A view of Mt. Ritter (left) and Banner Peak (right) with Ediza Lake (front).
Kim and Justin on the top of Mt. Ritter, with the Minnerets behind (left)Justin and I spent Labor Day weekend in the High Sierras just south of Yosemite. After our leisurely drive and time spent getting our wilderness permit, we finally headed out on our trek to Ediza Lake. We followed the creak all 6 miles in and passed Shadow Lake about halfway along the way. Due to the later start, we didn't make it to Ediza Lake until well after nightfall. You can see the dark didn't hinder our ability to get some pictures. Justin managed to get one of the moonrise!
The next morning we woke early to make the summit push. We were looking at about 3 miles and a 4,000 foot elevation rise to make it to the top. In addition it was Kim's first "big mountain" climb. The first mile started off easy and pleasant. All we needed to do was be sure to head to the bottom of the route we planned to take, the Southeast Glacier route. It began by picking our way up some rock ledges and then walking up 2 permanent snow fields. Finally we made it to the SE glacier! With such good weather the top layer of the glacier was rather soft, but made the trek pretty easy.
With about 1,000 vertical feet to go we stashed the ice tools and crampons for the final summit push. At this point we'd been climbing for about 5-6 hours and were at about an elevation of 12,000 feet. The going was slow but fun and we finally made it to the summit. The view was spectacular- there wasn't a mountain in sight higher than we were. It literally felt like we were at the top of the world! After a quick lunch of PB&J, we had to head back down. Carefully picking our way through talus and rock, we made it to our glacier gear, strapped it back on and took the glacier as far as we could go. Due to the amount of sunlight left, we decided to take a different, slightly easier route off the steepest parts of the mountain. Finally, we made it back to camp (in the dark once more). After dinner we collapsed into bed before waking the next morning for our 6 mile trek back out.