This is the title of Alsup's book, about Walter "Pete" Starr Jr. who died in a fall on Michael Minaret in August of 1933. His body was interred where it was found by two of the more notable climbers of the day, Norman Clyde and Jules Eichorn. To commemorate Pete's untimely death and his contributions to Sierra mountaineering, four of us set out to visit his gravesite this past weekend and place a memorial plaque on this 70th anniversary of the tragedy. The trip hardly went as planned, but was a unanimous success among our party. I will post pictures in a few days (when I get home) and more complete trip reports eventually, but here's a shorter version of our holiday weekend:
Thur (hey, we start the holiday early, no?):
Dave and I go for an acclimatization hike in Little Lakes Valley. Starting from Mosquito Flat TH at 6:15a, we take a more or less direct line up to Mt. Starr over enjoyable class 3 terrain. I'm not feeling well from the start - upset stomach, and am going slower than usual. Dave actually likes that and hopes Im sick all weekend (I am). We arrived at the summit after 2hrs.
From there we head down to Mono Pass, and back up to Ruby Ridge to attempt the class 5 traverse to Mt. Mills. Mt. Mills is the stretch goal which we never make - but we did make it to Ruby Peak after some very enjoyable class 3-4 climbing to get there. We thought the hardest climbing was class 4, not the class 5 described by Secor. It took us 5hrs to get from Mt. Starr to Ruby Peak. We descended the easy class 3 East Chutes down to Ruby Lake and back to the trailhead for an 11hr outing. The next visit would be to climb from Ruby Peak to Mt. Mills.
That night the four of us meet over dinner. Dave and I are a bit beat, but better acclimatized. We go to bed at 11a in a room at the Rodeway Inn in Mammoth. 12a I wake up, lie fitfully in bed, then wretch my guts out at 1a. I go to bed thinking I'm going to have to bail out of the trip in the morning.
Fri:
4 of us head out from Devils Postpile up the Minaret Lakes Trail at 7:15a. I'm feeling sick in the stomach, but otherwise OK. It takes five hours to reach Cecile lake at the base of the Minarete where we set up camp. Michele and Romain are an hour later, not being acclimatized. While we wait for the others, Dave and I recover the 43lb plaque (11" x 18", bronze) that he had stashed in the rocks the previous week. I pack it in my backpack and climbed up to South Notch.
I then haul it nearly over to Amphitheater Lake where I unload this beastly burden. On the way back I miss South Notch and end up over by Starr Minaret. What the hell, I decide to climb the class 2 West Ridge, but quit 1/3 of the way up - my stomach says go back. I arrived back at camp around 6:30p. The others are having a lively time, we have pasta for dinner, but I am out of it mentally. I go to bed before 8p. I expect I will get up in the morning and hike back as I feel crappy - I at least hauled the plaque up to South Notch as promised, and a bit further. No barfing tonight.
Sat:
Big Day. Romain is up at 5a with headlamp ablaze to start the day. I think he is crazy and go back to sleep. At 6a I am served breakfast in bed, a cup of reconstituted scrambled egg and bacon bits. I reluctantly get up, but at least I feel a bit better.
Romain leaves for South Notch shortly before 7a, Micahel and Dave ten minutes later, and myself last at 7:15a. I caught up to the others at the base of the glacier where we stop to put on crampons. Dave and Michele have a bit of trouble since this is the first time they've put on these new pairs of G12s.
I arrived at South Notch before the others and attempt the West Ridge of nearby Kehrein Minaret. The class 4 proves too difficult for me and I back off as the others arrive at the notch. We head to Amphitheater Lake where we pick up the plaque, my pack once again a complete pain. With crampons/axe and other gear it weighs in at over 50 lbs, and I really hope old Petey appreciates my sacrifice.
We refill with water at the lake and discuss our approach options. We need to get to the NW Face of Michael Minaret, but are facing it from the east. There are two routes up - the left is a tedious but technically easy class 2-3 talus slog to the south side of Michael.
This is still the wrong side and we would have to climb down and around to the NW side. We don't know what the west side of this route looks like, but the topo shows probable cliffs. The right side is a 5.4 route called Amphitheater Chute leading up to the notch between Michael and Eichorn Minaret. We decide to go this second option, though in hindsight we think we made a tactical error by not approaching from the west side via North Notch or The Gap.
