Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Has anyone tried...

a traverse from Langley to Corcoran and then on to Whitney? Looks possible, and maybe a fun, challenging route.
The topozone map from Langley to Corcoran is here.

http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=11&...amp;datum=nad83

Summitpost has a route desription from Corcoran to LeConte. Then there is the saddle between LeConte and Mallory. Mallory to Irvine and down to Consultation Lake, up the switchbacks and on to Whitney.
Anyone have any input?

Standing on the top of Langley it becomes obvious a trip across the corcoran ridge would require class 5 climbing skills at the very least. Otherwise I would guess that you would need to drop down to rock creek canyon and then go back up from somewhere around sky blue lake or the small lake just east of there.

The trip from Leconte to Corcoran is a difficult class three with route finding...I studied the route for some time...wasn't sure if I could figure it out.

LeConte to Mallory and Mallory to Irvine isn't that bad..some class three.

From Irvine go west past Arc's pass and over McAdie. From there you would need to drop down to crabtree pass, turning northwest past upper crabtree lake, and then North up the sand hill to Discovery pinnacle...and on to Whitney.

What you are suggesting would be difficult, time consuming and require some real skill, especially carrying a pack large enough to sustain yourself over 2-3 days. Staying on the ridge and not loosing elevation would be the problem.

I would consider backpacking up over New Army pass, and then through Rock Creek canyon, stopping on the way to climb 2-3 peaks together at a time. Spread out you could pull off many of the ones you listed.. All of the ones in the middle can be done from Sky Blue Lake area.

You could also do Mallory, Irvine, LeConte, Corcoran, McAdie from the Meysan lake area.

It is not really that practical to try to get from Langley to Whitney by staying on the ridge. Some of it would not be a problem (like LeConte to Mallory to Irvine to McAdie).

Bob Rockwell told me I was out of luck trying to get from McAdie to Discovery Pinnacle without loosing elevation or dropping down. That would cover the section from Irvine to Whitney along the ridge.

I have seen the Corcoran ridge from Langley and from Rock Creek canyon. It sure looks like the class 5 description in the books would be true.

The real problem would be having enough time to
do it, without hauling a heavy backpack along.

In the end it may be better to break it up in sections, done from either Meysan lake or the Rock Creek Canyon/ Sky blue lake area. From either you would have access to the whole middle section.

What a great lead-in to telling about this trip! While I love climbing Mt. Whitney and its well-known companions, the joys of just getting out and seeing where your adventures take you can't be beat.

A few years back, three friends and I did what we called "The Grand Traverse." This started at Langley and went north along the Sierra Crest. The goal was to go over all the named and numbered summits, staying as high as possible. We took only light bivouac-type packs, but had a stove to melt snow because we were always well above running water.

The first phase covered Langley to Tunnabora in July 1988; phase two Tulainyo Tower to Junction Peak in July 1990; and we haven't done the next phase yet.

I'll just comment here on the part from Langley to Whitney, which is what interests you. The peaks of Corcoran were the hardest, but my notes say the climbing didn't exceed class 4. We took a half 9-mil rope but didn't use it. It was class 4 in quite a few places, and there was some exposure, of course.

We never dropped below 12,800', and managed 18 summits by the time we reached Mt. Whitney. These were Langley, 4 summits of Corcoran, and Le Conte on the first day, and we spent the night on the Le Conte/Mallory plateau. Next morning we continued on to Mallory, Irvine, 3 summits of McAdie, Discovery Pinnacle, Muir, Extra Needle, Third Needle, Day Needle, Keeler Needle, and spent the second night on Mt. Whitney.

After Irvine, as TomC suggested, you don't have to drop to Consultation Lake. Rather, continue past McAdie on its west side, and you have to lose some elevation before heading up toward Discovery Pinnacle. I don't remember precisely, but it might have been as much as 1000'. Probably more like 400' - 500', though. So from McAdie to Discovery Pinnacle we were not on the crest.

Haha, well coincidentally that summitpost route you mention, Corcoran to Mallory was written by t***eave7(aka me). That section of the trail is very nice, a bit of route finding around LeConte and Corcoran, the rest is easy class 3 and class 2. To get over to Corcoran from Langley is another story all together. First off it would require some class 5, and slow going at best. So one can either do this as an ultra long endurance day, or attempt it with a full load, which wouldn't be too pleasant. What may be more of a challenge(for feasable as well) is a traverse from Corcoran, LeConte, Mallory, Irvine, and finally up McAdie(I wanted to do this but ran out of steam). Just throwing out ideas.
Eric J Lee(t***eave7)

Bob, I think you omitted one mountain: did your traverse not include the summit of Mt. Marsh? Seems like it would have been logically part of the route from McAdie to Discovery.

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback.
What a challenge. The class 4/5 route-finding from Langley to Corcoran is more than I want to tackle, actually.
Maps, of course, give you an idea of the difficulty of a route, but don't paint the entire picture. Does anyone have any photos of the Langley to Corcoran traverse? That sounds like the most challenging area.
What's funny is that the topo map I saw showing Langley to Corcoran, depicts what looks like a trail or route along with the Inyo/Tulare County line, even though the terrain looks steep.
Anyway, thanks again. If anyone has any additional info, I would like to read it.

Ken, Mt. Marsh was only named two years ago, and its elevation wasn't noted on the maps before that. So for us it was merely another high point on the ridge and didn't attract our attention.

The fact that a contemporary version of this traverse must now include Mt. Marsh is something that has not escaped my notice.

This does look like a very interesting project. The terrain along the crest is fairly complex in sections. As long as a party is putting in the time and effort, it would seem natural to continue on over Russell and Carillon.


The Rock Creek drainage has to be the most target-rich environment for peak-baggers in the Sierra. Beautiful place and requires some effort to get in there.


>> What's funny is that the topo map I saw showing Langley to Corcoran, depicts what looks like a trail or route along with the Inyo/Tulare County line, <<


Which topo? Is it maybe the SNP/INF boundary


Here are some (bad scans of) pics of area.


Looking east from Joe Devel Peak:






Looking ENE from ~11K along Rock Creek:






Looking SE from near Arc Pass:






Looking NNW from Arc Pass:






I should also have some shots looking both N and S along the crest from the summit of Mallory, I will see if I can dig them up.

Crag,
Thanks for the photos and info.
Here is the link to the topo on Topozone.

http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=11&...amp;layer=DRG25

It very well could be the boundary between the two parks. It caught my eye as somewhat continuing on the trail to Langley. Guess I was wrong about that.

Since I don't know how to paste pictures, I'll leave the link to my site.
http://community.webshots.com/photo/88186874/88188098jwuEtk
This one does a decent job of showing the North Face of Langley, from the summit of Mt LeConte. One can also get a feel for the jaggedness of that ridgeline. Just to go the half mile from LeConte to Corcoran required dropping down over 300ft, then ascending up and traversing across several ledges(inorder to keep it class 3 and below), interesting route finding to say the least.
Eric J Lee

Crag: Your first picture, showing the four summits of Corcoran from the west, certainly makes it look uninviting! Eric J Lee's takes some of the fear away, though.

As I mentioned above, we traversed the skyline from right to left and found it to be mostly class 3, with some class 4 here and there - much of it highly exposed. But beware of any one person's estimate of ratings. Unfortunately, I didn't take a camera on this trip.

To do this section by dropping down and around after climbing each summit looks very tedious, involving delicate route-finding, and may be more difficult because of the added path length (hence more opportunity to encounter "difficulties").