I had been talking with a few random people about mid-week climbing and finally one such connection came to fruition. So after a lazy day Tuesday which consisted of a euro-style lunch with red wine and continued straight into dinner with more red wine, I woke up early Wednesday morning with a bit of a hangover and set out for the drive back up the 395 to Lone Pine.
I had never been to Whitney Portal before but it's a pretty awesome place a flat basin in the canyon surrounded by big granite! The road cuts an improbable path up into the canyon ending at campgrounds and a cool store that serves up ENORMOUS breakfasts! So after locating Chris, my random climbing partner for Russell, and stuffing our faces with pancakes of herculean proportions, we sorted our gear and set out for the hike up to Upper Boyscout Lake.
Looking back down towards Whitney Portal with the Alabama Hills and Lone Pine below
The approach to Upper Boyscout Lake
The approach is steep but mellow taking a few hours to reach camp at the lake.
Our bivy was delux, complete with come quite comfy stone chairs, in which I spent the remainder of the day
Western Front climbs the west (obviously) face of Russell and therefore an early start was not necessary because the climb is in the freezing shade until about 11:30 or so. So, we slept in a bit, and had a mellow hike on the approach
Chris with Whitney and Keeler and Day Needles
You pass below the Whitney massif and then up to Iceberg Lake and on up to a pass, where we could finally see the S and W faces of Russell
The west face still being in the shade we posted up at the pass for a nice nap in the sun.
Once it looked like the sun would be finally warming the face in short order, we decided to make our way over to the climb, just a short distance from the pass
South face of Russell
4 or 5 routes in this pic
and finally the west face...still freezing in the shade, but not for long
Western Front takes a prime line up the tallest part of the wall, the highlight being a beautiful soaring corner high on the route
Chris following p2
The money pitch, p5 is the 200' upper section of the dihedral, this pic is from the top looking down and in no way does it any justice...it is absolutely a beautiful pitch of laybacking, fingers, and hands
Chris finishing up the corner
From the top of the corner there's one more pitch and then several hundred feet of simul climbing on terrain varying from scrambling to quite steep cracks.
Whitney from the summit
Eastside Sierra high country
The descent follows the east ridge for some time which is fun and exposed with massive drops to both the n and s. And after a while you turn south and down the longest scree slope I've ever seen! Literally thousands of feet of scree skiing all the way to camp at the lake. Wild!
One last look at Whitney and the Needles
Super fun route and a great trip to the high country!
sorry about the blurry splotch on some of the photos, musta had a fogged up lense