Secor describes two chockstones in the route, but we find three. The first is more like class 4 to bypass on the right and we all do so without roping up. At the base of the 2nd chockstone we stop to rope up - it looks tough here. Dave goes up on lead first with me belaying him.
His pack is also somewhat heavy as he is carrying a power drill, hammer, and other tools in addition to his personal gear. He finds the rock frightfully loose and makes slow progress. After climbing 25 feet up the right side of the chockstone, he comes to a stop at the crux, an 8-foot dihedral with poor holds. After some time he gives up and comes down. I offer to lead if some switches packs. No takers.
Romain goes up on lead without a pack and does a beautiful job getting by the crux. Above that is a steep, unprotectable slabby section that gives a bit of trouble, but he makes it. No one in our party thinks this is a class 5.4 route - more like 5.6.
The first pitch is only half a rope length long, above that is more scrambling. To save time, Michele ties in the middle of the rope and goes up, while I tie in at the end of the rope and trail the second rope for Dave. This will save hauling one pack by not having a second leader. Michele struggles up the crux and the unprotected section. Though she has a rope above her, it is far to the side and a fall will pendulum her into the chockstone.
I followed third and had a horrible time at the crux. All my muscles were stretched, most of all my arms as I struggled to haul up that dihedral. At one point I thought I was falling, but only swung out to the other side of the dihedral. Panting, sweating, and cursing I hauled myself to a ledge just above the crux.
My arms are completely spent and I had to rest five minutes before I could bend my fingers again to climb. At the unprotected section I balked and decided to take an alternative route - two tiny ledges for footholds to the left gave me just enough distance to make a jump to the top of the chockstone. Romain tells me not to, concerned I would hurt my ankles with the weight on my back. I don't care and jump, landing safely.
While Romain and Michele haul Romain's pack on the first rope with Dave's help from below, I climbed up higher to the base of the third chockstone. Dave climbed up last, having better success now on second than at lead. At the third chockstone we can almost free around it. It is really two chockstones on top of each other, but a short route goes right around the lower, across the top of the lower, and left of the upper. But the move left of the upper is exposed and sketchy, so we opt for the rope again.
Romain leads again without his pack, followed by Michele and Dave, tying in at intermediate points on the rope. Next we hauled the pack, followed by myself at the end of the rope (it was nice to have a 60m rope for this). Finally we scrambled to the top of the notch.
By now it is 2:30p and Romain and I are worried that we are running out of time, Romain particularly so. Our plan was to return via North Notch, which meant climbing down Michael's Chute on the west side, traversing north, over North Notch, down to Iceberg Lake, and back to Cecile Lake.
Romain and I had blundered by not bringing headlamps like the other two - we thought there was no way this could take all day. But I still thought I could make tracks quickly to get back after the plaque was placed, and so worried less than Romain. None of us had bivy gear, and I was the least prepared, wearing cotton pants and t-shirt with only a light jacket in my pack.
We had lunch at the notch while we got our bearings and tried to figure out what we were looking at on the other side, comparing our surroundings to those in the pictures we had from our various sources. We decided we were at the top of Eichorn Chute, and needed to traverse SW around to Michael's Chute. Easier said than done, but I found a way to scramble around to a point on the buttress between the two chutes marked by a large cairn.
This was the traverse described by Secor to get from Eichorn's Chute to Michael's Chute. Here we had a full view, closeup, of the NW Face and of the place where Pete Starr had met his fate. All the pictures we had studied beforehand were now in full-life before us, and it was awesome.
We had planned to scour the NW face for traces of Pete's gear and his bones that are missing, but that was obviously not going to happen. Not only were we short on time, but the whole face is frightfully exposed and serious class 5. I had no desire to scavenge for gold on that face let alone old bones, and the others seemed in complete agreement.
We had renewed awe for Norman and Jules who climbed the face to inter the body, for Steve Roper who visited the gravesite in 1999, and for Pete Starr for attempting this new route in the first place.
