Tom Grundy's 2020 Sierra Challenge Day 8 Firebird Ridge of Norman Clyde Peak

8-14-2020 Today the challenge peak was Excitement Peak, but JD and I were planning to do Norman Clyde Peak - his next to last of the SPS list. Rather than going up the easiest scramble, we opted to climb the Firebird Ridge - a 5.9 multipitch rock climb. This might not have been the best plan, but it was what we did. The weather forecast wasn't all that great - 20-30% chance of thunderstorms. That seemed to mean that there would be storms somewhere, but maybe not on us. We planned on a 3 am start - I was mostly packed, so I got up at 2:35 and quickly got ready. We didn't leave until about 3:10. We made decent time in the little bubbles of our headlamps to the stream crossing, which involved a long step across between 2 rocks with a few somewhat flimsy alder trunks to help. After that we continued up the valley to the switchbacks at the head of it. We were chatting and moving a bit slower here when JD looked at his watch and said we needed to pick up the pace. So we did. Up over the shoulder and down past the usually mosquito infested area near Willow Lake and back up. We took the ridge up towards the outlet of Finger Lake, but ended up bushwhacking a bit as we missed some of the use trail. We got to the outlet as it got light. There we got some more water and packed up our headlamps.

looking down on Finger Lake on the way up

approaching the peaks - Middle Palisade on the left, Norman Clyde on the right

There was a lot less snow this year, which might not have made things any easier, but we didn't have to bring ice axe or crampons. We went up the talus and rocks into the bowl below Norman Clyde. Under the ridge to Firebird Peak we stowed our poles, donned our helmets, and scrambled up the ramp to corner that took us up the ridge. This was about 5 hours from our start - not great, but not bad. We worked our way up the ridge to the base of the climb. There we changed and stashed our shoes, poles, and a few other things.

Firebird Ridge is on the right side

view to the west and north as we hit firebird ridge Palisade Crest on the left, then Sill, Gayley, Temple, and Alice

JD ready to start the climbing

We decided to link the first 2 pitches. This worked out ok, but meant we would simul-climb a little bit of it - fortunately the start was quite easy scrambling. Pitch 3 was the crux pitch - a step across and then up a steep finger crack. It turns out the step across wasn't so bad for those that are flexible and like to stem, but the "finger" crack was smaller than fingers at the start with just a few pods for fingers and gear. After a few moves it continued to be steep, but the holds were better. For pitch 4 I stopped mid-way when I wasn't sure which way to go and the rope drag was building. Then I made the next 2 pitches rope stretchers (with a 60 M rope) (and JD moved the anchor across a ledge for the first of these). I was also starting to fall asleep here, so I quaffed a 5 hour energy. Then the climbing eased up a lot and I was able to run it out and simul climb all the way to the top of the tower near the top of the ridge. From here I lowered JD down (we couldn't tell how hard the downclimb was) and then he scrambled up to the top of the ridge. The scramble was easy, so I ran the rope through the probably good anchor to downclimb and then unroped to scramble up. We left the rope and rack there and scrambled across to the higher summit. 13 hours from the start according to JD's watch. We didn't spend long up there, but we did have time to sign the register and eat summit cookies before heading down.

JD part way up the ridge (maybe top of the 3rd pitch)

JD higher on the ridge

JD even higher

JD leads up to the top of the ridge

JD on the summit

Tom near the summit

JD even brought summit cookies

The descent was pretty long and tedious, especially in climbing shoes. Mine were velcro, so at least I could take them off and put them on pretty quickly for a quick break. We worked our way down the initial corner/chimneys and then zig-zagged mostly to the east and down about 1/2 the face before working our way back west and cutting around the corner a little too high and slightly above our stashed gear. We were relieved to make it down off the face and I was particularly relieved to take my shoes off. My watch said 5:something and JD's said 7:something - we were pretty glad to realize we were 2 hours faster than we thought and relaxed a bit. After some food and drink we headed down.

The descent was long and relatively uneventful. We made it back to the outlet of Finger Lake around sunset. We were both feeling depleted and drank some energy drinks - mine was a delicious zip-fizz (thanks Iris) and I gave JD a rather nasty Vega Sport energizer - sorry. Then we headed down the use trail. We lost the trail in the Willows at the bottom and just bulled our way through them to the trail which we briefly went the wrong way down (it went downhill both ways). There we ran into another group hiking down who got ahead of us. The zip-fizz was kicking in so I trotted down behind them as best I could and then powered (such as it was) up the trail to the shoulder. Then we had an endless series of switchbacks in the dark to head down. We could see a headlamp way down below us to provide scale. From the bottom of the switchbacks it wasn't far to the stream crossing. We passed a few more people on the next section and when we got to the built up area at the end we pointed out the way to 2 women with only a cell phone for light who were confused by the maze of trails and driveways there. We made it back to the parking before the 2 who had left about the same time to climb Mt Sill, but we were still out for 18:30. A long and tiring but very good day.

a pretty brave marmot on the descent

finger lake as it was getting dark

Total for the day 1 peak. Strava said 13.58 mi (iphone 5) and 10032 ft of elevation gain (definitely not that much).

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