Charlotte Dome 08/2018

Chris, Paul, and I were all gathered together on a Friday afternoon at the permit issuing ranger station in Lone Pine, Ca. as giddy as can be for our climbing trip.  But where were we going?  We had talked about a plan A, B, then C depending on where there were permits to.  Maybe temple crag, maybe mt. sill, maybe bear creek spire, but who knows.  The unknown aspect made me even more excited. After finally speaking with the ranger, we had learned of the possible options and we had decided to go BIG and do Charlotte dome.  But we could only get a Saturday night permit meaning we'd have to somehow squeeze the massive trip into two days.

We sat outside on the benches and made a game plan.  We decided to hike in early Saturday AM with camping gear and hike straight to Charlotte Lake to drop it off, then we'd continue to hike to the base of Charlotte dome and do the climb and descend back to our camp.. all on Saturday... Then Sunday, we would sleep in then hike out.  Seemed to work in theory, but would it work it out to fit roughly 16 miles of high sierra hiking along with a 1500' wandering 5.8 climb into the same day?  In reality, so much could go wrong, but we all agreed on it and it felt doable.



Friday night after some food in town, we drove up to Onion Valley and packed for our trip.  Chris, Paul, and I have been climbing together for years now and we understand our differences.  I tend to be reckless, Chris tends to be flexible but realistic, and Paul tends to be safe and slow.  The combination for the 3 of us tend to make some pretty successful climbing trips.  Anyway, we decided to bring 1.5x rack and a 70m rope and simul climb with a cow-tail (and not my daughter's swim goggles even though I had them packed).  While not the safest setup, it's safe enough and definitely the fastest and lightest for a roped party of 3.  We also meet a group of JMT hikers who are taking a rest/refuel day in town and were camping in Onion Valley.  The graciously let us sleep in their camp.  We enjoy some more food and drinks and then went to sleep at 9pm with our alarms set for 11:45pm.

We all slowly arouse from our light slumbers and grudgingly hit the trail at 12:00am.  As we pass 10,000' in elevation and then 11,000', the cold winds pick up more and more.  Stopping only meant getting cold so we forced ourselves up and over the pass reaching the summit at 2:30am.  I had been to the top of Kearsarge pass about ~8 times prior but never at this time of night.  Frankly, we were all so tired and just kept our heads down and continued to hike to Charlotte Lake.  We got to the bear boxes at 4am where we left our night packs and then repacked our summit packs.  I pumped some fresh water for the gang and then we hit the trail.  Chris then asked, "wait, aren't we staying the night here?"  "Yes Chris, but it's the morning, time to climb".  He never said, but I think he was pretty bummed we couldn't go back to sleep.  Then again, we all were as the mindset at this point was death march.  8 miles of non-acclimatized high sierra backpacking and the sun isn't even up yet.

From here, the approach continues down Charlotte creek on an unmaintained trail and we ended up watching the sunrise as we're bushwhacking through steep manzanita.  We had clearly gotten off-trail by avoiding going anymore "up" than we had to.  Nonetheless, we pressed on without a trail straight to the giant behemoth of a rock.  It looked like a half dome all by itself perched up high yet it was so backcountry, nothing was in sight except for more mountains. Incredible...

Being that this trip included no gimme's, it took a bit of time to find the start.  Alpine climbing is risky and nothing is obvious including where to start the climb.  We ended up going straight to it no problems but in our heads, we all had no idea where this thing was.  As we drop our packs to catch our breath at 7:45am, we see a couple catching up to us.  Chris, Paul, and I discussed before they arrived and decided to let them pass in the beginning and we would stay as close to them as possible. This ended up being a good move on our part so they can guide us in a way to stay on route.

The climb does follow cracks and features but overall, it's a very clean face without any super obvious markers to let you know you're on route.  Many people find themselves on 5.10R terrain quickly and we wanted to avoid that. The climbing from the ground was impeccable.  The rock quality was near perfect, the moves all flowed nicely, the cruxes protected well without any fixed gear, the exposure was incredible, and nothing on the climb was really that difficult.

The first couple pitches followed a ledge system which eventually forces you to take an exposed slabby face up to the base of a chimney.  During the first pitch, the topo says to avoid a gully crack and instead go right on a flake system to bypass it.  I explained this to Paul who was all set up to lead the first pitch.  Sure enough, he goes straight for the gully and then was struggling to protect the dirty crack.  I was concerned because it took us 1 hour to complete the first pitch.  I got "real" (read: I'm kind of a dick sometimes), and explained to Paul that at 1 hour each pitch, we would finish the climb at 9pm and we needed to seriously pick up the pace or go down.  We all decided to press on and everybody was bought in to move faster.  I led the 2nd pitch must faster and things started going better.

After the runout slabby face, you face climb on the side of the chimney and then climb "the slot" a 5.8 shallow corner system with a bulge. After this you continue up to a large sloping dike ledge, then maneuver your way into a large flaring corner system where you can either crimp your way up at 5.8+ or lieback your way up at 5.absolutelynot.  This proved to be the crux pitch and Paul proved his point that we didn't bring that 2nd #2 cam.