It took us over an hour to install the plaque on a vertical face of rock on the buttress that would be visible from both Michael's and Eichorn's Chutes, in full view of the NW Face. It was around 5p when we began our decent of Michael's Chute, only 2 1/2 hours of daylight remaining.
After a bit of scrambling, we came to first of many chockstones in this class 4-5 chute. It took us an hour and half to complete 4 rappels. Romain and I were setting up all the rappels and hauling the ropes back down, Michele and Dave going in the middle. Dave was dehydrated and spent by this time, having lost his confidence on the rock and moving slowly. Michele was cheerful as always bless her, while Romain and I were growing nervous and somewhat agitated watching the sun sink lower in the western sky.
It was 6:45p when we exited the chute, the technical parts behind us. Dave went ahead down several hundred yards of talus to get water to refill his and Michele's Camelbacks. Michele and Romain changed out of their rock shoes while I pulled, coiled, and packed the 60m rope. Romain packed the small rope and the gear, Dave had the drill and other tools.
Romain and I decided to forgo the trip down to the lake and instead try to get to North Notch and back to the trail before darkness overtook us since we didn't have headlamps. Trying to follow the others by their lamplight over class 3 terrain seemed too scary. Michele waited for Dave to return with the water while Romain and I headed out on the traverse.
I had a cup of water remaining, sharing some with Romain who was out (having shared his with Dave). Halfway during the traverse up and over several gullies, the sun set to the west over Yosemite's Clark Range. Daylight began to fade quickly.
It was 8p when I reached North Notch, or what I had thought was North Notch. On the other side a large glacier greeted me, not what I was expecting. Turns out we were at The Gap, an easier pass, but further north along the range. Before me I could see Lake Ediza far below , no sign of Iceberg Lake as we'd hoped. Looking back in the fading light I could see Dave and Michele making their way over the talus towards me, about 30min behind.
Romain was climbing up to one side, and I called him over to join me. We shared the remaining sips of my water. Our chances of getting out of this without a bivy were slimming by the minute. A bivy in addition no water seemed too horrible to imagine. It was windy at The Gap and we needed to descend as soon as possible.
I had all my clothes on, including my leather gloves and hat. I tightened the strap on my hat, pulling the sun flaps close to my ears to warm them as much as possible, but the hat itself had no insulation. We decided not to wait for the others and head down as far as we could. We put on our crampons quickly and hurried down the gentle slopes of the glacier.
It seemed there was just enough light to get them back off again and packed away, though by now I could probably do it with my eyes closed. I went ahead to the right (east) to check out the route ahead, but found only cliffs. We saw two points of light at The Gap above us, so we knew the others at least found the route over. I could barely hear Dave's voice calling out, but we didn't bother to try to call back - it would have only led to more confusion.
We headed south, following the sound of water from the bottom of the glacier. Stumbling over rocks and boulders, we soon found the stream and stopped to quench our thirst and refill our water bottles. At least we wouldn't die of thirst. We followed down the right side of the stream, feeling the angle grow steeper and the climbing more difficult. We shortly came to a cliff where the water dropped down precipitously. It was now 8:45p and there was barely any light left.
We had to climb back up and find a way over the stream to the other side. Soaking a foot or hand in the stream could prove disastrous, so it needed to be a safe crossing. We hadn't been climbing back up more than two minutes when Romain called a halt. He had no energy left to climb upwards and was spent. We had to bivy.
A breeze was blowing that would chill us to the bone if exposed to it, so we had to find shelter in the rocks somewhere. A short way below us we found a hovel in the rocks against a cliff side where we were mostly protected from the breeze. We spread out the ropes to sit on (for both insulation from the rocks and comfort), and emptied our packs and used them for back rests against the rock wall.
It hadn't gotten to freezing the night before, and didn't seem like it would tonight though we were at over 10,500ft. This meant we wouldn't get frostbite, but we could still suffer hypothermia. We calculated we had 8 1/2 hours till 5:30a, the earliest we could see well enough to navigate. Though neither of us had ever been forced to bivy before, we were confident we would survive the ordeal, expecting to suffer heavily.
