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

Has anyone climbed the East Buttress of Mt Whitney? I am planning on doing the climb on Sunday the 18th. Just want to know if there is snow on the climb. Thanks johnny

All technical sections will be clear but you may run into patches of snow on North-facing ledges - should not be a problem. There will be snow on MR. I would go light (small rack, no snow gear). To avoid descending the steep upper sections of MR without crampons/ice axe, you may want to do one or two raps from the top. Awesome route - enjoy! :))

P.S. If you feel adventurous, the upper pitches have variations harder than 5.7

thanks amax I have done the climb a few times. It is a great climb. i Is the snow on the shut mid day soft enough for hiking poles to desend.

Dudes,

There are axes these days--e.g., the Camp Corsa--which weigh 6 oz. There really is no excuse not to carry one. Suppose you epic, have to descend at night, and the snow has refrozen and you just have hiking poles?

There should be no snow on the technical parts. There was nothing hard to circumvent in early December after a couple storms, even; the route is in good position to shed snow from wind.

I don't want to start a long argument but ... there really is a reason not to carry extra (and unnecessary) items on alpine climbs if you want to move fast, especially if you climb the route c2c. No matter how strong you are, every bit of extra weight slows you down. Besides, leading with an ice axe and trekking poles is not as much fun as leading light, unless you plan to use your second as a mule :))
For this climb and this time of the year, I would not be concerned about the possibility of descending snow w/o an ice axe for several reasons: 1) If you epic on East Buttress, you bail by rappelling to MR gully which is an easy descend; 2) If you need to descend from the top, you can always setup a rap; 3) the lowest summit temperatures will still be above freezing; and 4)in an unlikely event of descending frozen snow due to epic and rapid change in weather conditions, the trad gear or small sharp rocks can be used as substitutes for an ice axe.
Of course, this is just my personal opinion

To each his own, I guess. One can certainly get away without an axe on the descent, especially with this dratted heat and if you choose to rappel steep spots, but my point was that at 6 oz and in the short length (60 cm) the axe is not a hindrance to climb with on an easy route like East Buttress. You could even save time by skipping down the final 400 instead of setting up rappels. I have car-to-car'd routes where I would not have gotten back in a reasonable time without an axe, but I have never not car-to-car'd a route because I had 6 extraneous ounces. That much weight would make a difference on the Rupal Face... but not East Buttress.

Anyway, the weight is often worth it for me, but maybe not for everyone else--that's just my 2 cents.

point taken:)
I hope you are bringing one to Cassin Ridge:)

Thanks guys for the input. I dont mean to blow my on horn butt I am free soloing the route I have free soloed the route twice and was on the summit by 1030 am from the portal. I was just wondering about the chute since we had a heavier winter Thanks again guys. IF we do it sunday I'll post and let you know how it went.