Kearsarge Pass to Whitney Portal
From ScottWiki
Trip Report: Kings-Kern Divide and Whitney Region, July 9-16, 2005, by Lizzy Wenk.
Here I report on 1 trip with 4 people over 8 days and 80 miles on which 36,900 feet were ascended and 37,700 feet were descended, but an unknown number of steps were walked.
On Saturday July 9 the four of us who had avoided doing power-squats the previous Thursday morning headed over Kearsarge Pass with heavy packs. We were: Stephan Chan, Scott Morrison, Nina White, and Lizzy Wenk.
The ascent to the pass was accomplished in about 2.5 hours and we enjoyed an early lunch while admiring views of the still distant Mt. Brewer, tomorrow’s goal. We continued down to the Muir Trail, followed it south for a few miles, and turned down Bubbs Creek at Vidette Meadow. The walk down Bubbs Creek was beautiful with a high volume of water pouring down slabs and over small cascades and waterfalls. The flowers were in full bloom, especially the mariposa lilies (Calochortus sp.)
At about 4 pm the anticipated excitement for the day was realized as we approached the Bubbs Creek crossing at the East Lake junction. The first glance of the usual crossing point confirmed that we could not safely cross at that point – there were small standing waves and swift, deep water. I was especially apprehensive since some friends nearly drowned at this exact location during the high run-off in 1998. Leaving Nina on bear patrol, Scott and I began scouting for either log crossings or areas where the streambed was wider. A short distance upstream, just above the confluence of East Creek and Bubbs Creek, Scott managed to cross Bubbs Creek near what appears to be the foundation of an old bridge. The rest of us touched toes into the intimidating stream and jumped back out, very sure we would be unable to keep our balance with packs on. Scott proceeded to carry my and Nina’s packs across and also to set up a handline to hold onto as we crossed. Amazingly, the water was a comfortable temperature, making it pleasant to slowly work our way across the swift water.
When we regrouped on the south side of the river a second obstacle faced us: we either had to cross East Creek as well or bushwhack up the east side of the creek until the trail crossed East Creek on a bridge a ½ mile upstream. We were fortunate to find a series of logs across the main channel, as the off-trail option was a horrible looking slope of boulders and brush that would have been very slow going. With the stream crossing behind us, we began the last 3-mile trudge up to East Lake, camping amongst the mosquitoes near the bear box at the southern end of the lake.
We left camp at 7 the next morning to embark on the longest day of the trip. (I don’t know why I have a habit of planning trips with the longest days towards the beginning when none of us are as acclimatized, but my agenda called for 7000 feet of elevation gain in order to summit both Mt. Francis Farquhar and Mt. Brewer.) Mt. Brewer is one of the most prominent peaks of the Sierra, although easily ascendable from most sides. Mt. Francis Farquhar is a shorter peak towards the far northern end of the Great Western Divide, but I had long wanted to climb the peak named in honor of a past-president of the Sierra club and the author of A Sierra Nevada History. The intended order of peaks shifted multiple times as we ascended the first 1500 feet from East Lake. Nina was having a difficult time with the altitude, compounded undoubtedly by our fast ascent out of camp. With this in mind, the eventual plan was that Scott and I would first climb Mt. Farquhar, that although lower in elevation was a long ways off and presumably across many slushy, sun-cupped snow slopes, and then meet the others for a late afternoon ascent of Mt. Brewer. Nina remained on a slab bench at about 11,000 feet, above the worst mosquitoes and below the talus and snow, and Stephan joined us as far as the pass between the East Lake and North Guard Lake drainages (east of North Guard Peak) before rejoining Nina. There was nearly complete snow cover by 11,500 feet and we post-holed with every step – exhausting and slow going.
Although we were skirting the North Guard Drainage on high slopes, our route did allow me to look into the drainage, another “goal” of the route. High elevation forest and beautiful slabs surround North Guard Lake, but I imagine few people have camped there. Best as I can tell you cannot ascend North Guard Creek from Bubbs Creek, leaving only a handful of rather high, rocky, remote passes to cross into it, increasing its mystique and my desire to camp there someday. Today we stayed just a few hundred feet below the pass, traversing around to the south slope of Mt. Farquhar. The first 100-200 feet of descent off the north side of the pass are large, steep class 2-3 boulders, but we found a route through them without difficulty. The final ascent was fast – a mixture of sand and easy boulders, forcing us to ponder where the 3rd class section might be. We didn’t discover it until we were on top, stopped, caught our breath, and tried to decide which rock was the high point. A few 100 feet north emerged a rather pointy pinnacle and one separated from us by a notch. We descended 50 feet and traversed to it, with a bit of delicate 3rd class as we climbed the final 20 feet. The high point was a 7-foot tall, vertical boulder, overhanging a large drop-off. A quick break and we retraced our steps towards Brewer.
