SummitPost.org

Here are some pictures:

Although Feather Peak was great, one of the highlights of day 6 was Bear Spire and Claw peaks-seemingly miniscule and insignificant at first, but offered impressive summits. We had a fun time just playing around on the summit blocks. Vitaliy took it a step further:

On Spire Peak: This summit boulder was slanted outward, miraculously balanced with seemingly no support, and with tremendous exposure.


On Bear Claw:




Cool view of the lake from a hole in the summit boulders atop Spire Peak:



Newly Sierra Challenge placed summit register on the edge of Feather summit. This summit had a dramatic cliff drop off-2000 ft. exposure or so.



Unrelated, but along the way. A cool view of Peppermint Peak:



And finally! Me perched a top tiny summit ledges of Sky Haven:



and Cloudripper:



Great fun!

This is a preemptive congrats to all the SC 2010 participants and special kudos to Bob for all the organization/effort over the last 10 years…well done Sir Sierra Challenge
I know there will be lots of great stories to be told/posted and I know there will be lots of other great challenges in the Sierra in the future, all great stuff!
Cheers,
RickG

Thanks Rick!

I got behind in doing updates. We were having so much fun and got so worn out that sleep seemed better than diddling with a computer the last three days. I'll give a quick update and have more to say later when I get home.

Day 8 - Sky Haven

This is the highpoint of the long ridge north of Big Pine Creek. It overlooks the north faces of the Palisades and has some outstanding views. We approached from South Lake via the pipeline trail and then from the north. It was one of the easier days with a number of nearby bonus peaks including The Hunchback, Vagabond, and Cloudripper. Various groups approached from different directions, some coming from Vagabond down the connecting ridge, others traversing high around Thunder and Lightning Lake, still others dropping lower in the canyon before starting up. Everyone ended up traversing some distance east along the ridge with some class 3 that caught us by surprise.

The first five or six in the lead all headed to the highpoint along the ridge. The next group stopped at a lower summit to the west because their GPS's matched the location of where I had mistakenly dropped a red flag on the TOPO map. Some humorous controversy ensued, but in the end this second group all paid a visit to the highpoint so they could get proper credit for the peak.

The oddest combination was made by Sean who, after summiting Sky Haven, noted that he had climbed all the peaks in the region with the exception of Mt. Robinson. So down he went 2,000ft off the south side of Sky Haven, then up to Robinson via one of the class 3 routes. To get back to South Lake he then traversed the connecting ridge to Agassiz and climbed a class 5 route he'd picked out of Secor, up and over the summit to Bishop Pass and back to South Lake. All in less time than it took some to climb just Sky Haven.

Day 9 - Cedric Wright

This was the longest day of the Challenge with 8,700ft of gain to reach a peak west of the Sierra Crest via Armstrong Canyon. The upper part of Armstrong Canyon turned out to be an incredibly loose affair that wasn't very safe for the large party of 15 that we had trying to get up there to Colosseum Pass. It was virtually impossible not to knock rocks down, much to the dismay of those below and the frustration of all. We were fortunate to get everyone up and down the canyon wall without incident. The rest of the hike to Cedric Wright was quite pleasant, and the class 3 NE Ridge was quite enjoyable. The quickest climbers were able to get it done in just under 12hrs, the last came out more than hrs later.

Day 10 - Mt. Morgensen

Mt. Morgensen is the unofficially named summit west of Mt. Russell in the Whitney area. We were able to procure permits for 13 the day prior (thanks Phil D.) which almost covered our party of 16 that we had at the start. No rangers were encountered during the day anywhere in the North Fork drainage or anywhere else for that matter. Our route to Morgensen took us to Lower Boy Scout Lake and then up to Cleaver Col, around Tulainyo Lake (no naked swimmers this year) and the North Face of Russell to the NE Face of Morgensen. Four of us did the somewhat tricky traverse to Mt. Russell via class 3-4 ledges on the north side that were full of loose rock and sand. Others paid visits to some of the surrounding peaks, including Tunnabora, Cleaver, and Carillon.

I took the Yellow Jersey with a total time only about an hour faster than Bob Jones in second place.

