Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Russell East Ridge

Anyone done the E.Ridge recently? Looking to do this next week and was wondering what the snow conditions are like; I don't want to bring a rope up for this one. Any advice would be helpful...

Here's a picture Laura took on May 17. Looks good to go from the picture.



I did have a friend summit Russell Sunday but he approached from the South wall variation which puts you on the east ridge between the east and west summits. They had no issues with snow or ice.

Planning on doing Whitney MR and Russell East Ridge June 12-14, hoping that there's not a lot of snow/ice on the east ridge as well.

Looks good to me. Thanks for the quality update.
SJ- I should have a TR for you by next weekend with some snapshots.

Awesome, that would be much appreciated.

p-nut, are you heading up this weekend? was contemplating day hiking russell on sunday 6/7. im in escondido....

SJ47 and p-nut - I'm also doing the Russell East Ridge and Whitney MR route. I'll be there the 14-16th. Any updates are welcome.

Thanks,

Cool, I will be on Williamson and Tyndall this weekend so I will have a better idea of temps and snow/ice conditions. I'll make sure to post a TR.

We will be hiking up to Iceberg lake on Friday (if we obtain a walk-in permit that day), climbing Whitney on Saturday then moving to Upper Boyscout, climb Russell on Sunday, camp one more night at Upper Boyscout and hike out Monday. If we don't get the walk-in on Friday our permit is for 13 - 15 so we'll alpine start Sat. and summit Whitney, Russell Sun. and hike out Mon.

On the topic, we have one more space available on our permit if anyone is interested in joining. My climbing partner and I will be driving up from LA on Friday morning if you would like to carpool or meet in Lone Pine.

Please email me at scottmjohn@gmail.com if interested.

I may run into you on Russell on Sunday. We'll be making a push from the portal to Russel Sunday then camping around Upper Boy Scout, or Iceberg. It depends on how long it takes us to get down from Russell. Are you heading to Mt Carillon also? The pictures from there of the east ridge look amazing.

i did the east ridge 5/9/09. didn't use rope. there was a good amount of snow. 1/2 snow 1/2 rock.
you are good to go if you have crampon experience. know what an ice ax belay is (basically how to fall on your ice ax). 3 point hold on rock. doug also told me about minimizing your risk. as you're going, look where you may fall. basically fall onto trail below, or a pile of rock or snow instead of down a 1000 ft cliff.
i rate this a hard class 3 with feeling of exposure. so take some courage and confidence with you.
there is also a sub summit before the west summit; don't climb to the top of that. it has two huge boulders. stay below the boulders.
before the west summit there is a snow crossing. i went high up the left side, weaved through snow and rock to the top, went across the top of the snow pile. it is not a cornice. follow my foot prints. you can do it.
the best advice is go check it out. if you're going in waist deep in the snow, which you probably won't be, it might be time to turn around.
catch carillon scramble on the way back; by that time you might be ready to puke but it will be worth it as well.
call sign red, i am going to be doing tyndall and williamson this weekend as well. see you up there.

into the sierras
i am changing my call sign to snow scrambler for the weekend.
peace out.

SJ47 and souloscrambler...........shouldn't you guys be packing?

relative to Russell's East Ridge...any idea what kind of shape it will be in after this recent snow? I read on another forum that the roads to Langley are in very poor shape right now so we may scratch that in favor of a Plan B (Russell)...any reply is appreciated.

W

still waiting for this TR and pics.

Sorry to dissappoint guys. No summit for Whitney or Russell last week. As you have probably heard; conditions were pretty bad. We woke up Wed (our summit attempt day) at Iceberg to snow and lightning. We were the only people up there and we high-tailed it down fairly quick. ( We ran into people retreating from UBSL as well)
With that said, I would go prepaired for full winter snow/ice conditions up there the next couple weeks...
It was very hard personally to not make any summits, but I know we made the smart decision to save things for another day.

Tapped the Williamson and Tyndall summits over the weekend. Got a little bit of everything with the weather, cold, rain, sun and snow, nothing too extreme. Snow level at about 12,000'.

Woke up Saturday at 3am to light/medium snow conditions, not quite white-out cleared up midway through the Williamson Bowl. Lots of snow and ice covered rock up to the summit, but nothing crazy. Temps were in the 20's in the am, warmed up considerably in the afternoon, with some blue sky.

Same for Tyndall on Sunday, weather was much better, clear skies and lots of sun. Good snow conditions on the north rib route.

P-nut and SJ47, do you have any pics of the conditions? Any ice up there?

Thank you.

congradulations p nut. you made the right choice. you came home alive.

johnny red, you are going to have a mixed climbed situation. rock snow and little bit of ice.
its 14000 ft its cold up there. look at the weather forecast on this sight. the temperatures for the week are a high of freezing. that means snow and ice.

prepare for the worst.
the best advice is to go give it a try.
you can always turn around, if the conditions are bad.

good luck on the climb.

Here's a couple pics from the west face route on Williamson. Lots of snow, rocks were pretty slick as well but not a lot of ice accumulation. Not much of a photographer so I don't really have any good pics of conditions, sorry.

http://www2.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=1095765013/PictureID=36632844013/a=88853373_88853373

http://www2.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=1095765013/PictureID=36635879013/a=88853373_88853373

JohnnyRed here are some of the pics.

Thanks SJ47 and souloscrambler for a great trip!

click on the thumbnail for pics



by skydiveken

The pics look good guys. Thank you.

Looks like I'll have a bit of snow up there. I'm also thinking I'll need to bring a neck warmer thing. From the looks of your pics it looks like it came in handy.