Mt. Whitney via the East Buttress (III 5.7) route

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THE ROUTE

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The day before we were at 100 feet below sea level in Death Valley, so we were pretty psyched to snag a walk-in patch of dirt at the overnight hikers campsite at Whitney Portal at 8,300 ft. Pre-dawn rolls around and we start our 5-mile approach on the climber's trail up the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek drainage. The trail is easy to navigate, although steep at times as we hike to 13,000 feet at the base of the climb.

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Lower Boyscout Lake as the sun rises

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Just below Upper Boyscout Lake

Soon we are feeling dwarfed by the imposing East Face of the mountain as we pick our way up to Iceberg Lake and the start of the Buttress.

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Mt Whitney's East Face and The Needles

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The East Buttress

We switched leads on 11 pitches of amazing climbing in a beautiful alpine setting. Most of the pitches were between 5.5 and 5.7 and the rock was surprisingly solid.. only a few sketch loose rock sections. The route had it all.. corner and laybacks, thin slabs, good face climbing and endless cracks. Occasionally we would find ourselves directly on the arrete and soaking in the exposure. As we got higher on the route, there was some snow and ice to deal with, but it just added to the adventure of it all.

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Pitch One as we climb passed a sweet tower with Iceberg Lake below

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Jeff on lead

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Looking straight down as we gain the crest

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Views from the route

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Jeff climbing up as Whitney shadows over the reflective Iceberg Lake.

After about 6,200 feet of gain on the approach and 1,000 feet of climbing, we found ourselves on the summit as the light diminished. It was by far, the biggest alpine rock climb I've undertaken to date. The quality of the route in all aspects just blew me away. Just an awesome route in the highest and most beautiful place in the Sierra.

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The views as the sun begins to set

I have a few more photos from the climb and they are here:
East Buttress Route (III 5.7), Mt. Whitney (September 26, 2011)
 
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Holy wowser that's awesome! Congratulations and, well, wow! If I read this right, you went up 8400' the day before the hike? How did that feel? Any elevation sickness (I'm guessing no, given the successful climb)? Anything to did to help acclimate? That's amazing!
 
Congrats on a great climb. You did it just in time, too. The forecast is for a major storm moving in, so there could be upwards of 2+' on that route in a couple of days.
 
Very, very nice!!

Looking forward to reading about the rest of your adventures in CA.
Whoa Nellie Deli?? :)
 
Thanks guys!

I read this right, you went up 8400' the day before the hike? How did that feel? Any elevation sickness (I'm guessing no, given the successful climb)? Anything to did to help acclimate? That's amazing!
Going from sea level to 8400' was a breeze, we drove it. ;) But it was fine. Personally, I don't feel the affects of altitude until about 12,000ft. We didn't want to linger high or take time to acclimate, our acclimatization plan was to not have one. I felt good the entire time. Any suffering at belays was mainly because I started to get cold. Jeff didn't feel 100% but he rallied and pushed on.

Kevin Rooney said:
You did it just in time, too. The forecast is for a major storm moving in, so there could be upwards of 2+' on that route in a couple of days.
Yeah I think so. We actually almost cancelled the trip as weather had moved in before we left and dumped a little snow, but luckily nothing significant and then a week straight of stellar weather followed. We definitely lucked out with the bluebird window. We knew we were taking a risk going this late in the season.

Stinkyfeet said:
Looking forward to reading about the rest of your adventures in CA.
Whoa Nellie Deli?? :)
Haha. You know, I told Jeff we needed to eat at that gas station, and he knew about it.. then it just never happened! Mt. Whitney was definitely the goal of the trip and getting it done early in the week was awesome. The rest of the trip was the icing on the cake. We climbed in Tuolumne Meadows and then hit up Yosemite Valley for a little cragging. I've got some pictures from that I'm going to post in a bit. I climbed the best finger crack of my life at Glacier Point Apron in the Valley. Good stuff.
 
Nice!

Looks like a climb I would love to do sometime.

I've been up the hikers trail, which is of course a highway, and I noticed the turnoff for the creek trail - how is the condition of that trail? You said it's easy to navigate...did you have beta, or a past visit, or can it be navigated in the dark easily by a first timer?

Also, how is finding the start of the route? (Often that's the crux on these routes.) Again, did you have beta, or really good guidebook info? Or was it obvious?

Thanks for the great report!
 
Congrats Court and Jeff!! Looks like an awesome climb on some awesome rock!!

