Elevation: 13114 ft
Trailhead: JMT TH in Tuolumne Meadows
Difficulty: Long run/hike, difficult class 3
Distance: ~ 26 miles
At the time I climbed Lyell, I'd spent enough time outdoors to be strong and confident but maybe not enough time to learn when to be cautious. I'd been curious for a while about what it might feel like to go out and do a big day solo. And I knew that some friends of mine who were mostly runners (rather than climbers) had had success on Lyell in the previous year; Lyell seemed to have a large enough margin of safety that I wanted to give it a go.
So I jogged up out of Tuolumne meadows to where the trail turns to go up Donohue pass. For the first hour it was dark and all I could hear was water running down the Lyell fork and the sound of my own raspy breathing in the thin air. I turned off the trail and headed towards Lyell.
I could see a row of peaks poking up out of the Lyell glacier and I picked what I thought was the tallest and started up. The glacier felt low-angle and easy, but when I got to the rock something felt off. It was challenging to me, although I was wearing sticky approach shoes, which I use to climb up to fifth class in. How did my friends do this in running shoes? I continued on, making moves that I thought were harder than 4th class. I almost turned back several times, but finally rounded a corner to see the summit... and also, the real Lyell, a half mile further down the ridge! I had climbed the wrong mountain!
Feeling like an idiot, I followed the now-solidly-third class ridge over to the Lyell summit, passing another minor peak on the way. Yikes, this is why I usually take a partner! At the summit I took a few pictures, and then started to descend the normal Lyell route (breathing a sigh of relief that I did not have to downclimb the way that I had come up).
On the way down, about 50 feet above the glacier, the terrain changed from solid (ish) class 3 into blocks stacked on kitty-litter sized pebbles and ice. I figure that early in the season, the glacier/snow field covers this part of Lyell, and when it recedes in the fall it leaves behind this detritus. And also a rather large bergshrund (large for the sierras, at least). I stood there looking at this mess. Should I somehow try and downclimb this? Or should I return to the top of Lyell and try to walk off towards Maclure, or even back the way I came along the crest?
While I was thinking I shifted my weight slightly onto my back foot and the kitchen-table sized block I was standing on cut loose from Lyell and went sliding down the kitty-litter ice slope. I've only been in a handful of imminently life threatening situations in my life, and my experience is always that my rational brain quits and then my body does something and I can't remember the whole experience very well after.
What I think happened is that I lept off the block; I can remember watching it rocket towards the glacier, jump the bergschrund, and then fly down the snow like a crazy sled. But I had jumped onto the kitty-litter/ ice and now was maybe 15 feet above the glacier. I couldn't hold on to Lyell and started a slow, awkward slide before falling unceremoniously into the 'schrund.
Greg jokes that I'm made of rubber because the few falls I've taken I've walked away from without a scratch (knock on wood). This was no exception- I sustained a pinky abrasion (which was actually quite bloody and got all over my clothes and the glacier). And as I picked myself and brushed the dirt and ice off my clothes I realized that I was in the one position where having a partner woulda really been pretty helpful.
The bergchrund was just a little deeper than I am tall and the ice on the side was frozen solid. Behind me, the side of Lyell was a slimy mixture of wet dirt and ice. I tried putting my hands on the glacier and lifting myself up but the glacier was so slippery and my stick arms so weak that I failed. I tried reclimbing lyell, but the rock crumbled under my fingers. Crap! I thought. I'm going to be stuck in this hole until someone can pull me out!
I had passed a couple of parties of dudes carrying ice axes and crampons who had camped near Donahue pass. I figured they were going up Lyell. It would be the height of shame to need rescue- there are some stereotypes of women in the outdoors that I really did not want to reinforce right now. I also had, for some reason, 4G cell phone service so considered googling "how to escape from a crevasse" but decided that that was dumb. I also considered calling FDK who had just taken a glacier rescue course.
I found some pockets of melt in the side of the glacier wall, and found i could stick my fingers in them. I used Lyell as counter-pressure and started to chimney my way up out of the hole. As I reached the top, I was stuck again, with my back against Lyell and my hands on top of the glacier. So I did an awkward half jump forward and like a beached whale, flopped onto the glacier which was quite steep where it met Lyell. My forward momentum carried me sliding down the glacier headfirst, right into a friendly suncup filled with meltwater. I was soaking wet, but I was saved!
The nice thing about being alone is that there is very little embarrassment in these flailings, so I got to my feet with a big grin on my face, feeling like I'd really gotten away with something this time.
I jogged back to the car, stopping once to swim in the river.
What a strange hobby mountaineering is. We have these dramatic experiences on the great stage of the high peaks and then we come home and sit in air-conditioned buildings and watch netflix and have take-out delivered to our apartments. Did any of it really happen? The unreality is enhanced when you go out alone, without any corroborating witnesses. Is my memory a reliable narrator? Probably not. Already I am losing the feeling of the ecstatic triumph of escaping from the glacier, and the dead tired apathy of the long 11 miles down Lyell canyon back to the car.
Comments