny, and we wanted to pack out before the heat set in. We made it to the pass at 8:25, and took one last glance at magnificent Mt. Williamson. It would remain an unclaimed prize for us, at least for now, perhaps forever. After all, I reminded myself, life is sweeter when some waters remain uncharted, when there still remains something left to strive for!
We hiked back down the countless switchbacks, forded Symmes Creek, and returned to the trailhead at 10:55. We eagerly looked forward to lunch and a shower in Lone Pine. On our climb of Mt. Tyndall we covered about 26 miles and climbed 8800 feet of elevation gain, all told.
I have read a trip report on the Internet about some guy who dayhiked Mt. Williamson from the Shepherd Pass Trailhead, in what I consider to be an almost superhuman feat. I don=t remember if he dayhiked Mt. Tyndall, too; maybe that was too easy to suit him! At any rate, I felt very good about what we had done, and that we made it out safely. I gained a renewed respect for California=s Sierra Nevada. They are a magnificent range.
