Whitney every which way

Whitney is not even really in this picture! I don't know how we went to Whitney and didn't take a real picture of it. If you squint you can see Whitney's shoulder on the right. The thing to the left of it is Keeler needle. 

This is my first shot at a trip report written by a climber/runner for runners. In the Sierra, I like climbing because climbing involves a lot of sitting at the belay and looking at the view, whereas running involves a lot of gasping for air. However, I think my trip reports will be of use to some of you because 1) We use running trails to get to the climbs and 2) We get very high up and are able to get good vantage points on the many routes up Sierra peaks. Here I'll start with a crowd-pleaser: Mt Whitney. 

Permitting

On Wednesday Greg and I were licking our wounds in Mammoth after climbing the Incredible Hulk the day previous in a 17 hour push. We were halfway through a week in the high sierra and were trying to decide what to do next. The Hulk had gone well, but 5.10 climbing at altitude had slapped us around hard enough that we were still wary, and I had somehow acquired a lattice of weird abrasions on my right arm that I could not remember the cause of. 

What could we do that was sufficiently "cool" to convince the ever-lazy GG to hike far into the backcountry, but that wouldn't scare us silly or be doomed to failure? We realized after some debate that we still hadn't done the ultra-classic East Face of Mount Whitney, and that additionally, that route was rated a measly 5.7 and probably wouldn't induce the sort of pathetic gasping and leg trembling and crux-profanity that the Hulk had. We were sold. 

The only problem with the Whitney Zone, of course, is the horrible permitting situation, brought about by the dumb fact that the magnificent hunk of granite that is Whitney is also the tallest piece of earth in the lower 48. Why, oh why could that not have been White Mountain, a fairly boring 14er across the valley? Because now, the Whitney Zone, which contains also the climbing peak Mt Russell, is the only area in California where even a day-hike requires a permit. There are strict quotas on both the class 2 main trail and on the cross-country approach that leads to the climbing routes and on Mount Russell. Had we acquired a permit in advance, perhaps by applying for the lottery in February? Of course not.So we drove to Lone Pine to enter the lottery for 2 of the 4 permits reserved for walk-ins. 

The Lone Pine Ranger's station is perhaps the busiest permitting station I have ever seen. When we arrived it was swarming with boy scouts and hikers and delusional people asking questions about visiting Death Valley in the mid-summer heat.   To get a walk-in permit for the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek, you must show up the day before at 11 am and pick a number out of a hat. Then, in order of number, you state the trail-head that you want permits for. We eyed the other people in lottery. One trip leader had a man-bun, which is a pretty good tip off for a trad-climber. The three other team leaders looked fit enough to make it up the mountaineer's route, the other route out of Lone Pine Creek. We were worried. I reached into the hat with my weirdly-abraded right arm and drew the number 1. Phew. 

We realized that we were going to have to stay the night in the Lone Pine area. As with everything surrounding Mt Whitney, this turns out to be a logistical pain, as the only dispersed camping (hereby forward dispersed camping will refer to GG and I sleeping the back of our car) is in the Alabama Hills, which are totally scorching hot. You can of course camp at Whitney Portal, where it is advised to reserve a campsite far in advance. Had we done so? Nope Nope Nope. Somehow we got a campsite anyways, which brings me to Lesson #1 for climbing Whitney: do it on a weekday. We still slept in the back of our car though. 

Whitney in May 2011. 

I think it is pertinent to admit now that GG and I have climbed Whitney before, in early May of the last El Nino year, in wintery conditions. During that trip, we went up the Mountaineer's Route with ice axes and crampons in the snow flurries of a late season storm, carrying 55 lb backpacks each. That was a regretful situation, which caused me in a fit of frustration to throw my pack down a snow slope on the descent, nearly losing it as it picked up speed down towards the Portal. On this trip, despite needing a rope and a full rack of climbing gear, we brought the pack weight down to 70 lbs between the two of us, mostly by scrimping on "essentials" like two separate sleeping bags and certain pieces of safety gear for the descent. Who needs an ice ax when you an use a lightweight hiking pole instead? Lesson #2 for climbing Whitney: It's a long way up, don't carry a lot of stuff. 

