Peak Performances

Santiago Peak in Orange County. Mount Whitney in the Sierra Nevada. Mount Everest in the Himalayas.

It used to be that mountaineers set their sights on a single lofty goal, just how lofty depending on their level of skill, amount of free time and discretionary travel funds.

Today’s climbers are a more goals-oriented bunch--that’s goals plural, not singular.

The best among them--emulating Italian climbing superstar Reinhold Messner--hope to stand atop all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks, and many lose their lives trying; those peaks are concentrated in the Himalayas. Others, perhaps inspired by millionaire senior citizen Dick Bass, author of “Seven Summits,” try for the highest point on each continent.

Californians might stick closer to home, hoping to reach the summit of each of our 14,000-foot peaks--13 in the Sierra Nevada, one in the White Mountain Range east of the Sierra and one in the Cascades Range in Northern California.

Those peaks may be half as high as the Himalayan giants, but Golden State adventurers definitely get their money’s worth. Who needs air fares, peak fees and porters when some of the most beautiful high wilderness in the world is in our own backyard?

“Any peak that you bag is exhilarating,” said Greg Silver, a real estate broker and training chair for the Boy Scouts’ High Adventure Team. Silver lives in Garden Grove with his wife, Roxanne, and three children. “It’s a thrill for you. But the ruggedness and beauty of the Sierra is an added thrill.”

Silver began his quest for the California peaks commonly referred to as “the fourteeners” two years ago. So far he’s climbed five: White Mountain Peak and Mounts Langley, Whitney, Russell and Shasta.

Although no fourteener is a stroll in the park, White Mountain Peak and Mount Langley are basically walk-ups, demanding no rock climbing skills; Whitney offers summiteers a popular walk-up route as well as several more challenging routes.

The remaining fourteeners contain steep sections on their routes, with at least five--North Palisade, Middle Palisade, and Starlight, Polemonium and Thunderbolt peaks--requiring rock climbing and rope-handling expertise.

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Hypothermia (which results from cold and insufficient clothing) and altitude sickness can be major concerns on any 14,000-foot mountain.

“I struggle with the effects of altitude,” said Margy Floyd of Tustin, a staff member at Rockreation, an indoor climbing gym in Costa Mesa. “I had a really hard time on North Palisade. Thunderbolt Peak, which I did early in my Sierra climbing career, was even harder. I get bad headaches, upset stomach, really great fatigue. Mostly it’s the headaches.”

While proper acclimatization can reduce the debilitating effects of altitude, altitude sickness can strike anybody without warning at elevations as low as 9,000 feet. Hikers losing their breakfast at trail side are a common sight on Mount Whitney, the highest peak

in the contiguous United States at 14,494 feet.

Afternoon electrical storms, typical on California’s high peaks, provide another obstacle. People, especially those wearing wire-rimmed glasses, have been struck by lightning. According to “California’s Fourteeners”--a hiking and climbing guide to the area by Stephen Porcella and Cameron Burns (Palisades Press, Missoula, Mont., 1991)--storms can develop in minutes, especially on White Mountain Peak and Mount Shasta.

Weather prevented Floyd from reaching the top of Polemonium Peak, one of the more difficult fourteeners, and hence from completing her list. She’ll try again this summer.

“The loads are heavier for the technical climbs,” Floyd said of Polemonium and the other more exacting peaks. “It’s a race against time. The whole time you’re worried. You’re thinking about getting back down, which is more dangerous than going up, about the multiple rappels when you’re tired. Weather adds one more aspect.”

According to “California’s Fourteeners,” difficulties on Polemonium include “incredible chasms,” “phenomenally loose” rock and a “stunningly exposed” knife-blade summit ridge.

Nevertheless, Starlight Peak is the most technically demanding of the fourteeners and the least often climbed. For a real adrenaline rush, the same book suggests, stand on top of Starlight’s bottle-shaped summit pinnacle, an act that the authors liken to flying.

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Jeff Clapp of Irvine, also on staff at Rockcreation, has climbed all of the Sierra fourteeners except Mount Langley and plans to do Mount Shasta and White Mountain Peak soon.

Individuals move through the list at their own pace. Silver, who has a family to think about, took two years to climb five fourteeners. Clapp--relatively free of home-front commitments and in top shape--bagged five in four days.

“Two summers ago, Ryan Rambert and I did nine peaks, including five 14,000-ers as part of a single traverse of the Palisade Crest from north to south,” Clapp recalled. Rambert, 17 at the time, lives in Laguna Hills. “We also traversed a number of peaks that weren’t 14,000 feet. We did the north ridge of Thunderbolt, then Starlight, North Palisade and the Polemonium in one day, then [13,390-foot] Mount Jepson and Mount Sill the next day. The entire traverse would have been six miles, but we stopped halfway.”

The entire north-south traverse in a single push would have been a first. “There are complete sections of the crest that don’t have route descriptions in the Sierra guide,” Clapp noted, referring to Steve Roper’s “Climber’s Guide to the High Sierra” (Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1976).

Clapp only recently noticed that he had a couple of peaks left to complete the fourteeners and decided to go for it.

On the other hand, he said he’s climbed Mount Sill five times, North Palisade twice, Thunderbolt Peak three times, Mount Whitney eight times, Mount Muir twice and Mount Russell twice, with repeated summits achieved “generally by different routes,” he said.

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David Evans of Tustin, a sales rep for rock shoe manufacturer Boreal, has finished the list of fourteeners and then some.

“Actually there are about 20 fourteeners if you count all the little ones,” Evans said. “The Sierra Club recognizes 15. My list includes every insignificant subordinate summit and I’ve done almost all of them two or three times, because friends wanted to go do them.

“Lists are just an excuse to go into the mountains. I’ve never really concentrated on doing a list. I did one [fourteener] a year for a few years, doing other peaks as well, and when I had six or eight fourteeners left, I decided to concentrate on them.”

Among his fondest memories among the fourteeners were the Starlight Peak climb with Margy Floyd; Mount Shasta, which completed his list, and White Mountain Peak, which he did by bike.

“You can basically take bikes right to the summit, and ride right off,” Evans noted.

Evans believes that limiting oneself to fourteeners, and lists in general, is a mistake. “The fourteeners are not necessarily the best peaks in the Sierra,” Evans said. “The 12,000- and 13,000-foot peaks are more beautiful, and there are so many more of them. Clyde Peak, next to Middle Palisade, is 13,997. When you’re standing on top, your head’s actually above 14,000 feet. It’s such an arbitrary thing.

“What do you do when you finish the list? The list means nothing. It’s an avenue to adventure, it gives you goals in the wilderness, you get ideas of places to go, you learn your options. It’s just something to provide a direction to go in the mountains.”

Evans paused.

“Besides up.”