And with that we settled down for a long night. We huddled close together. Romain was better prepared, having a fleece middle garment and outer rain jacket, with a pair of rain pants and balaclava as well. I wore my climbing helmet for additional insulation and padding while leaning my head back against the rock. I had my legs tucked under Romain's the whole night, except for short periods when they needed to get stretched. This helped keep my poorly protected legs from the exposure.
My hands I kept tucked between my legs, under my arms, or between our bodies at various times. They stayed warm the entire night. My toes were left to fend for themselves in my boots, and though they got numb now and then, they never completely lost circulation. The ropes were better than nothing, but my posterior faired poorly and would end up getting bruised from the pressure against the rock.
We fidgeted and took short breaks to stretch our legs now and then, but basically kept in the same positions the entire night. I tried to tuck my face in my jacket so my breath could help warm my chest and to warm the air I would breathe in, but this had only modest success. I could feel the slight breeze we were still exposed to waft in around my ankles and I tried to pull my pants lower, to no success either.
Romain continued to offer me some of his clothes throughout the night which I declined. He didn't trust me to tell him if I was really suffering, and worried I might be too cold-stupid to know the danger signs of impending hypothermia. We both shivered on and off, not continuously, but at times nearly so.
I had feared that my body temperature would drop after we had stopped to bivy due to the inactivity and low heart rate, but to my surprise I never felt dangerously cold. My body seemed to understand it was in a survival mode, and the shivering response seemed to work beautifully as a body-temperature regulation system. In fact I suffered more from the hard rock and cramped seating position than I did from the cold.
At first we kept awake talking to each other, spending several hours discussing jobs, family, and other matters. We then tried to sleep, but only managed to huddle quietly, each lost in his own thoughts. We were staring out at the North Star, and watched the Big Dipper slowly rotate around it in the Northern sky. We calculated the angle it would have to reach by 5:30a, and quietly cheered as it made its slow progression around the sky.
We had watches but no lights in them to see by. At intervals of 2-3 hours Romain would use his cell phone's light to see the time on his watch. Beforehand we would each guess the time as a small game. I was always underestimating the time progression by about 30%, while Romain was usually within about 5%. Time seemed to go faster than we expected, but make no mistake we were suffering.
Romain thinks we slept some, but I doubted it. It was just too cold to let the mind relax. It was 5:50a before it was sufficiently light to see by, and when we made the move to get up we wasted little time in packing everything up. We had survived, but now it was time to get off the mountain.
Sun:
We had survived our forced bivy, but had had no dinner or breakfast. I had eaten nothing since lunch the day before, while Romain had had a few nasty-tasting energy bars and a few GUs. We crossed the stream like we had planned the previous night, and started down the class 3 rock there. Thought the route grew steeper, there was always a route to keep it class 3 or easier and we were shortly down in a grassy valley that fed down to Ediza Lake.
Rather head down to Ediza and then back up to Iceberg and our camp at Cecile Lake, we headed east towards a small pass in a rounded ridge that I was sure would bring us to Iceberg Lake more directly. This it did, though we were several hundred feet above the lake. We had climbed higher than the alternative route, but it had clearly saved us at least a mile in travel.
We found a use trail leading down the other side of the pass, taking us back to the main trail at outlet of Iceberg Lake. Now it was an uphill haul to Cecile Lake, and Romain fell back as I pressed steadily on. Well before reaching Cecile, the first crack of thunder exploded and the first fat drops of rain started to fall. Great, we were going to have some of everything on this epic. We had seen nothing but clear skies all night, but now the sky was in a tempest.
I had no rain gear with me - it was back in camp, but I was confident I could plow my way back even if I got soaked to the bone. Fortunately the rain was never very heavy, and came in intervals which allowed my jacket to dry out between fits of rain. I arrived back at camp at 8:15a, and immediately put on my rain gear before anything else.
Dave had left his sleeping bag open, exposed on the rainfly of Michele's tent which he had used for a groundcloth. Michele's tent of course had no rainfly and her stuff inside was wet. I tossed Dave's bag and pad inside the tent and threw the rainfly over it - at least they wouldn't get more wet.