We thought we’d been moving rather quickly all day, but really had no idea since I’d left my watch with Nina and we could only check the time when Scott took pictures with his digital camera. As it turned out, it was nearly 3 before we all regrouped at about 11,500 feet, still 2000 feet below the summit, and stared up at the east ridge route. Nina continued to have difficulties climbing and realized she wasn’t up for the rapid rate of ascent, mostly on slushy snow, required to reach the summit by 5 pm. Continuing around 3:15, the other three of us climbed maybe a little too quickly, having ascended another 1000 feet in about 30 minutes, leaving Scott with either an “altitude” or “dehydration at altitude” headache - the diagnosis subject to each of our pet theories on most probable cause of headaches. Either way, he opted to head down, rejoin Nina on the slab where she’d spent much too much of the day sitting, and return to camp. Stephan was skeptical of my assurances of “ample time”, but I somehow convinced him to follow me up yet another slushy, sun-cupped slope, and then up some easy class 2-3 blocks to where the east ridge intersected the south slope. The last few 300 feet of elevation took a long time; we were tired, at high elevation, and kept encountering steep, slushy snow fields, but made it to the summit by 4:50. We enjoyed the summit, its wonderfully expansive view, and noted the ascent by one of my CHAOS trips 2001 (http://www.uc-hiking-club.berkeley.ca.us/reports/lizzy1.txt).
Then we retraced our steps down, down, down. We were tired and moved slowly, especially on the lower angle, horrifically sun-cupped snow. We’d hoped to retrace our route exactly, but at about 11,200 feet came to one of the creek crossings from the morning, only to find a roaring torrent that covered the rocks we had hopped between. We decided to stay on the south side of this creek, a large branch of Ouzel Creek that isn’t even drawn on the 7.5” topos. Down lower our route repeatedly dead-ended in small cliffs, endlessly forcing us to climb up 50 feet to skirt them. To say the least, Stephan and I arrived exhausted at camp at 8:01, certain the mosquitoes were even worse that the previous day. (FYI, even under these high water conditions, the main inlet to East Lake could be crossed on logs.)
The following day we were set to move camp to Lake South America, located on the southern side of the Kings-Kern Divide. While the Sierra Crest is dotted with easy class 1-2 passes the north side of the Kings-Kern Divide is formidable across its entire length, with just a handful of steep class 2 and 3 passes winding through its cliffs. For today’s journey we chose Harrison Pass, a steep sand and talus slope which once had a trail across it. Remnants of it are still visible and usable through many of the lower sections, such that the going was easy until we reached the final lake basin below the pass. Down lower there were forests and marshy meadows, complete with swamp onion (Allium validum) to eat and shooting stars (Dodecatheon redolens) to admire. Up higher were a few snowfields mixed with long stretches of slab/rock ledges. We saw on timberline buck up at 11,800 feet and his tracks going even higher. In the low elevation eastern Sierra many people have reported seeing flowers that emerge in large numbers only during the wettest years. Throughout this hike I recognized all the species as the “usual suspects,” but felt there were just more blossoms on each plant than in drier years. Lots of primroses (Primula suffratescens), Club-moss Ivesia (Ivesia lycopodioides), Sky-pilot (Polemonium eximiun), and wallflowers (Erysimum capitatum) dotted the talus fields above 11,500 feet. Despite the abundant talus, the basin just north of Harrison Pass is one of my favorite places in the Sierra. I always love to stare up at the west face of Mt. Stanford, the Ericsson Crags, and Deerhorn Mountain with their beautifully carved gullies and spires and today I again spent lots of time admiring the rock.
Around 12,000 feet the snowfields became continuous and we began the final ascent to Harrison Pass. Nina was feeling much better than the previous day, but as we all agreed that too much exertion at 13,000 feet was a poor idea, I volunteered to hike the upper stretches of Harrison Pass twice, once with my pack and once with Nina’s. Stephan and I went ahead, with me breaking trail all the way up. It was exhausting. At first I could walk a couple hundred steps between breaks. Then 100. And finally only 30 to 50, before collapsing over my ice axe gasping for air. Breaking trail all the way up 1000 feet of slushy snow while carrying a nearly 60 lb pack is one of the more tiring things I’ve done. I reached the summit and threw off my pack and noted that Nina and Scott were already approaching the last slope. I’d reminded Nina that the slower she walked the less she’d have to carry her pack, but she was moving quite fast and I descended much less than half the elevation to the lakes. The glissade down was wonderful – Stephan watched from above trying to decide if he should follow me once he saw how much fun I was having. Re-ascending my same tracks with a lighter pack was wonderful, but the damage of excess exertion had already been done – I was out of energy.
