I had attempted this trifecta once before (see my report on this board from Sep '06) and decided to try again since I'm leaving LA for a while - sad! This time I managed to persuade a friend (Zack) to come with me; he's a serious ultrarunner (which I've just gotten into) and has done a little scrambling so I figured he'd be fine. Although his only previous 14k experience was during the Hardrock 100!
We arrived in LP last wed evening around 10:30p, only to find that they had canceled my reservation at the hostel at 9:30. This was quite annoying, since I had told them twice that we'd be arriving late, but I guess it was a mix-up between the day and night shifts. Unfortunately not only were they now full, so was everything else in town, and we ended up driving to Bishop for the night -- I really wanted a good sleep. But they were nice about it, and I'm sure I'll try again.
Thurs morning we drove back to LP and got to the visitor's center a bit before 11, where we picked up a couple of day permits for friday during the 11a mini-lottery. Then we drove up to the portal and scouted the route to LBSL to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything since last time (including the lower shortcut staying on the north side). Always good to see it during the daytime first!
We went back to town, picked up food etc for the next day, had an early dinner at the pizza factory (chatting with a couple of guys who'd just finished 16 days on the JMT), and went to find a campsite to crash for a few hours. We were thinking of going bandit, but in fact there were sites available up at the portal, so we stayed legit. Someone speculated that there was less demand because of three fatalities (?) in recent weeks. Amusingly, I had brought a pad but no sleeping bag, and Zack had brought a bag but no pad! It wasn't too cold and we were both fine, but didn't get much sleep anyway.
Got up at 2 on friday, had some breakfast, drove up to the trailhead, dropped excess smelly things in the bear lockers, and were off around 2:40. We managed to lose our way around Clyde Meadow, staying way too high/left instead of cutting across the slabs, but after some major (though not too prolonged) bushwhacking we were back on track. We went past UBSL, aiming for the rockwell variation, and filled lots of water in the upper part of the creek (expecting many hours before we had another chance). It was probably 6ish and we got cold standing around (wearing shorts, shirt, light fleece, and light shell each), but the sun was almost there...
We went up a chute angling back to the right, which I think was correct (I'd gone the 'standard' route next to UBSL my first time). There's a short steep couple of moves (4th class?) and then we chose the right fork instead of the left, which may have been a mistake since it was slightly looser and slightly longer (but less steep). Pretty quickly we were on the russell-carillon col and enjoying the early light hitting whitney under bluebird skies.
I had gotten just past the east summit on my previous trip, but Zack seemed happy to go first along the east ridge so off he went. We both seemed to be doing okay with the altitude, although of course it was very noticeable. I'd forgotten how airy a few of the moves are -- not difficult but it's a long way down on both sides! We made it to the east summit and pushed on, passing the south side descent route on our left, which someone was ascending just then (he had camped at iceberg, I think). Around 8:30 or 8:45 we were on top of the west summit and enjoying the view!
At this point we stopped and had a debate, choosing amongst four options:
1) cross the whitney-russell pass and go home, descending the normal approach to the MR;
2) cross the pass and ascend the MR, descending the main trail and tagging muir if we felt up to it;
3) descend the south side of russell, as above, but ascend the north face of whitney (my original plan);
4) descend russell and turn west (right), eventually hitting the JMT and then trail crest, where we could tag muir if desired (but not whitney very easily).
Zack decided that he'd had as much exposure as he wanted for the day and ruled out 2 & 3, and we both had reasons to get back not too late (as everyone always does). I'd already been up whitney (the MR in april a couple of years ago, after previous failed attempts) but wanted muir to add to the ticklist -- russell was my 8th calif 14er, spread out over quite a few years! But we both decided we'd be back, and settled on wimping out with option #1.
Meanwhile the other fellow made it up to the summit and we took some photos for him. He hadn't liked the short steep section on the south side before finally gaining the summit ridge, and I'd have to agree that a couple of the moves seem 4th class to me (especially downclimbing) -- but it's a lot less exposed than the east ridge, which he was asking us about as a possible alternative descent. We advised against it, if only because it's so much longer in terms of actual scrambling, but we never saw him again on the south side so I assume he tried it. Hopefully he made it down fine.
The descent was uneventful except that I sprained my ankle below iceberg lake, before the slightly steeper slope above UBSL. It wasn't painful as long as it didn't twist at all to the side, but that did slow me down a little. Zack had too much energy, so he stayed with me until the main trail and then ran all the way to lone pine campground, where I met him with the car. I was at the portal around 1:20p for a roundtrip time of 10:40.
Overall a most fun day, even if the original task is yet again unfinished. I will definitely be back. If anyone reads this now or in the future and has questions about the route, please feel free to get in touch with me. Enjoy the mountains!
cheers,
julian
