Annotated photos of the Palisade Crest, by Mark Thomas (first one is not quite complete).
|
 | The traverse of the Palisade Crest is quite complex and requires an entire day. There are 12 summits of the Palisade Crest, each named after a key figure in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. In researching this area, Mark and I could not find any source that listed the twelve summit names, apart from references to Gandalf Peak being the highest point and lies at the NW end. So we hoped that as we traversed the Crest we would find a summit register on top of each of the twelve summits and unravel the naming mystery. But alas, we only found registers on 6 of the 12 summits — from N to S these were: Gandalf, Gimli, The Orc, Strider, __, __, __, __, __, __, Master Samwise, The Nazgul. Surely one of the unknown-named summits must be Frodo or Bilbo. Also of interesting note is that the last summit register entries had been just over a year before our climb. It's always fun to do a route that is not done often. |
 | Mark racking up at dawn before setting off for our day's adventure. We brought plenty of long slings and found them to be quite useful along the traverse. |
 | Heading towards Scimitar Pass at the north end of the Palisade Crest. With the frozen suncups, it took us about 30 minutes to get to the pass from camp. |
 | The northern end of the Palisade Crest is the easiest part of the ridge, a Class 3 scramble all the way to the Palisade Crest highpoint. |
 | We roped up before tackling the 4th-low 5th slab leading up towards Gandalf Peak, the first of the twelve Tolkien-named summits along Palisade Crest. (Photo by Mark Thomas.) |
 | Wonderful low 5th exposure. |
 | For the most part the ridge is pretty solid and the climbing is quite varied and fun. (Photo by Mark Thomas.) |
 | Often, the towers on the ridge looked too steep to be within 5.6 range. Part of the challenge was finding the 5.7 (or easier) route, which always existed. Notably, we never needed to do any rappels to keep the route moderate 5th class, despite the fact we did the route N to S while the more typical way is to do it S to N. (Photo by Mark Thomas.) |
 | Wow. |
VIDEO CLIP AT END OF TRIP REPORT A short helmet cam view from a belay ledge en route. |
 | We called this ledge system we discovered "The Ivory Way". Hard to believe it was only 5.7ish! (Photo by Mark Thomas.) |
VIDEO CLIP AT END OF TRIP REPORT Helmet cam video taken while climbing along the exposed "The Ivory Way". |
 | Mark on the southernmost summit of the Crest. Summit 12 of 12. |
 | The sun was setting as we arrived at the southernmost summit. Headlights on.... |
VIDEO CLIP AT END OF TRIP REPORT The south end of the Crest is 5th class, so the descent required some rappels. It took us four single-rope rappels to get to the notch leading to the snowfield below the Palisade Crest. Finding good anchor blocks and non-leave-you-hanging-in-midair rappels is tricky in the dark, so it took us awhile to descend safely. We arrived back at camp just over 20 hours after we had started the route. Couscous feast for me, pillow for Mark. |