This summer I felt it was time to rekindle a few old friendships. Kids, careers, mortgages had successfully clogged my life with responsibility. That's actually a totally harsh way of saying that I hadn't done any real hard climbing in 23 years. I wondered if I could still muster some of the climbing ambition that was the pusher of my youth. So I called Mort Testerman, former Kirkwood ski patroller, river guide, about to retire school teacher, and Jim Keating former climbing and skiing partner, still pounding nails finish carpenter and asked if they wanted to get together for a climb I'd been looking at for a few years. The hardest part of this endeavor was getting everyone's schedule of house chores, family trips and the ever present work to come together. Labor Day weekend provided the one extra day we knew our aging bodies would need to make the hike in, climb and hike out.

Keating completely laughed when I reminded him that he'd done the south face of Clyde Minaret in a day and Vern Clevenger and I had done the first ascent of the north ridge of Banner in a day.

"Yea, back when you didn't need Viagra and a walker dude".

"Thanks for the heads up Jim".

The route I'd looked at was on the expansive west face of Mount Ritter. For some reason I'd always thought this was the route Muir had taken on the first ascent. I was completely wrong. Muir wasn't even close to this side of the peak and as it turns out there's a walk up on the west side far to one side of the cliff. A dark arete drops directly down from the summit of Ritter This is the line.

The pleasant hike to the west side of Thousand Island Lake got us to a great camp and an afternoon nap. It was great to be in the carefree world of the backcountry swapping remembrances with old buddies.

We fired up Peet's and ibuprofen the next morning. The walk to Lake Catherine and the Ritter Lakes took a couple hours of doing. From the lakes the route looked like it knitted together just right. No steep loose sections, no disconnected towers, no b.s.

The climb held together on the arete. We stayed on the spine or north side all the way. The crux was a short weird couple of moves off a ledge, otherwise the climbing consisted of a lot of class 4-5 scrambling. It took us 6 hours of climbing to the summit and a solid 12 hours round trip.

I'll post photos and video on my website www.wildernesslight.com as soon as I figure out how to download the damn video.

Norman Claude