Double sleeping quilt, tent, two sleeping pads, double climbing rack, 1 L of water, personal climbing gear. Not too bad for 31 pounds!

The East Face of Mt Whitney

The major routes up Whitney are as follows: The main trail, which takes a long time and may include 99 switch backs, though I've never done it and can't confirm; the technical climbing routes on the East Face, which are approached via the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek (NFLPC), and the Mountaineer's Route (MR), which is class 3/4 and is also approached via the NFLPC and serves as the descent for the technical routes. 

The main trail switchbacks up this valley, climbers' left of Whitney

We left at 2 am from the car and started up the NFLPC towards the Ebersbacher ledges, named for Dale Ebersbacher who discovered them as an alternative to wallowing in the gully of the overgrown creek. These class 3 rock bands have achieved some notoriety, as Mountaineer's Route folks carrying 70 lb backpacks tremble in fear on these narrow ledges perched above the valley below. Which brings us back to lesson #2; don't bring stuff up Mt. Whitney. It was dark on the way up, but a few days later, on our descent down this gully, I had a realization: the NFLPC is really, really beautiful. I had never seen in it the light before and these pictures don't do it justice, but it helped me realize lesson #3: If you can scramble, go up the NFLPC, you won't regret it. Unless you fall off the Ebersbacher ledges. 

Your view after the ledges

We dumped our camping stuff at Upper Boy Scout Lake (UBSL) just as the sun was coming up over the Inyo Mountains and continued up to Mt Whitney in the growing heat. As we approached the route, a familiar sensation took hold of me. Like getting off the spinning teacups at Disney Land.  Vertigo mixed with a headache and a touch of nausea. I had altitude sickness. Now, what I should have down was gone back down to our camp at UBSL and waited it out. But GG and I had read an article on ibuprofen and AMS so I downed 5 vitamin I and roped up, with GG agreeing to lead until the Vitamin I inevitably cured my of all my ailments. Which brings me to lesson #4: Don't get AMS on Mt Whitney. I'm not really sure how one follows this advice

  The East Face of Whitney is one of the 50 classic climbs of North America and is unarguably really damn cool. It perches you at the highest 1000 ft off the deck on the beautiful granite of a really big mountain. Halfway through the climb you traverse over the void at the aptly named "Fresh Air Traverse." Two old iron pins protect the traverse, and I can just see the first ascensionists literally quaking in their leather boots as they tiptoed across this terrain. At the "Grand Staircase," a series of 15 ft steps, I got my first view of the main trail, a series of relentless switchbacks snaking up the valley to climber's left through a shale-bowl. Too much slogging, I thought, but then was overcome with nausea and probably would have been better off on the main trail where I could beat a hasty retreat, instead of wallowing here on belay ledges waiting for GG to rope-gun us to the top.

Looking between my toes on the Fresh Air Traverse

I normally don't look down while climbing, so obtaining this picture gave me real vertigo

  A thousand head-throbbing pitches later, I left GG behind to clean the last anchor and I stumbled over the lip of the East Face into the full hiker-scene on top. Whoa! A man exclaimed. Where did she come from? She just came over the edge. Hey! How did you get up here? I pulled my baseball cap down over my face and tried not to puke, waving the man aside as I stumbled sadly over into some nice sand to sit in. A man in a "Make America Great Again" hat was standing on the highest point. Various men and women wandered around in puffy jackets, defiant in the 60 degree heat. GG snapped a shot of me, to show to me later when I would inevitably forget what AMS felt like. We beat a hasty retreat, heading down the Mountaineer's Route. 

This is the face of AMS. 

You'd be hard pressed to find a place to use your ice axe and crampons at this time of year on the MR. Bring rock gaiters, the scree is relentless. The last 400 ft are not for nervous scramblers. We made it back down to UBSL and settled in for the night. 

Final 400 ft, MR. Would probably be trivial if not for the ice

The full MR on Whitney, as seen from Mt Russell

Mt Russell

Ah, you say, but this is a trip report about Mt. Whitney. Why is there some dumb mountain here that I've never heard of? Well, because if you've hauled your sorry self up to UBSL, you might as well climb Mt Russell too, since it falls under the same permitting system as Whitney. GG set an alarm for 5 am. We overslept till 530 am and scurried out of camp, running from the incredibly blistering sun that we could see rising over Inyo. 

