Mount Ritter 13,149′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 11:00
Distance: 20 miles
Elevation Gain: 7000′
Crux: Class 3
Trailhead: Agnew Meadows- trash, pit toilets
(Statistics approximate, forgot GPS)
Almost 5 years ago to the day, I attempted a double header day hiker of Mount Ritter and Banner Peak, climbing to the col between the two and tagging Banner first before heading up the North Face of Ritter. Unfortunately, when I reached the top of Banner Peak on that day, storm clouds had rolled in early, and I had to quickly descend to below treeline, losing my ice axe in the process. 5 years later, it was time to return to finish the job. Since I had at least successfully climbed Banner Peak, there was no compelling reason to head back up to the Ritter- Banner col, and it made more sense to attempt Ritter via the standard Southeast Glacier route. It would kick off three straight days of climbing around Mammoth Lakes and would be my longest planned day of the three at roughly 20 miles. Although we’ve had a pretty horrible summer in terms of snow, it was unclear if I would need to spend any time on the glacier and wanted to optimize firm conditions if needed. So I started early, leaving town for Agnew Meadows trailhead and starting down the trail before 5 AM. It was the first time I’ve hiked by a full moon in a long while, and aside from walking through the shadows of the tall pines, I barely needed a headlamp. I followed the trail by moonlight as it descended towards the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River, dropping a few hundred feet before crossing the river and climbing back up along Shadow Creek. The day just began to break as I followed the switchbacks towards Shadow Lake, and it became quite evident that the air quality was going to be horrible for the day- in fact, it wound up being the worst day of the entire week for the Mammoth Lakes area.
I took a short break at Shadow Lake, Ritter and Banner bathed in early morning light (and smoke) up canyon. The route briefly follows the John Muir Trail along Shadow Creek, passing small cascades and impressive Red Cedars before continuing along to Ediza Lake. I remembered being struck by how beautiful Ediza Lake was when I climbed Banner Peak and I was no less struck on this second visit, the Minarets reflecting off the calm waters. I still find it one of the more beautiful lakes in the entirety of the Sierra.
Leaving the maintained trail, I picked up a use path along the north side of the lake, briefly scrambling through boulders on the shore before picking it up again in the forest. I passed a number of campsites, all occupants still in their sleeping bags for the day. The well defined use trail climbed away from the lake along an unnamed stream to the northwest, leading into the canyon and Southeast faces of both Ritter and Banner.
Much has been written about accessing the Southeast Glacier route, with Secor and various guides giving long and sometimes rambling descriptions of the ledge system used to bypass the lower cliff bands. In actuality, you just need to head up the grassy ledges that are the only thing that look class 2.
I followed the use trail until it fizzled out in the talus slopes, then continued up easy class two ledges until I was above the prominent cliff bands directly south of Mount Ritter. I could see the edge of the glacier in a deep cirque west and slightly north, and I followed more granite slabs and ledges up to the toe of the glacier.
Although this section was class 3, it would have been easy to keep things class 2 if you made a point of it. Even in the low snow year, the glacier was more impressive than I expected. Almost entirely north facing, it is protected from sun most of the year and hidden from view from most of the common viewpoints of Ritter.
Although I had crampons with me, I wanted to see if I could get away with not using them, and I skirted the right (north) edge of the glacier on talus, then hopped on the glacier itself a bit higher where it was deeply suncupped. The suncups were so deep, I actually never needed the crampons and I easily worked up to nearly to the top of the glacier. I was so focused on looking up at the talus slopes around me for the line up, that I stopped paying attention to my footing, and I busted through the glacial crust into a trough filled with icy water.
“FUCK!” I yelled to no one, more startled than anything else. That seemed like my cue to get back on dry rock, and I moved off to the glacier and back on to talus.
This wound up being a big mistake. The rock at the edge of the glacier a bit higher up was absolute garbage, with talus the size of volleyballs sliding and rolling with each step. After making little progress and expending way too much energy, I retreated back to the glacier and followed it 50′ higher to dramatically more stable rock.
The section above the glacier has also been described to death, but could similarly be boiled down to- head up the slope that looks the easiest. I think the confusion is that it is often described as a gully, but in reality is more just a broad talus slope with a slight depression in the center. I worked up class 2 talus, moving a bit to my right on steeper class 3 rock finding it to be a bit more secure. This led to a broad notch marked by a large cairn, the true summit now in view directly above.
I took a short breather on the southern ridgeline of Ritter, the heavy smoke making a noticeable difference in my performance at the high altitude. A faint use trail materialized on the slopes, taking about 45 minutes more of talus hopping to reach the summit. Although Mount Ritter is the highest mountain in the north Sierras, the views were pretty lack luster given the thick smoke. I could make out Mount Davis and Mount Lyell and Maclure to the north, and Banner Peak to the northeast. But I couldn’t even see Mammoth Mountain to the southeast, the Minarets basically the only thing I could make out in that direction. I could see portions of the Silver Divide to the west, but not much else. I ate my lunch and thumbed through the register, the marquee summit seeing almost daily visitors in the summer months, with a surprising number of entries in the winter.
Dropping off the summit, the descent went quickly, getting back to the glacier in under an hour. Learning from my mistake on the ascent, I hopped back on the ice quickly, utilizing the deep suncups to save myself from needing to put on crampons for the short 100 yards to the toe of the ice.
I stopped here to filter a liter of water to at least get me back to Lake Ediza, then more or less descended the way I came via the class 3 ledges angling to the southeast. It wasn’t too hard to find the grassy ledges for the descent and I was back to the unnamed stream below Ritter and Banner by 1:30, taking under 2 hours from the summit to descend 3000′. I came across three older hikers doing a cross country loop out of Garnet Lake, one of which used to work for the same hospital system in Fresno. I passed a few more people along the shores of Ediza Lake where I took another short break, the smoke not letting up.
Back on a real trail, it was almost startling to see so many people having been alone the whole day, passing sets of backpackers every 10 minutes. I filtered one final liter of water at the outlet of Shadow Lake before descending back to the San Joaquin and following the short but hot and exposed uphill back to Agnew Meadows.
The day had taken about 11 hours, about an hour longer than I was aiming for, but I felt like I could blame the smoke on falling short. I hopped in the car and picked up Holly to head to Distant Brewing for a beer and dinner before deciding on an objective for the following day.
Your ascent of Ritter brings me back 34 years to 1988 when I went on a backpacking trip in the high Sierra with a group from UC Berkeley. We camped at Ediza Lake and summited the next day. Spending two nights at Ediza and camping along the north side in the high alpine meadows was magical. I still remember the gurgling stream nearby and rustic early fall colors. Even as a 25 year old buck Ritter was a tough mountain. We climbed the SE glacier route and summited the same way you did. My mother unearthed an old photo taken of me on the summit with the glacier in the background.
My hats off to you doing this in one day!! What other mountains have you done in the Sierra?
George, I’m glad my trip brought back fond memories, I’m sure the glacier was in much better shape back then! I have a lot of additional Sierra trip reports that you can find in the Sierra Nevada section of the website l, although it’s far from complete since I had been climbing for years before I started writing.