Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board russell/whitney/muir

Hi all,

I'm hoping to complete a daytrip of these three 14ers from whitney portal this sunday (the 24th). E ridge of russell, then down the south side and up the north face of whitney, and over. I know this has been done before and have found some great info from previous threads on this board -- thanks!

So: if anyone feels like joining, please let me know. And if anyone has updates on current conditions and/or more tips on route-finding for this particular loop, they would be warmly welcomed.

cheers,
julian

In case you did not go back to '04 looking for threads, here is the thread I posted after doing this hike. http://members17.clubphoto.com/richard724261/2719093/owner-9fd5.phtml I chose to go up and down the south side of Russell rather than hiking the East Ridge. We all thought it would be a bit shorter. Two members almost turned back at Iceberg but were glad they didn't. In my opinion the hike back out the main trail was the most gueling part of the hike. That's alway a long haul but worse when the fatigue level is up a notch. Good luck and have fun.

Rootpi,

I've done all three of those of those peaks but not all three in a single loop on a dayhike. I hope to try it some day. Having done the east ridge I agree with Spinefxr that the south face is probably faster to get up and down than traversing the east ridge. I'm especially curious to find out about going up the north face of Whitney if that's the route you're planning rather than crossing back over the Whitney-Russell divide and going up the MR. Good Luck and please post when you get back.

awesome idea... we tried it in reverse but had to forget about going down the North Side of Whitney... there is alot of hard water-ice on the route... going up should be doable.... good luck... oh yeah,,,, Muir is very cool... amazing how many folks walk right by it and have no idea how easily they could knock off another 14'r

Thanks for the encouragement and info. I debated crossing back to do the MR rather than the north face, but I've already done the MR one and a half times (albeit in spring conditions, i.e. totally snowed in) and was curious to try something new and unusual.

I think the E Ridge of Russell would be a lot of fun, but I am a little worried about time so will consider going up and down the south face instead.

And Desey -- is that ice on the north side of Whitney there now? As long as it's not too much I should be able to avoid it from below (as you suggest), but I'm definitely hoping to go axe-less and crampon-less... fast and light

Trip report:

Started out well, leaving the trailhead at about 5am and feeling good. Got slightly off route around Clyde Meadow but nothing serious, and ended up (on purpose, mostly) taking the long way round from UBSL to Russell-Carillon Col. Reached the east (false) summit of Russell around 11.

Unfortunately, for about an hour or two I'd been feeling a twinge in my right ankle. Tweaked it somehow, which was annoying on the talus and 3rd class scrambles. I still had thoughts of Whitney (whose large north face I now had an excellent view of), so I disappointingly decided to skip the traverse to the true summit and immediately headed down the south side. [the top bit here is real downclimbing! though at least not exposed]

When I got to the bottom my ankle was significantly worse. I maybe should have turned around before even starting the E Ridge, but I originally thought it would just wear off. I knew (or thought I did) that I could still make it up Whitney, if slowly, but didn't want to jeopardize my ankle by doing further damage. So I reluctantly decided to head over the Whitney-Russell pass to Iceberg and home. At this point I really regretted not taking the extra 30 minutes (or whatever) to tag the true summit of Russell, but I was inspired by a party on the Fishhook Arete (as I was descending the south face) so maybe I'll give that a try one day.

Nice hike down from there, though it got more and more painful to put weight on that foot. By the time I was limping down the main trail I was happy I hadn't spent any extra time at all on Russell! Back to the trailhead at 5pm. When I took my shoe off, my ankle felt somewhat better, and it's doing okay today.

So I was 0 for 3 on my goal peaks, but on the bright side:
1) No serious injury (I think)
2) Gorgeous hike on trails that were mostly new for me
3) Ran across several friendly folks from this board, including the beautiful Snowy above the E-ledges -- though embarassingly I didn't recognize her in the dark
4) Saw a shooting star from my sleeping bag just before I got up in the morning

Happy hiking to all...

Rootpi,

Thanks for posting. Congratulations on achieving the most important goal; getting back down!

Yes, it's frustrating how our bodies sometimes unwittingly sabotage our best efforts. But you did all you could do, and you will have many other great hikes/climbs ahead of you when you don't have the bad luck of an injury slowing you down.