Lone Pine Peak
Failed ascent of the Northeast Ridge of Lone Pine Peak (IV, 5.7), with Robert Zeithammer, June 17-18, 2009
Timeline:
June 17, 2009. A bad weather forecast had made us divert to Las Vegas for some climbing at Red Rocks on June 14 and 15, and on June 16 we drove back to Lone Pine, crossing Death Valley, and hoping for better weather. On the morning of June 17 we set out to climb the Northeast Ridge of Lone Pine Peak from the valley floor. We left the car at the Lone Pine Campground and started hiking around 10:30 under already menacing weather. It rained intermittently while we hiked the lower portion of the Northeast ridge. This is rather easy hiking around class 2, so the rain slowed us but did not stop us. We stopped around 16:00 at about 10,000 feet for a planned bivy, just below the start of a technical portion of the ridge. It did not rain all night so we were hoping for an improvement in the weather.
June 18, 2009. Unfortunately the next morning at 5:40 heavy clouds had already gathered around the Whitney group. We roped up for one pitch of class 4 / low class 5 climbing, but it quickly became evident that the weather was taking a turn for the worse. Not wanting to get caught in a thunderstorm on the exposed ridge, we bailed, and descended a steep class 3 gully to the climber’s left side of the ridge. We were back at the car around 11:30 and had lunch at Whitney Portal. We then drove back to LA.