Short trip report from Aug 13 hike (East Arete route) and test of minimulist gear.There was great weather and a good moon, so this was going to be a one day trip (if we could get the permit!) carrying only bivy gear for emergencies. I figured James and I could do the knifeedge ridge route in less than 24 hrs, and planned to leave the trailhead just minutes after midnight.
The previous trip I had a trango 2-man tent (4 lb, 6oz), no groundcloth, and 15deg synthetic bag (3lb, 5 oz)... this seemed way too much, both weight-wise and volume-wise, for a summer overnighter. So I went out and bought the following: REI minimalist bivy (1lb, 1oz), MTS bag liner (11oz) and a mylar emergency blanket. (1oz). My plan was, if cought out overnight, to sleep in my clothes, wrapped in the light fleece bag liner, inside the bivy sack. The emer blanket was to be a groundcloth, and/or tarp if it rained (the bivy sack is gortex, but only mesh around the face). I told James to plan on the same setup for himself, more or less.
Ah, it was not to be. 11:15 at the LonePine station, after a 6hr drive from the BayArea, and there were no day permits to be had for the NF LonePine on the 13th. We were about 40th in line that nice sunny Wednesday morning. As luck would have it, there was available, 2 spots for an overnighter, starting today (the 12th). That was great, only now we would be testing the bivy gear FOR SURE! My pack weighed 21 lb, without water.
We grabbed a big lunch, and headed out. I think we made LBSL around 5pm, had a chat with a nice ranger - actually had our permit checked - and sat down for dinner. James had a wicked headache and could go no farther. That was OK by me, I figured we would leave at 4am or so, and be about the same as if we had left the TH near midnight on a day hike.
Well, I was cold. No doubt about it. Crawled into the sack around 8:30pm with two thin layers of clothes (really just long underwear, sock liners, hat) the bag liner and bivy sack. Got very cold by 9:30pm, and had to get up and put on my outer layer, top & bottom, and my final layer on top, a lightweight goretex wind jacket with hood. I was pretty much OK the rest of the night, but not real comfortable. I did have a short, very thin (1.5) thermarest, as well.
The best part about tossing and turning for a few hours, was I got to see part of the Pleaides meteor shower. It was awesome, and I didn't know ahead of time it was going on that week.
Well, we got up at 4am, and took off, planning to eat breakfast at UBSL. We made that at 7am, and as James was feeling much better this day, continued on around the lake to the northeast, kindof opposite the exit to the southeast (the MR on Whitney).
We headed up to Mt. Carrillon going the very long way around to the east. This turned out to be a very good choice and I would recommend it. It is not nearly as loose, steep, or sandy as the more direct route up the couloir just to the west. (We did take the more direct route on the descent, it is pretty much a gravel/talus foot-glissade).
I think about 10am found us at the Russell-Carrillon saddle. We followed the knifeedge on the north side most of the way. James made it to about 100 yards (and 300 vert feet) short of the East Summit, but unfortunately I had taken him on too direct a route (lots of class4) and he was to exhausted to continue. I should have taken more of the class3 route down about 20-30ft lower on the north side, and he would have made it. I continued on to the East Summit, had a small snack, and traversed over to the West Summit. This was easy, and only took about 10min in each direction of class3 scrambling.
5 o'clock found us back at our bivy site near LBSL, packed up and back down the trail for pizza at the place right across the street from the WP hostel, where we planned to get a bed. My only real mistake of the trip was when I let James order the pizza, saying I could eat anything. I had no idea you could actually order a BBQ chicken pizza - including BBQ sauce instead of tomato sauce - ugh, that won't happen again.
I didn't post much in the way of conditions, weather, etc because this TR is so tardy, but I am very interested to hear any comments on my gear selection for this trip.
pix:
http://melville1955.smugmug.com/Mountaineering/Russell-20090913/9289396_hMoMj#620705700_r2k6d
