sierras [TR] Eastern Sierras - Whitney, Russell, Fairview, Lover's Leap 8/14/2007

[cfire]

Trip: Eastern Sierras - Whitney, Russell, Fairview, Lover's Leap

 

Date: 8/14/2007

 

Trip Report:

Having never been to the eastern side of the Sierras, I thought it was high time to get out of our crappy August weather and check it out. My partner Joe from Portland was game so we met in P-town and made the long ass drive to Lone Pine in a day. We wanted to do Whitney, the Fishhook arete on Russell next to Whitney, the Mithral dihedral on Russell and then who knows what.

 

Road construction along the way made for exciting times in the car sitting still and added more valuable time to the commute.

 

We had no permit for Whitney so we got to the ranger station at 6:30 the next morning and were first in the door at 8. By some stroke of luck they had a couple of permits for that day to camp at Iceberg lake, so we were in! The hump in from Whitney portal was hot but tolerable even though our packs were loaded with gear for the Mithral, which called for triples in medium cams.

 

Lower Boy Scout lake on the approach

 

After 5 1/2 hours in the afternoon heat we made it to Iceberg lake and set up camp.

 

We decided on the east buttress of Whitney over the more popular east face as the climbing was said to be more sustained and direct. It did prove to be a fun route with never any hard climbing, but fun sections throughout.

 

First pitch

 

 

Further up the route

 

The descent down the mountaineers route was pretty mellow and we agreed to do the Fishhook arete on Russell the next morning.

 

The beautiful and obvious arete

 

 

We got an semi-alpine start not knowing how long the route was and arrived at the base of the route at 6:30am. It was damn cold at the base and we jumped around stalling and blowing on our hands for almost an hour before we decided we needed to get moving up. Joe, who claimed rock/paper/scissors was not played in his native Ireland and knew nothing about it promptly smoked me in it and chose me to lead the first frigid pitch. It was a great pitch, but hard to enjoy when you have to shake out every couple of moves.

 

Joe warming the digits on the first pitch

 

The rest of the climb was fantastic, especially after we hit sunlight.

 

Primo belay

 

The great 3rd pitch

 

What a great climb with sustained 5.8/5.9 climbing almost the whole way and a great position on a perfect arete. We topped out in early afternoon and relaxed on the summit with one other guy that came up the scramble route...very different than the summit of Whitney.

 

Mt Russell summit

 

After reading the summit register and the folks that had done the Mithral we started to have second thoughts about doing it the next day. The Mithral on Russell is 6 pitches with 3/4 of them in a perfect 10b corner, and it's in the shade the whole day. Quotes like "the Mithral is the coldest place in California" and "my hands have never been that cold...and I ice climb" made us think that we came to California for sun and why would we suffer up some frigid rock climb here?

 

So we lounged on the summit for an hour and then headed to camp and packed out the next day.

 

We headed for Tuolumne and jumped on Fairview as Joe had wanted it for a long time.

 

The first pitch of the Regular route

 

Another fun climb with the first 4 pitches being great sustained climbing. The rest wanders to the summit that we shared with just a couple of others.

 

From Tuolumne we decided to head a little north to cut off some of the drive home. I had never been to Lover's Leap so we camped at the great campground there and the next day did "The Line" and "hospital corner", which were both great lines up pergect granite. A great way to end the trip. We got in the car and started driving that night and ended up in P-town at 4am.

 

A great trip with a great partner in the Sierras. Have fun on 'em.

 

Gear Notes:

Standard alpine on the fishhook, light alpine on east Buttress of Whitney.

 

Approach Notes:

Easy until the altitude hits your sea level lungs at about 10,000ft.

[scottgg]

Great looking trip Chris!

[Sol]

Nice

 

fuck this, im going to cali!

[Kyle_Flick]

Nice pix and TR Chris. Good to see you're still getting out.

We did the same trip at the end of this past July except we went from Tuolumne (after Cathedral Peak, Eichorn Pinnacle and Fairview Dome along with Yosemite Valley cragging on a rain day) to the south for Fishhook Arete and E. Face of Whitney. I agree--a wonderful intro to the Sierra. The north to south tour allows one to acclimate a bit before heading to 14K'.

We stopped in Bishop to boulder (the horror) in the Buttermilks on the way home, but we did seriously consider stopping in Tahoe for Lover's Leap, but too many miles and not enough time.

Edited September 4, 2007 by Kyle_Flick

[cfire]

Thanks guys - We thought of acclimitizing lower first, but the thought of driving closer to home as the trip progressed sounded appealing. After the second day at Iceberg lake the breathing got a lot easier.

 

Kyle, I would really recommend Lover's Leap(especially over bouldering, yuk). "The Line" was one of the best 5.9's I've ever done cragging. You certainly understand where the name comes from when you see it.

[Winter]

nice work guys. the leap is awesome! what a great crag.