We climbed:
The Palisades Traverse (Thunderbold to Sil)
The Mithral Dihedral
The East Face of Mount Whitney
This is just a ton of photos. I’ll throw in comments where it seems necessary, but I’ll be honest: I write trip reports that I would want to read, and when I’m looking at a TR, I skip most of the commentary that’s not specific route information or logistics… mostly, I just look at the pretty pictures.
(one quick comment: this TR was written for a New England climbers' forum, so don't get too upset that I'm describing what the routes on Mt. Russell look like.)
We started (and this may have been a poor choice) by hiking in to climb the Palisades traverse.
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Sea level to several peaks over 14k led to us abandoning our plans to start the traverse on day one. Instead, we stopped early, set up a bivy under a boulder on the moraine, and hung out for a while. We didn’t bring sleeping bags, and instead shared a space blanket for the night. It kinda worked.
Here, Kyle mentally prepares for the next day.
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We got up the next day, hiked up to the Winchell/Thunderbolt col, and began the climb.
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Kyle, on the summit of Thunderbolt, I think.
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The ridge to come
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We climbed large portions of the ridge either simul-climbing or solo, as I recall, this particular section of down-climbing was a bit unnerving for me.
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I think these next photos were taken as I was leading up Polemonium after U-notch, I don’t have any pro in yet, because it’s easy, but the wind was blowing the rope sideways.
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Summit of Polemonium, technical climbing basically done.
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Which means rock shoes off!
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Can you guess where I forgot to put suntan lotion?
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Retrospective of the ridge
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So I admit, we’re slow because we were still acclimatizing and, well, we’re probably just slow. The point is that it got dark just as we got off the glacier and the moraine, but before we got back to the trail. So we got pretty lost finding the trail. We ended up down-valley picking up the climber’s trail off of temple crag (yeah, we were that lost) and finished the hike out.
On the plus side, I found these awesome sunglasses under a log. I think a bear had been chewing on them.
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We woke up the next day, headed south, and got permits to head into the Mt. Whitney area for the Mithral Dihedral. The plan was to climb it car-to-car in a day.
We got up early and started the hike in. It was pretty.
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This is Mt. Russell, the Mithral Dihedral is a obvious shaded corner left of center. The Fishhook Arete follows the curving ridgeline from near the base of the Mithral to the summit.
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At the base of the Mithral
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Unfortunately, weather conspired against us. We were roped up and ready to go by 10:30, but that wasn’t fast enough. Enough clouds and rain were moving in that we felt it prudent not to start up a semi-remote climb in the face of bad weather. We called it, and decided to return with camping gear for a few days so that we could do a proper alpine start. As you can see—although I totally proposed and made this decision—I am happy with this outcome.
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On the hike back down, Kyle and I reached an agreement. If it obviously rained on us during the hike out, or on Mt. Russell, I would buy Kyle a burrito in town. We never found a burrito place, but Kyle and I each had a great taco platter from a truck in Independence, CA.
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A day later, we were back with overnight permits for a few days. This photo was taken at lower boyscout lake, as we waited out an afternoon shower.
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Once the shower passed we continued on to iceberg lake. The clearing clouds made for some awesome scenery and sunset.
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Mt. Whitney, looking rad.
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Mt. Russell, from the campsite at Iceberg lake.
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The night sky, $%^& yeah….
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Kyle on pitch 2 of the Mithral.
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Me following pitch 4, the money pitch. About 200 feet of gorgeous dihedral.
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This was one of the best pitches I’ve ever climbed. Seriously.
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Mt. Whitney, with the standard afternoon clouds and rain-ish looking things.
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This guy climbed the Fishhook Arete with his partner while we were on the Mitral.
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The next morning we were off to do the East Face of Mount Whitney
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We climbed it in three simul-climbing blocks in about 2 hours from roped-up to summit. We could have done it in two, or maybe one block, but we each wanted to make sure the other guy got a fair share of time on the sharp end. It was a really fun climb.
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Here’s a foot for Alfonzo.
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Topping out was great. Similar to topping out at Cathedral. There were a ton of hikers there who had just finished the John Muir trail. They didn’t know what “lots of 4th class and some 5.7” meant, so as far as they were concerned, I was an alpine bad-ass.
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Pre-cooked bacon is available at your local grocer, and is proof that god loves you, and wants you to be happy.
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Somehow, on the descent down the Mountaineers’ Route, a scree-filled gully, I think I got off-route and had to do some sketchy down-climbing.
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Kyle wore the tape gloves for two days without taking them off.
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Then it was time to hike out. We had flights out of SF to catch the next day.
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Gotta fuel the engine
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By the way, the Sierra are really, really pretty…. Seriously….
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