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Middle Palisade
(Memorial Day Weekend 2006)
Middle Palisade
     Friday night while camped in the rocks at around 10,000' the wind blew hard all night better than 60 mph with gusts easily exceeding 100. Saturday morning it was windy and overcast. Mike and I decided we had better things to do and didn't move up to put a high camp above Finger Lake. We probably wouldn't have have made the summit anyway because late season snow had not consolidated above 12 or 13,000'. A couple who had tried had turned back because of the deep snow. Unconsolidated snow on steep slopes is not only hard work to wade through but also an avalanche threat. 
     I could go back latter in the year and climb it but I hate the crowds that flock to the area when snow is no longer a real issue. There's always next Memorial Day when the mountains are pristine an mostly uninhabited. Besides I now know the route. I helps when you know which mountain is which. I always mistook Middle Palisade for Disappointment Peak and Norman Clyde for Middle Palisade. (Norman Clyde has no easy route in my views from the vantage points I've had in the area)
Middle Palisade  (route is snow chute straight up middle of  face bearing left)  
Not far out of Glacier Lodge View of  Middle Palisade & Norman Clyde (foreground right peak unnamed)
Camp above Willow Lake Disappointment Peak (far left)  Middle Palisade & Norman Clyde
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