Lonely Grave in the
Sierra:
How It All Began
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| Those who follow John Muir trail from the south, have their
first full view of Mt. Ritter (center) and Banner Peak (right,
and seemingly higher) from Garnet Lake. On a clear day, it is an
unforgettable scene. (Photo by Lidija Grazulis, reproduced with
permission). |
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Early summer is a good time to get to the High Sierra. Visitors are
blessed with long hours of daylight, the weather is often fine,
and snow still abundant. Later in the season, snow on high passes and saddles
is replaced by ice, which makes getting there much more difficult
and dangerous. As the summer winds down, the days become shorter
and any serious hiking or climbing requires waking up well before sun rise.
Not my favorite way of starting a day. For these reasons,
June and July are my preferred months for the mountains.
However, June/July 2004 didn't look good at first:
My long prepared
trip to Mt. Langley with office mates had to be postponed.
Similarly, my son Dom's plans for climbing a
few Sierra peaks with friends fell through.
With our individual plans scrapped, Dom and I
unexpectedly got a chance to do a joint father-son expedition instead.
We needed something that would be simple enough for my old bones
(I am comfortable with class-2 and short class-3 ascents),
and yet not too boring for Dom
(who has mastered various class-3 and class-4 peaks in the past).
In the end, we picked the Ritter Range,
hoping that Mt. Ritter would be
hospitable enough. If not, its first neighbour, Banner Peak,
would be our second choice.
Dom reserved wilderness permits for the Rush Creek trailhead, and
I hit the Web to see if there were any articles on possible "easy"
approaches to Ritter/Banner.
It didn't take me long to find out about the legendary and well documented
seven encounters between
Alan Ritter and
Mt. Ritter.
Alan ultimately won, and climbed the mountain
successfully in the last attempt.
In one of his earlier reports Alan talks about a grave of
"two German climbers who died on Banner Peak".
This really made me curious. Could there be a grave in what is
officially designated as "wilderness", or was this just a memorial plaque?
Does the plaque shown on Alan's picture
talk about one person (the text says
"here rests"), or two
("who lost their lives")? And so, my quest began.
At first I thought that a simple Google search would tell me
all about the accident and the people involved. How wrong I was!
Many weeks passed, and in spite of various attempts, I hadn't moved
an inch closer to an explanation. It is clear now
that a few crucial things
"conspired" and made the search more difficult than it needed to be,
but back then, when this quest began, I was rather frustrated by the lack
of any progress. I pride myself on being a part of the
information technology revolution from Day One:
In the nineties I was working
for Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Library, and in 1991
the Library set up the first operating Web server
in the United States! Yet, with all the tricks of trade and
all modern tools and gadgets at my finger tips, I couldn't find any lead.
NEXT:
Banner Peak ascent
If you have any reliable
knowledge about the accident or the Rettenbachers,
please drop me a line at
indicates that more information is available in the
footnotes section.
