Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board vidette creek/ north slope

i am planning a trip for mid-sept from onion valley coming out at the portal, 6 days with a couple of side trips. have done the jmt numerous times before so wanted to do a little cross-country instead. anyone been up vidette creek, over deerhorn saddle and harrison pass lately. looks like a nice side trip instead of going over forester pass. after that i thought it would be nice to head up the wallace creek drainage. would it be a good trip and doable to head up the drainage to the whitney-russell pass then up the north slope to the top of whitney? i have been reading up in r.j. secor book and am somewhat familiar with the area around whitney but living on the east coast i don't get out to the sierra's as much as i would like. just so you don't think i am another crazy wacko who doesn't know what he is getting into, i have done the high route from cedar grove to dusy basin before and the jtm a couple of times. any infor would be great, thanks much

Can't comment on the first part of the trip, but...

if you head up into the Wallace Creek drainage, the easiest way to exit is the Russell/Carillon Saddle, which drops you down to Upper Boy Scout Lake. You'd then have to backtrack up to Iceberg and the MR to do Whitney.

There is a crossing from Wales Lake to Arctic Lake that's supposed to be 3rd Class, but I've only heard about it (from a few different people), not done it.

You can head up fairly gentle scree slopes to Mt. Young and cross over to the bottom of the Arctic Lake drainage. That would give you access to the west, north, or if you cross Whitney/Russell, the MR routes on Whitney.

I lst went over Harrison Pass in 1958 to scout a possible route to Whitney from Cedar Grove, but gave it up as too difficult for the campers I was leading on a later trip. Trail was OK & fairly easy to follow, but miserable with a backpack.

Next visited the area and Harrison Pass in 2006 with a day pack. Be forewarned: the trail has not seen any maintenance in years. It is clearly Class 3 on the North side and dangerous, while the South side is easy Class 1. We saw people throwing their packs down the north slopes to avoid having to carry them on the scree and loose boulders. A huge boulder the size of a VW bug barely missed one of our group. If you go over this monster, South to North is the best way with a backpack.

A guy I was with in 06, did day pack hike south to north in 07 and 08 and said Harrison Pass had not improved at all !!