None-the-less, as indicated by my itinerary, Scott and I headed off to climb the northeast ridge of Mt. Ericsson. From below we weren’t quite sure where the route crossed the crest, but figured we’d find the described “skinny” crack as we climbed. We ascended talus until we were a few 100 feet below the ridge and then class 2-3 blocks up to a steep, narrow snow chute that led to a narrow ledge. The snow was rather hard, steep, and sliding could have had unpleasant consequences, so we kicked steps and climbed carefully. The final notch was rather steeper than expected for a 3rd class route – Scott climbed it, but I backed-off and discovered that I could follow class 2-3 ledges to the north to a second, somewhat larger notch. From here class 2 climbing led around one gully and up a second towards the summit. A few class 3 moves and we were sitting on top enjoying the evening view. As we retraced our steps we realized we were both rather tired, not really surprising given the three hard days. We had 1.5 miles to reach the others at Lake South America and moved very, very slowly. We crossed through one slushy patch of snow after another. Over one little ridge after another, but Lake South America was always some distance away. It took us 1.5 hours to reach the others and for much of that distance our minds were focused on the fact that we’d have to walk this entire distance again the following day to climb Mt. Stanford from Harrison Pass. But it was a beautiful camp with good views into Milestone Basin.
As we sat around camp that night and again while eating breakfast in the morning we couldn’t help notice how warm the temperatures were. The sun set and we put on a few more clothes, but certainly not everything we were carrying and the temperature was pleasant. I think it was one of the warmest nights I’ve spent at 12,000 feet. We had experienced a few stove problems already on the first two nights – Stephan’s Whisperlite kept clogging and my new Whisperlite International took forever to turn off. But at the end of dinner when we did a fuel check we were still rather surprised to discover that we’d used ½ of the fuel we’d brought: 1 ½ of the medium sized MSR containers. No hot chocolate that night! Moreover, we decided to combine my stove with Stephan’s pump and use just one stove for the rest of the trip. But even given the stove problems I was puzzled by the amount of fuel used – we’d just gone through more fuel than I ever have snow camping and the two stove problems should have consumed rather minor amounts of fuel. The mystery remains unsolved!
On day 4, we left camp just after 7 am again and took much less time to re-ascend to Harrison Pass – we were clearly more rested and carrying smaller packs. Right around 13,000 feet the altitude began to haunt Nina again, as she developed a headache and felt nauseous. Her pace slowed, but she continued moving uphill with amazing determination. I don’t think I appreciated quite how crappy she felt, because I don’t think I’d have been moving anywhere if I’d felt so bad. As it was I enjoyed stopping and taking breaks as I ascended the talus slope, staring at the views in all directions. The flowers also required much admiration, especially a very dense patch of sky pilots and alpine gold (Hulsea algida) that turned a section of talus purple and yellow. It is not often that both species are in full bloom at the same time, providing quite so much color. When we regrouped just below Gregory’s Monument it was clear that Nina needed to pass up the chance to traverse to Mt. Stanford – she said she was dizzy when she walked and the traverse has several very exposed sections.
Stephan, Scott and I climbed over Gregory’s monument and down to the crux of the climb – a ~8 foot drop to a large boulder in a notch. You then have to descend off the boulder to the east. It was for this sequence of moves that we were carrying the rope. We downclimbed on belay and left the rope dangling for the return route – on my ascent three years ago this had been the most difficult section and we hadn’t required the rope again. From this ascent I remembered a few sections: a blocky downclimb in a not-too-exposed chute, a traverse along a very narrow, exposed ledge with a bulge in the wall, such that you had to crawl for a stretch, and a final ascent to the summit on not too difficult 3rd class rock. Based on my memory – which it turns out mimics my previous trip report – I’d expected a much shorter traverse, because I had clearly forgotten about large sections. After the boulder move and subsequent downclimb, you continue around a boulder to a knife-edge fin and expose d 2nd class walkway. Then comes the downclimb in the chute, the crawl, and the ascent I remembered. But that doesn’t bring you to the summit. Instead you find yourself walking along another fin, not difficult, but you can see a long ways down to the east, and then a second, longer, but also easy 3rd class ascent to the summit. Just below the summit I stared down at class 2-3 rock that led to the summit from the top of a north facing snow chute on the east rib. I wonder if the abundant snow covers otherwise difficult rock, because right now that appeared to be a not too difficult route from Bubbs Creek to the summit and one I have not seen written up – I guess I’ll have to try it sometime when I won’t be disappointed to turn back due to unseen barriers.