Sun's coming up! We're such screw-ups.

We climbed Mithral Dihedral on Mt Russell which I won't bore you with, because you're runners and don't care about dumb hand jams and offwidths and the Yosemite Decimal System and what have you. Thankfully this was the last climb of the trip since GG and I lost the last bits of remaining skin we had on our hands at this point. But, in a fit of brilliance, I had suggested that we descend via the East Ridge of Mt Russell, a supposedly classic class 3 ridge scramble that dumps you directly back into your camp at UBSL! 

The East Ridge is described as perhaps the best  class 3 route in CA and it did not disappoint! Like a sidewalk in the sky, you walk directly on the ridge, dropping to the north occasionally to avoid harder sections. You can check out the tiny figures dancing around on the summit of Mt Whitney on one side, and look into the vastness of the Sequoia backcountry on the other. Which brings me to lesson #5 for climbing Whitney: Skip Mt Whitney and climb Mt Russell via the East Ridge instead. Much cooler, you won't see anyone else, and the views are awesome!

Mt Russell- Our route is on the left side, just climbers' left of the curving Fishhook Arete. You can see the long East Ridge, our descent, on the right hand horizon.

GG on the summit ridge of Russell, a sidewalk in the sky

Cathedral Peak, Eichorn Pinnacle, and some Echoes: Newb’s day out

On June 11, 2016 our party of three (me, CR, and GG) went up Cathedral Peak and Eichorn Pinnacle on Cathedral’s shoulder, and then two of us wandered cross country to check out the Echo Peaks next door.  It was a successful day, but we did get chased around by the weather all day, and then finally chased out of the park in the evening.

GG, CR and I are all trying to develop “careers” while mostly just wanting to spend time outside, which often results in an uncomfortable degree of sleep deprivation.  CR was all set to go out solo this weekend, and GG and I decided late in the week that we both wanted to go too.  The forecast looked really rosy on Wednesday, but was turning worse as the week went on. We thought it would be classic afternoon thundershowers, and as long as we got out early we could catch good weather windows Saturday and Sunday.  So we left the bay area after the traffic died down on Friday, drove out past Tuolumne Meadows and napped a few hours in a pullout east of Yosemite.  On the drive out we discussed a few different options for the weekend, and came to sort of a consensus plan: we would try to hit a bunch of relatively easy climbs (for CR and GG) so that I could tag along, and then do something a little more technical on Sunday, and see how I did.  I’m primarily a trail runner who enjoys getting to climb when I get the chance, so I could always run around while they climbed if it sounded a little too exciting for me.  

After waking up at 3:30 we set out up the Cathedral Lakes trailhead around 4:30, and were pleasantly surprised not to see anyone else on the approach trail except two climbers headed back down while we were walking in.  They may have been caught out on Cathedral overnight? They were pretty tight lipped about it. It was a pretty morning, but chilly, with wispy high clouds and a brisk wind.

Morning breaking, slowly

 GG led all the pitches up Cathedral, and then I tied in with an alpine butterfly about 15 meters up the rope from CR. I was sort of the princess on this climb, since I didn’t have to set gear, clean very much gear, or belay.  The downside of this is that I was inactive at belay stations and got very cold.  I had a long sleeve, a puffy, and a wind jacket, and I struggled with whole-body shivers at 4 of the 5 belay stations. I started singing, which may have annoyed everyone else, but did seem to help. The wind was just unrelenting, and the sun was much less warming than expected.  It’s tough being the princess! At the fourth belay were visited by a very cute marmot that I wanted to snuggle with, but he would only snuggle if I fed him, and wilderness ethics have been drilled into me for too many years for that.  If he was going to get our food he would have to steal it.

Other than freezing our asses off it was a pleasant cruise up Cathedral, and it was very smooth after we got our gear all sorted out at the first belay station.  It is such a beautiful mountain, and the views are incredible, especially right now, while much of the high country is snowy.  