While we weren't moving super fast, we were constantly moving and keeping up with our timeline.  While Chris was belaying Paul up the crux 5.8+ pitch, I took my shoes off and let the doggies get some fresh air while eating some tuna.  I always try to constantly eat in the mountains to always be running with a full tank of gas.  This ended up paying off quite well as I mostly had plenty of energy.

Continuing the climb, the next pitch was a doozie.  It was a full 150' pitch of 5.8 face climbing with minimal pro.  I believe I got in 3 solid pieces for the entire pitch.  As crazy as it sounds, it was my JAM!  I absolutely love this type of climbing where I'm crimping down good granite crimps and fitting in tiny little cams into pods and slots.  Many times after working different sized nuts and nothing would fit, I'd shake out, move on, and just keep climbing.  Meanwhile, Chris and Paul and down with the belay watching me 50' above my last piece, a small DMM peenut cam.  After this pitch was a similar pitch going through furrows that Paul led, and then some exposed blocky pitches to the summit.  All in all, it was 1500' feet of climbing from 5.6-5.8 in 13 pitches.  After we unroped, there was a few hundred more feet of extremely exposed 4th class to the summit proper.

We were all on such a high!  It felt so good to have this huge near impossible goal in front of us seem unlikely and then after 16 hours of hard work and constant movement, we did it!!

Feeling good, we descended down to Charlotte Creek where another climber offered to pump us some water.  Just then did we realize we didn't bring a filter for the summit push but it sure did help to not do the last 4 miles cross country without any water.  I can't remember this climbers name, but a shout out to him and a big thank you for his courtesy!!

Funny enough, this is where the lack of sleep and team of 3 got interesting.  I had figured that the reason we got off-trail on the approach is because we stayed low but the trail went high.  So, instead of hiking directly towards Charlotte Lake, I proposed to hike upstream not on any path in order to connect with the proper trail.  Arguing ensued and my thick head just started hiking uphill.  I kept saying "why would we want to bushwhack again?"  Eventually Chris joined me and Paul finally joined me.  I knew that Paul would be pissed at me, but I had a strong feeling we would find the trail by going uphill.  Not even 5 minutes later, we did find the trail and Paul and I avoided eye contact or conversation for a few minutes.  Then almost out of nowhere, Paul opens his pack, grabs an instant coffee and pounds it down dry!  Chris and I react with a loud howling laugh in which Paul almost spits it out from a blend of digust and laughter.  We then admitted we was grumpy, same with me and same with Chris.  We all kissed and made up and hit the trail again.  Our legs were on fire but the fire got worse when we stopped so we kept going.  It was clear we were all pushing our physically limits because we were slowing down and started feeling loopy.  Nonetheless, we kept moving until we were in the small forest adjacent to Charlotte lake.  Tingles ran through our bodies as were approached the lake.  It felt like another full mile to walk the 100 yards from the edge of the lake to our backpacks.

Completely exhausted, we grabbed our packs, found a campground, set up camp, and made some dinner.  All of us felt our mental stability slowly come back into play as we started conversing and laughing again.  There wasn't a moment from then on the rest of the night where Paul, Chris, or I didn't have a huge smile on our faces.

I slept well in a hammock, woke up the next morning and fished in the lake.  I didn't catch anything but didn't really care cause it was just nice to sit out by the lake and enjoy .. well... not doing anything for a little while.

We pack up, hit the trail, and the 8 miles our felt so easy compared to yesterday.  As we were hiking past Bullfrog lake, I had a realization that I was scared to share with the team, but I did after keeping in hidden in my head for a couple minutes first.  When I was ready to share, it went something like this: "Guys.. I screwed up and I have a confession".  They knew we did the climb safe so what could really matter, but they still responded slowly with a "...yeeessss??".  "I forgot our wilderness permit in the car so if a ranger asks us for our permit, we're F'ed".  (A buddy of mine got busted AT charlotte lake for not having a permit a few years back and had to pay a 400$ fine! )  After a moment of silence, Paul reacts with "seriously man?"  "well yeah, but at least I didn't forget the topo for yesterday".  "haha true, but still what are we gonna do?"  I quickly thought up, "ok, let's take our breaks a good ways from trail, hike fast, keep our eyes peeled for rangers, and DON'T STOP ON TOP OF THE PASS".  It's very popular for hikers to gather on the top of the pass making it a great time for rangers to ask everybody for their papers.  There was no ranger in sight, but we still hiked through with our heads down just in case.  Getting back to the car felt like such a relief and that's all I remember about the trip.


Overall, this trip was very meaningful to me because I pushed my mental and physical limits and had fun in the process.  What else am I capable of?  Could we have done the whole thing in a day?  What other summits can we squeeze out in 2 days?  With lifetimes worth of climbing and exploring in the high sierras, I suddenly felt confident, inspired, and excited for more.