I have added some detail and some pics to the webshots album for your reading and viewing pleasure.
A friend and I had planned on climbing the original east face route since a random climbing trip to the Lone Pine area last May. We had planned on finding some routes along Horseshoe Meadows Road. Thwarted by a chossy paradise and hungering for action we headed over towards the Portal for some bouldering and exploring. On the way the surreal views of Whitney's shear east face caught our gaze and our conversation (While I grew up in SoCal and was aware of Mt Whitney's existence, until that trip it had not had any real impact on me) We bouldered and hiked up the trail for a few miles before returning to our car for the long drive back to Huntington Beach. It was during that drive that hatched our plan, originally 2 years from the upcoming 2007 summer season to climb the East Face route (we had decided early in October while snacking on Pine Tree Ledge at Tahquitz that 2 years preparation was not necessary and moved up our target date to August 2008).
Fast forward 15 months...
Wednesday 8/13: I kiss my beautiful wife's visibly worried face goodbye for the long weekend and began the long dive up to Lone Pine. We stopped by REI for a new water bladder (my last was damaged on our last training trip to Tahquitz) and then back by the house for some forgotten goods. Finally we were off. The trip up was virtually traffic free and went by faster than usual. Our minds raced with possibilities of success and concerns about the consequences of failure on such a route. After a long wait in line at the Visitors Center we headed up to the Portal for burgers and fries then set up camp just a few yards from the TH. We spent the evening sorting gear and trying to squeeze every unnecessary ounce from our packs. I slept very little.
Thursday 8/14: Got up at about 5am feeling like I could go right back to sleep. I had Granola with Blueberries for breakfast, shouldered my 59lb pack (yes, I know...I don't know) onto my 250lb arse and The Ass and I started up the North Fork. My god that is a steep trail! Route finding was much easier than I had imagined, as were the EB's. What a beautiful hike. Wildflowers are in full effect. Our original plan was to camp at Iceberg Lake, but much rationalization and an ongoing argument between my legs and my backpack led to what I believe is a much better place to camp: Upper Boy scout
We set up camp by 11am and had the rest of the day to play around the lake and contemplate our next days activities. After much chillin and a hike around the lake we met a man and woman camped a few hundred yards from us. The woman had just completed a hike up Mt Carillon. She attempted Russell's east ridge (which was on our agenda for Saturday) but was chased away by the extreme exposure guarding the twin summits. We congratulated her anyway, wished them both a great trip and went on our way. I had Ramen noodles, string cheese and tuna with Wheat Thins. Pretty good actually. Off to bed for another night of schlep, but unfortunately very little to no sleep.
Friday 8/15: I woke up at 5:15. 1:15 after my alarm had gone off and apparently given up on me. I woke The Ass and we started up to Iceberg around 5:45. For the first hour or so I felt absolutely horrible. I am not used to eating breakfast first thing after I wake, so that was adding to the exhaustion of two days with very little sleep and immediately starting up a 40 degree slope at 12000' coupled with an already nervous belly. After a while though My belly and my brain stabilized, and I began to feel much better. With a slow pace we arrived at the lake at 8am and refilled our bladders and stashed my pack and the water filter (sorry guys, I have seen too many wag bags laying around and posts about poop bags at Iceberg to believe there is no contamination in these lakes). By about 9am we were roping up at the notch behind the first tower and coming to grips with what we had committed ourselves to. The first pitch went to The Ass. The unassumingly named tower traverse starts out by stepping down off of a block onto a narrow downward slopping ledge. The move itself is fairly straight forward. Below the ledge however, only a few horizontal feet away lies the moraine at the base of the east face proper...800 vertical feet below.
I followed the leader and found myself looking up at what I had hoped to climb unroped: the Washboard. I have read several times that the Washboard is 3rd class. While the climbing is easy I think a fall here while unroped would be hard to arrest and likely result in catastrophe and IMHO should be considered 4th class. We traded leads for 3 pitches to reach the top of the ridge left of the Washboard. From here we scrambled down to the large gravely ledges that lay before what's known as the Fresh Air Traverse: blocky climbing leads across a short section of the wall with shear drops of approximately 1200 feet below. We sat here for a while to eat lunch. By this time apprehension that had been building for 15 months was now mostly gone. The climbing is fun, easy and very protectable. I took this lead (as agreed many months in advance). Definitely the most exposure I have ever faced on lead. But the climbing was so easy; the exposure did not bother me. A big WOOHOOOO and YEEAAAOOUUU signified the end of the pitch, The Ass followed shortly behind.
As I sat at this belay I began to get cold. After waiting for what seemed like hours for The Ass to finish the chimney pitch I began to shiver and curse the man for being so gal darn slow. Finally he set a belay and my mood changed quickly as I climbed up behind him, we had reached the Grand Staircase. This section we climbed unroped. At the top of the staircase is an offwidth crack of about 15 feet. The Ass took the first crack at it (no pun intended. He was able to set 1 micro cam in the thin crack to the left before sitting into the rope. We traded leads, and I was able to grunt my way up with a sharp lip to the Ass' tight belay (I apologize if there was anyone within earshot of that outburst).
1 more unexpected roped pitch above the Staircase and we were scrambling to the summit at around 5pm. A lone hiker was summiting from the main trail as we came up over the summit blocks. Rain and lightning that appeared to be approaching from the south and west kept us from spending too much time on top. I signed in at the register, snapped a few pics, called mom and the wife and we headed over to the MR for our descent. Rout finding was pretty easy but did take some attention. We reached Iceberg Lake @ 7:30 refilled our bladders again, and headed back down to UBSL, arriving by head lamp at about 9:30pm. I had neglected my appetite on the way down in the interest of time and again felt pretty horrible by the time we reached camp. For some unknown reason I suffered from some sort of lung ailment through the night and spent a lot of the night hacking away in my tent. My apologies to the other campers at UBSL.
Although Russell's East Ridge was next on the agenda; fatigue and anticipated soreness prompted us to descend on Saturday (the 77th anniversary of the FA of the East Face route by Norman Clyde, Jules Eichorn, Glen Dawson and Robert Underhill). Leaving UBS @ 12:30pm we headed down the North Fork trail stopping often on the way down to drink, take pictures and marvel at the fact that we had hauled our uber packs up this ridiculously steep trail. Going up was hard, going down just hurts.
We arrived at the Portal at 3pm, dropped off our Wags and went to CJ's for Double Western Bacon Cheeseburgers and Oreo Shakes.
Good times
Ps I will post pics once I have them downloaded and uploaded...Peace
