Amelia Earhart Peak Climb

This dome is down near Tuolumne somewhere; gotta look it up. (image #040806-107)

I think this is Cathedral Peak from the far southeast. (image #040806-108)

I think this is Unicorn Peak also from the far southeast. (image #040806-109)

Lyell. I shot this with a 20-mm wide-angle lens. (image #040806-110)

Ireland Lake wide angle. (image #040806-111)

Brown Tile lichen. (image #040806-112)

Jon and his Nikon F3. (image #040806-113)

Wayne on the summit. (image #040806-114)

Maurie on the summit. (image #040806-115)

Our tent is that tiny blue dot in the very center of his shot. (image #040806-116)

(image #040806-117)

We worked our way back via the north ridge which was slow going because we were crossing the joint surfaces and had to pick our way over large blocks of granite. We got down to the saddle north of the peak and dropped off the ridge to the west. This is looking back up at the summit from the saddle. (image #040806-118)

Mary Jane adds another photo to her collection of bumps-and-bruses images. (image #040806-119)

(image #040806-120)

coming down off the saddle to the valley below. (image #040806-121)

Snow along the sandy route between the rocks. (image #040806-122)

Then Deanna took a spill. She put her foot on a rock and slipped off of it and fell head over heels. She thought she had sprained her ankle and couldn't put any weight on it. (image #040806-123)

This is the view looking down the way we had to go to get Deanna out of there. I wrapped her ankle in an Ace wrap right over the boot to keep the swelling contained. She scooted along on her butt over the roughest places and was able to hobble over easier places. (image #040806-124)

The Forth Day - Going Home

Jon filled one of the Nalgene folding water bottles with snow and I made a combination ice-pack/split out of it with an Ace wrap. We got down a steep quarter mile to a meadow above Ireland lake as it was approaching nightfall. Meanwhile, back at basecamp, Mary Jane and Maurie packed a bivouac pack with a tent, a couple sleeping bags, food, and even contact-lens supplies. Our camping neighbors at the lake - a fellow named Jess and two of his buddies from the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD) played Sherpa and took the pack up to us. Without those three guys, we'd have been another couple hours getting Deanna bedded down up there since we didn't bail sooner. She's a trooper. (image #040807-125)

The next morning, Mary Jane hoofed it out five miles to Vogelsang and got through to the Park Service who sent a Ranger with a saddle mount. Jon, meanwhile, came back to our meadow to help me get Deanna the rest of the way out. That took about three hours and she was glad she didn't try to finish it by flashlight the night before. (image #040807-126)

This is the lovely site, albeit six tenths of a mile from our base camp, where Deanna and I bivouacked. (image #040807-127)

Where Deanna took her fall is just below that lowest snow patch and just above the talus fan in that notch in the middle of the photo. This shot makes it look stepper than it is because it is a telephoto shot looking right up the notch. Don't get me wrong - it was plenty steep enough. (image #040807-128)

Crossing Ireland Creek at the outfall from the Ireland Lake was our last obstacle. From there it was fairly flat and smooth the last hundred meters to the base-camp tents. (image #040807-129)

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