The northeast face of north palisade, above the palisade glacier.- I don’t care if you grew up skiing on the east coast, The U-notch couloir is looking pretty blue. North Palisade (elev. 14,242) is California’s third highest peak, and, according to some, is the classic sierra climb.- I’ve always wanted to climb this peak.- Two springs ago, myself and my roommate (mountain-man extraordinaire: Pat Harwood) took a two night trip to attempt to climb North Pal, and ski the U-notch couloir.

We settled for the north couloir of Thunderbolt peak, The snow was still pretty much pow above 13,000 ft, and a great corn run back to base camp. The U-notch was old, blue ice; so we had to call it off.- Reports from last spring were that the U-notch was blue again, so last week, we settled for a summer ascent. We descended the way we had come, and hiked out and drove home the following day.- Great weather and a great trip, even if we did have to walk down the mountain instead of ski.- I hope to do a big tour in this area sometime next spring.- There’s tons of terrain, and the mountains are some of the most impressive in the range.