Sean O'Rourke took the King of the Mountain Jersey with a total of 30 peaks, a new record.

Bob Jones won the Green Jersey (over 50yrs) with an impressive performance, climbing all ten Challenge peaks from this year. Jeff Moffat was second with ten Challenge peaks, not all from this year's list.

Adam Jantz just edged out Vitaliy Musiyenko for the White Jersey (under 25yrs) based on time. Both climbed all of this year's Challenge peaks.

Special mention to Laura Molnar for climbing all ten Challenge peaks and placing 4th for the Yellow Jersey, and to Darija Malinauskas for placing 3rd for the White and 4th for King of the Mountain with 6 Challenge peaks and 16 total peaks.

Wow, I am in awe. Congrats to all of you

Bob,

For 2011, you should do The Best of Sierra Challenge. Top 10 SC peaks.

Kevin

Bob Burd wrote:
Day 9 - Cedric Wright

The rest of the hike to Cedric Wright was quite pleasant, and the class 3 NE Ridge was quite enjoyable. The quickest climbers were able to get it done in just under 12hrs, the last came out more than hrs later.

I'm still puzzled as to why we didn't see you guys on that day, and we didn't see your names in the summit register. Me, Vitaliy, and Adam made it up to the pass shortly afterward and you guys seemed to have completely vanished. Did you do any other peaks other than Cedric Wright that day?


Unfortunately, I had to miss 4 Challenge days-2 in the beginning due to schedule conflicts, and 2 later on because I got sick. So I could have accumulated a lot more peaks than the 16 I managed to get. Glad to have squeezed in Cedric Wright when I had a fever that day.

I think it would be cool to have another SC next summer-there is no way any one of us could have mustered up the courage or stamina to do long peak hikes day in and day out by ourselves-its a shared sense of community and shared passion (and some ego inflation) that does the motivation. Suffering isn't so bad when you get to share the experience with others. Glad to see some new and familiar faces, amazing work to the rest of the group!

Bob Burd wrote:Four of us did the somewhat tricky traverse to Mt. Russell via class 3-4 ledges on the north side that were full of loose rock and sand.

Ha ha, classic Bob Burd. That "class 3-4" traverse took longer (& was more involved) than other "5th class" (defined by others- probably 4th in Bob's book )routes I've done without a rope. Definitely a classic mountaineering day. Good fun.

Anyhoo, thanks Bob, for putting together another of those crazy, awesome, & (as far as I know) completely unique events known as the Sierra Challenge- you've created something unique & special, & everyone who takes part knows it. Glad I was able to participate for part of it.

Pleased to meet a number of you for the first time, & congrats to all who participated, & esp. those who did the whole thing (props), & esp. esp. those who set new records (wow!).

Hey Dirk, good running into you, Faith and Mark. Can't believe it has been four years since our cars got stuck at the Shepperd Pass TH.

Vitaly, thanks for letting me use your Jetboil. Did you ever end up giving SARS a heads up? My partner finally came out at 10pm, 17 hours later. We called the Sheriff to let them know that everything was ok and that an earlier alert from you should be negated but they said that they never receive any alert. Let me know when you got things figured out for Denali. I've got some Denali gear to unload. Congrats on 10/10.

Diggler wrote:That "class 3-4" traverse took longer (& was more involved) than other "5th class" (defined by others- probably 4th in Bob's book )routes I've done without a rope. Definitely a classic mountaineering day. Good fun.

Indeed:

Big congrats to all participants. And an amazing performance by so many who completed all 10 days. I am bummed that I have not been able to take part this year.

I had a blast climbing with you folks for the few days I was able to get away. Thanks Bob for putting everything together and if you do another one next year count me in.

Nice pics, Sean- as good as they are, though, they don't completely capture the experience.

Kevin, a pleasant surprise to run into you too. Wow, those 4 years went fast!

I was fortunate enough to meet some of the challengers at the Pizza Factory last night, great people and I hope to meet again sometime in the future. Really epic $h!t guys, nice work!

Looks like another great challenge! No time this year but I'm sure everyone will encourage Bob to do an 11th edition

Sean is a machine btw, wow!

Awesome accomplishment. Kudos, all!