Any other untold parts of the story to divulge? Summit bivy, stumbling in the dark until wee hours of the morning? :) I've been on some climbing trips where the pics kinda stop after a certain point where the photographic interest cease after some threshold of enjoyment is passed. Looks like you guys entered some "type II" kind of fun on this one. Good stuff :)
 
Nice!

Looks like a climb I would love to do sometime.

I've been up the hikers trail, which is of course a highway, and I noticed the turnoff for the creek trail - how is the condition of that trail?
The climbers trail is in good shape, considering it's a climbers trail.. it switchbacks some, has some rock cairns. The lower sections actually resemble a trail. The upper section starting after Upper Boyscout lake is some talus and a bit rougher. But still really nice and trail-like.

TCD said:
You said it's easy to navigate...did you have beta, or a past visit, or can it be navigated in the dark easily by a first timer?

I had the SuperTopo guidebook to go by. It details the approach nicely. There's a few crux route-finding sections.. one being the E ledges and the other just before you get to Iceberg Lake. We got to the E ledges before the sun rose, but we had run into a guy who was on his way to hike up Mt. Russell and he knew the route, being there earlier in the week. So we lucked out and followed him across the ledges, which were really cool.. exposure at night is something else. We talked to a group who had gotten lost trying to find their way around those ledges, but honestly, even not having run into the hiker, I don't think it was that hard to follow.. there were rock cairns at key spots.

The other route-finding crux by Iceberg Lake is also described in the guidebook and easy to figure out.. staying low in the talus field and then finding the weakness in the ridge is easier than keeping high and climbing the often wet slabby rocks. It'll make sense when you see it. :cool:
TCD said:
Also, how is finding the start of the route? (Often that's the crux on these routes.) Again, did you have beta, or really good guidebook info? Or was it obvious?
Finding the start of the route was obvious. I had seen pictures of the start online at various sites (mountainproject, summitpost, etc) and once we got there, I spotted it. And we had the SuperTopo guide which I highly recommend.
cbcbd said:
Any other untold parts of the story to divulge? Summit bivy, stumbling in the dark until wee hours of the morning? I've been on some climbing trips where the pics kinda stop after a certain point where the photographic interest cease after some threshold of enjoyment is passed. Looks like you guys entered some "type II" kind of fun on this one.
Hahaha... ohh.. I knew once you read this, you'd pick up on that quickly! Yes, there's more to the tale, as you can tell by the dying light photos where we are clearly not on the summit yet. ;) We topped out in the dark. Props to my partner who pulled a crux move in the dark, by headlamp with his mountaineering boots on. I had led out for Pitch 9, where I should have easily found some Class 3/4 for us.. the plan was the simul-climb the rest of the route to the summit, but in my anxiousness as the evening was falling, I didn't take enough time and didn't go as far left as I should have.. we continued to encounter Class 5 stuff. On the last pitch (we didn't know it was the last one at the time but were hoping) we got stuck in this corner, it was now totally dark and the only way out was via this hand traverse/no feet over open dark air and around a blind corner. It was really exciting! Jeff got it done and I followed up to the summit.

Now it's 8:00 p.m. the wind had been picking up for the past two hours. We decided to bivy in the summit house. It being unplanned, of course, it was a cold, uncomfortable and sleepless night. Our descent route was the 11-mile hiking trail because the Mountaineers Route was an icy death chute. The "route" looked so miserable even without the ice, I just can't see any appeal to it. There were 4 or 5 people trying to summit via the Mountaineers during the day and they all turned around. We simply didn't want to drag our asses down 11 miles at night. We were both totally capable and it would have been fine, so it was our choice to bivy up there.

And it was a good choice as we were rewarded with a fanastic sunrise without anyone else around. I spent some time alone on the summit in the morning as Jeff was huddled in the summit house. It was totally worth it to tough it out the night prior. Then we were able to leisurely walk down the hiking trail in the sun and soak in the views.

Now I can say... The End. ;)
 
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We were both totally capable and it would have been fine, so it was our choice to bivy up there.

And it was a good choice as we were rewarded with a fanastic sunrise without anyone else around. I spent some time alone on the summit in the morning as Jeff was huddled in the summit house. It was totally worth it to tough it out the night prior. Then we were able to leisurely walk down the hiking trail in the sun and soak in the views.

Now I can say... The End. ;)

Fantastic photo's, trip and 'tude.
 
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