Preface

This would be the fourth trip to Mt. Ritter for John and me, and the second for the rest of the group, except for the newcomer, Martin. As apparent from the list of participants, I have a certain personal/familial interest in Mt. Ritter, although I have yet to find a direct link to Karl Ritter, after whom Whitney named "our" mountain.

Friday, 21 June:

Saturday, 22 June:

Sunday, 23 June:

We started getting things organized for the trek to Thousand Island Lake and beyond. John, Lindy and the boys arrived about five p.m., and we did a little organizing before grabbing dinner at an Italian spot across the road. Lori, Jesse, and Martin arrived about 8:30, after we had things pretty well under control for the stuff the earlier crowd had brought in. John and I ended up with about 55 pounds each, at least 5 less than the last time. Nathan got his requisite 15 pounds (25% body weight), and we didn't have to leave anything critical behind after passing our light tent off for Martin to haul. Once again, time to crash for a very early start again in the morning to beat the road closing. Tomorrow the trip starts for real!

Monday, 24 June:

As we walked, we watched the ceiling close in first on Mt. Ritter, then Banner Peak, and steadily move down to the 12,000' level. Still, we pressed on toward our stated goal for the day of Thousand Island Lake. As we approached Badger Lakes, it began to snow (SNOW???) intermittently, and the wind came up. As the younger kids were pretty well tuckered out, we selected a sheltered campsite near one of the small ponds in the Badger Lakes group. Dinner was prepared and consumed, and we settled down for the night, assuming that the storm would blow over and we would be able to proceed as planned on Tuesday. Far from dying down, the winds picked up overnight, as evidenced by the singing pines and the low roar coming down the valley from Thousand Island Lake.

Tuesday, June 25:

After lunch, John and I decided to head up to Thousand Island Lake, reconnoiter the route over the pass, and cache some food for an attempt to stay true to plan, if one day late. Lori came along with us, and the three of us reached Thousand Island Lake in good order. As expected, the snow was heavier up there, and the wind much stronger than at our sheltered campsite. We had obviously chosen well when selecting a site, as the winds were extremely strong, and there is little natural shelter around the lake. In addition, the heavy over-winter snows had only recently melted out around the lake shore, and there was virtually no dry ground handy for a camp. The trail was alternately under water and under snow. We did spot a couple of isolated bear tracks in the mud, but did not see the critters themselves.

Upon reaching the far end of the lake, we found a convenient clump of trees in which to cache the food and said a silent prayer that Brother Bear had better sense than we did, and would stay inside his den. We then beat a retreat back to our campsite at Badger Lakes, fixed dinner, and settled down for the night.

Wednesday, 27 June:

Even with a late start, the morning started off well enough, but the clouds and snow returned all too quickly. John and I located our cached food (Brother Bear definitely did have better sense than we!) and used the shelter of the clump of wind-blown pines (a real John Muir campsite!) to eat our lunch. As we walked up the snowfields from Thousand Island Lake over the low ridge and into the valley leading up to North Glacier Pass, the snow became ever heavier and the winds stronger. By the time we had reached the one-third mark up to the pass, we were in a veritable blizzard of popcorn snow driven into our faces by a 40-mile-per-hour wind screaming down the pass. The still air temperature was down in the 20's, and the wind chill certainly well below zero. Not exactly what we had assumed for conditions on June 26! With visibility rapidly falling to 100 feet or less, we decided it was foolhardy to try to make it over the pass and down past Lake Catherine and on to Ritter Lakes. We turned around and headed back to Badger Lakes. There had already been at least six to eight inches of new snow at the 10,500' altitude we reached, with the promise of much more higher than that. It was snowing so hard that by the time we dropped back a mere 200' or so, we could no longer see our tracks, and had to make our way based on the few landmarks we could see in the driving snow. The hike back past Thousand Island Lake proved only marginally more pleasant with the wind at our backs, as the clouds rapidly descended to the 10,000' level of the lake and visibility dropped to a hundred yards or so even when the snow relented for a few minutes. We set up our minimal camp in moderate snow, made a quick freeze-dried dinner, hung the bear bag alongside one we had left at the campsite with food for the planned return, and hit the sack by about 7:30 p.m. The snow tapered off during the night, and the sky began to clear, as evidenced by dappled moonlight shining on the tent about 11:00 p.m.

Thursday, 28 June:

As we trudged back down to Agnew Meadows, Mt. Ritter and Banner Peak, in their fresh covering of snow, mocked us from across the valley. Unfortunately, we were just one or two days too early, but the realities of jobs, vacation schedules, and families prevented us from extending the trip beyond the one slack day we had built into the schedule (and used sitting in camp on Tuesday). Certainly to try to hike over North Glacier Pass Thursday, climb Ritter on Friday, (assuming the weather would hold) and make it back to Badger Lakes the same day (a very long day, at best), then walk out according to our original plan on Saturday would have stretched us to the limit and left no margin for error.

The hike back was chilly but clear, with a forest of icicles hanging from foliage and twigs over each little creek splashing down from the ridge between June Mountain and Mammoth Mountain. It had been cold enough the night before that even hardy alpine plants were frozen and wilted.

When we returned to Agnew Meadows and the motel in Mammoth Lakes, we found that Lindy, Lori, and the boys had made the eight-mile trek back the previous day and had enjoyed their first night back in civilization with showers and the motel's hot tub.

Set back once again, this time by a freak summer snowstorm rather than the mountain proper, we were convinced that we had made the right decisions, both in bringing the kids back a day early, and in backing down from conditions we were ill-prepared to deal with ourselves. Temporarily set back, but not defeated ... I will return again to attempt "my" mountain. I suspect that it will be with a different group ... none of the kids is interested in another Sierra "adventure" in the near future, and Lindy had once said she would never try that sort of expedition again (after our previous attempt via Ediza Lake two years ago), then relented ... but never again!

Friday, 29 June:

To quote General Douglas MacArthur: I shall return!

Mt. Ritter is the taller of the two peaks, dead-center in the photo, at 13,150'. Banner Peak is to the right, just under 12,900'. The two classic Class 3 routes go up either the glacier to the saddle between Ritter and Banner, and then up to Ritter's summit ridge, or up the large snow bowl to the left of Mt. Ritter and up one of the chutes to the upper bowl and on to the summit. The Class 2 route up the opposite, western, side of Mt. Ritter was our goal, requiring hiking along the east side of the valley and around past the headwaters of the San Joaquin at Thousand Island Lake, which lies beyond the low intervening ridges and a mile or so to the right of Banner Peak in this view.