Tom Grundy's Green Gendarme Page

Richard contacted me about checking out a line on the Green Gendarme in the South Fork of Big Pine Creek. This is the left side of the prominent cliff at the head of the valley above where the trail switchbacks up before cutting right to access the Middle Palisade area.

The climb is described in an American Alpine Club journal with a link here: AAC publication about the first ascent of the Northeast Face Direct

We got up early Sunday May 10, 2026 and drove South at ~5:45 and up to the parking area in Big Pine Creek. There we loaded up and headed up the trail. It was light by now and the sun was hitting the mountains above. We made decent time up the trail and easily crossed the creek on rocks. When the trail started uphill we started encountering snow. At first we were able to walk along the edge of the trail but then we just cut up and left to avoid the snow. We had to walk on a bit of snow near the top and went down to a clear spot below a tree below the route to gear up. We could see a few bolts up above. We played rock paper scissors to see who would lead first - I threw rock - and beat scissors. I also set off my watch incident monitor - it thought I had been in an accident due to the severity of the impact. It started making noises and vibrating. I had no idea what was going on but luckily my phone had no cell service and I figured it out and cancelled it on the watch before it was able to call for help. Richard kicked steps up the snow to the base of the rock and I racked up and went up to the base. The sun was just hitting the base about now. I put on my shoes and then started up. I won't bore you with the details. There were bolts and trad placements. We had up to #3 camalot, but I don't think we ever placed the 3. Richard got the business with one particularly spicy pitch (5.10) where he was tip-toeing around rocks that seemed to be keyed in by a few grapefruit sized rocks (they might have been secure, but we didn't dare test it vigorously) and then up a weird overhang into a diheral where he was scraping plant matter out of the crack to get a hold. My feet felt fine for the first 5 pitches and then I took my shoes off for the belay there. They were never happy again until we got down. I think my feet have expanded. The first other person we saw this day was a skier far down below that went across below the cliff and down to the valley floor.The summit was pretty nice, but the register was a PVC pipe with only one end cap (and a broken end cap down in a crack). There was nothing in it. The rappels had cord holding 'biners or rap screwlinks. Most of it was still good but we replaced a few bits of faded and sketchy tat. I'd much rather see uv and water resistant rappel anchors - screwlinks, chains, leaver 'biners... Some of the rappels went down troughs that had some balanced rocks. Richard went down first and tried to clear the path so that pulling the rope wouldn't bring down rocks too.

Green Gendarme and other buttress S Fork Big Pine Creek

Green Gendarme on the left side a little closer with the moon just left of the summit

Green Gendarme looks more like a peak from this angle (the stuff in the sun is not it)

view down to start

view down and out the valley

some of the climbing, I think this was pitch 4

On the hike out we saw a number of hikers and there were more people in the parking lot.

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