The clouds were starting to look more substantial, and the wind was serious business at the top. The summit is small and awkward, so after CR tagged the very top for us we headed down, walking off via the mountaineers route.  On our way down we impulsively decided that we should go up Eichorn Pinnacle too, which sits on Cathedral’s shoulder and is just the cutest piece of rock!  

Eichorn Pinnacle, seen from Cathedral's shoulder

CR led this one easily, but I found this single pitch 5.4 kind of tough with an awkward, exposed traverse section, and I had my only real fall of the day here.  I might have to lead someday, but being a follower has such serious advantages, like low drama, low consequence slips! 

We rappelled off Eichorn (always entertaining to a beginner) as expeditiously as possible since the clouds had definitely rolled in now, and rain was apparent on distant peaks.  The walk off Cathedral takes some time, and involves quite a bit of slabby scramble, and it would be much less fun in the rain.  After getting back down to the bottom of Cathedral we watched 3 separate parties just starting to climb up in conditions that I would characterize as threatening.  It takes all kinds… I can’t bring myself to cast aspersions on beginners, since I am a raw beginner only saved from looking like a fool by my more experienced friends, but let’s just say that some of the folks that were headed up were going to take a very, very long time to make it to the top. I hope they didn’t get rained on too much.

The Echoes in the distance, I think

Now, the initial stated goal of the day was the Echoes, which are a set of small peaks all clustered together, numbered 0-8, next door to Cathedral, but we just couldn’t decide what the weather was going to do now.  CR and I decided that we’d like to do some Echo reconnaissance, but climbing in the rain is no fun, so we’d just head over there and scramble around a little.  GG seemed pretty worn out, maybe because he’d done a lot of leading, and maybe because he hadn’t slept any of the nights of the past week, so he headed back to the car schlepping all our climbing gear, and we travelled light cross country.  Getting up to the Echoes required a mix of clumsy walking across sun-cupped snow and bushwacking through Manzanita, but it didn’t take too long, and about an hour later we were in a dramatic little plateau with rock piles scattered around it. 

The rock is more rose-colored than on Cathedral, and there’s brightly colored lichen all over. You can look over the backside towards Matthis Ridge and friends, and it was clearly raining over there. 

bright lichens

Storms in the distance

We thought we didn’t have a ton of time, so we decided to scramble up Echo #1, which is 3^rd class.  On the way up it was spitting rain a bit, and at the top it seemed to be raining all around us, but not quite on us. 

I said to CR, “We’re now officially being stupid, we should go down” and she agreed, so we headed off of Echo #1.  By the time we got down it looked a lot less threatening, and the other Echoes were so winsome that we decided to go up one more.  Echo #2 is also 3^rd class, and it is a very pretty pile of rocks.  I made it 70% of the way up, and then got a little chicken, but CR cruised on up to the top.

 We considered traversing over to #2.5, but there was a snowfield on the ridge between the top and us, so we traversed back up to the top of #1, and headed down. The rain was threatening again, so we decided, with a lot of regret, that we shouldn’t test our luck with more Echoes, and we headed down.  Every once and a while I hear my husband’s voice in my head while I’m out goofing off, and he is always reproaching me to be careful, so I try to listen sometimes.

We glissaded a bit down from the Echoes, which was a nice break from fighting Manzanita, and headed down to Budd Lake to check out the strange snow patterns on the lake’s surface. 

It was the exact consistency of a slushie, and very pretty.  After snacking a little on the shore we headed down to the car, on a hike out that seemed a lot longer than the hike in.  About 100 meters before the car the rain started to pick up, and we thought we were in for it, but then when we got to the car it backed off again.  Why is the sky so schizophrenic?

We went to grab dinner at the diner on the east side of Yosemite, and while we were enjoying some good solid fare, couple of beers, and some mighty fine pie we asked the very friendly staff about the forecast for Sunday.  It was almost as bad a forecast as you could put together in June—continued high winds, unseasonable cold, rain, thunder, and some snow at high elevations.  The rain was already starting, and was predicted to continue through Sunday night.  So… there wasn’t much point in camping out in the rain to not climb on Sunday.  We all piled into the car, started driving through the rain, and got back to the bay 28 hours after leaving.  It was a dang good way to spend a day, and sleeping in my bed that night was pretty amazing.

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