Romain came back to camp at 8:45a, and we went about heating water to make brunch - soup and ramen. The rain came less frequently, and we had small windows of sunshine that came out to dry the rock. I used these opportunities to dry out Dave and Michele's stuff, spreading it out on the rocks, then tossing it all back inside when the weather threatened again.
It was a chilly morning, very exciting weather-wise. The Minarets and Ritter-Banner were alternately bathed in striking sunshine and then cloudy mists, each minute presenting a quality photo opportunity better than any postcard I'd ever seen.
After brunch we settled in to wait for the others to arrive, and at 10:30a we decided to take a nap to catch up on sleep we missed out on the night before. Around noon Romain woke me up that he was worried about our missing companions. Great - now we had two Missing in the Minarets.
After discussing our options and noting the weather as a significant factor, we decided to call 911 at 12:30p. They connected us with the Mono County Sheriff who turned us over to SAR. Because Romain's phone was low on battery life, we had to keep the phone calls brief.
In time we had given a description of our plight to Greg, the SAR dispatcher who relayed that to others in our area. They got descriptions of Michele and Dave, our camp location, and the events of the previous night.
There had been a helicopter in the area over Banner Peak earlier, and there were SAR teams in the area by Ediza to help with an incident there. (Details here)
On a second flight of the helicopter, they added a search of the Minarets for our lost Dave and Michele. They flew over our camp, circled the area, went up to North Notch and The Gap, flew around the back side, and searched the front side. Then they flew over Volcanic Ridge (looking for someone involved in another incident?) and then back to Banner to search more there.
Meanwhile Romain is contacting Greg at SAR dispatch every half hour or so for small updates. It was all confusing to all sides, as the job of coordinating these searches is quite complex. Around 2p we were informed that a SAR team had seen two peopled matching the description hiking out by Shadow Lake around noon. Since they hadn't known at the time that these were two of the missing people, they didn't stop to chat and get IDs.
At one point the dispatcher asked if the missing woman could be described as very attractive. Bells went off, and Romain replied, "Yes, quite attractive." Seems the SARs guys had all noted the striking blond in tight black pants.
In the meantime a team had been sent from Ediza Lake to our camp to get more info and bring a satellite phone to replace Romain's fading cell phone. (See Ops 03-25)We packed up camp while we waited for the team to arrive around 4p. Two of the three guys had been in the SAR team that had passed the two hikers at Shadow Lake.
After we gave the leader descriptions of Michele and her clothing, the other two were nearly certain we had a match. Not only were they at a loss to remember much about Dave, but we were no help since we couldn't remember much of his clothing to help either. The only thing that clicked there was the description of two brand-new matching axes that we knew Dave was carrying his pack.
With the satellite phone we were able to connect the pieces together, and with another guy reporting from the TH parking lot, we determined that Dave's truck was missing - they must have hiked out to get his truck and head for town.
Romain got out the video camera and played some clips of Michele and Dave to the two who had seen them. They positively ID'd Michele, though pictures of Dave were met with questioning stares. The case was closed and the team left us after we thanked them heartily.
We packed up our stuff, leaving Michele and Dave's stuff for them to get the next day - there was just too much for us to consider packing it all out. We got back to Mammoth around 9p where we got a room at the Rodeway Inn. Dave had left a message with Romain's wife who relayed the info to Romain - they were also a the Rodeway.
We had a brief reunion before Romain and I left them to get showers and dinner - we were famished. We found out that they had bivied not far above us, but waited until 7a before starting out. At Ediza they decided to hike out thinking it was a long way back to Cecile a lake and camp. They were a bit surprised that it had taken us only about 2 1/2 hrs to return.
At Agnew Meadows they took the shuttle back to the TH to get Dave's truck. Michele had left her key in camp, so all her gear was either locked away in her car or up at camp.
Mon:
Romain and I woke at 7am and went to get our continental breakfast. We found the other two stuffing their jackets with danishes as they were heading back out to Devils Postpile to retrieve their gear. Romain headed back to the Bay Area after breakfast while I spent a few hours climbing Crystal Crag in the morning, and resting in the afternoon. The trip had been quite different than we had imagined beforehand, but even with our forced bivy, all agreed it was a great adventure.
I guess that wasn't really the short version, now was it? Oh well, hope you enjoyed it... :)