As Stephan and I completed the last stretch to the summit, Scott was already headed back to Nina, so that they could begin to descend towards camp. As he passed me Scott mentioned that he couldn’t find a register. I found that odd, since I remembered a reasonably old register in one of the large, engraved register boxes. However, we too found no register. Thus far I have neglected to say what an excellent job Stephan did on this route – and Mt. Brewer – for someone who’d spent relatively little time on Sierra 3rd class rock. He climbed the 3rd class carefully, competently, quickly, and without sending down any missiles. After a short break we retraced our steps – much easier than the traverse to Mt. Stanford and headed back towards camp. A large raptor circled above us – it had light colored wings and tail, but was probably just a light morph of the relatively common red-tailed hawk.
Back at camp around 3 pm we enjoyed several lazy hours. Nina napped and rehydrated. The rest of us attempted to catch the large, and to some of us tasty-looking, golden trout swarming amongst the rocks at the Lake South America outlet. I once had one in my hand, but it slipped away. Around 5 pm we packed up to head around to the JMT due west of Diamond Mesa. It was a beautiful walk across meadows and flat sandy boulder-dotted plains. We walked past a few large boulders that were split in half, with the two parts still lying side by side. There were marmots everywhere and a few deer dining on the abundant grass. The evening lighting made it even more spectacular. I’d planned to cross the JMT and continue towards Diamond Mesa, but as we ascended the last little ridge before the trail we found a beautiful campsite. Big boulders, flat sandy sleeping places, and a warm tarn for bathing. We called it home and threw down our packs. Nearly all our food fit in our two bear canisters that night, the goal since we were now close to the tree line and people. On day 5 Nina and Scott opted to take an easy day around camp while Stephan and I headed off to climb Junction Peak via Diamond Mesa and then the southwest ridge of Junction. The first slopes ascending towards Diamond Mesa were covered in Coville’s columbine (Aquilegia pubescens) and western flax (Linum lewisii), the latter a species I usually associate with drier slopes, especially non-granitic ones at slightly lower elevations and usually outside of the most rugged Sierra. Diamond Mesa itself is fantastic; a low angle granitic slope with little seeps and covered in Ivesia lycopodioides and Lewisia species. Towards the top more boulders are present, and with them sky pilot and alpine gold. At its top end Diamond Mesa contracts to a point, connecting to the knife-edge southwest ridge of Junction Peak. We followed the ridge upwards, first on class 3 slab and then on blocky class 2-3 rock and talus, staying on the south side of the ridge. About 2/3 of the way up the ridge we followed a gully up to the crest and crossed onto the north side for about 100 feet and then re-ascended to the now wider, talus-strewn ridgetop. Easy talus walking brought us to the lower southern summit. To traverse to the higher northern summit we dropped onto gullies on the west face, but headed back up too soon only to find ourselves on a “middle” summit with another series of cliffs between the true summit and us. (The true summit is not visible from the south summit – only the middle summit – so you should stay low around the summit you see and re-ascend only when a second summit comes into view.)
On the summit we, as always, slowly rotated 360º naming all the peaks in view. Mt. Brewer was already far away, but so was Mt. Russell, our goal for 3 days hence. For that matter, so was Mt. Williamson, my goal for later this afternoon. Stephan decided to descend the west face towards Forester Pass, my ascent route in 1996, and I headed back to the south summit and then down towards Shepherd Pass via a sand and talus chute on the southeast side of the peak. I left the summit just before noon and shifted into full gear. If I summitted at 5 pm, my final turn-around time, I still wouldn’t be back at camp until around 9 pm, but it seemed unlikely I’d do much better.
At the top of the chute I noticed a handful of Phoenicaulis (Anelsonia eurpcarpa) growing, a species found only on scattered, unglaciated landscapes in the Sierra. The next 1000 feet of descent were sandy and sported absolutely no plants. Then I crossed sections of vegetated moraine and large patches of snow as I worked my way around the lake basin northwest of Shepherd Pass. I reached the pass into Williamson Bowl at 1:38 and stopped for a 10 minute lunch. The route across Williamson Bowl seemed faster than last time, although the endless up-and-down undulations towards the east side of the bowl were tiring and mostly snow covered.
As I approached the west fact of Mt. Williamson I encountered the first people I’d seen since day 1. First a couple, who inquired if I was really headed for the summit, since they’d left their camp in Williamson Bowl 8 hours ago and they wanted to make sure I knew it was a very long distance to the summit and I’d need crampons to navigate down the slushy, but steep snow in the gully. I usually try to be agreeable when other hikers give me advice, but the thought of using crampons to descend slushy snow in the middle of the afternoon resulted in me explaining that I’d never used crampons in the Sierra before September, that I’d been on Junction Peak 2.5 hours ago, and that I was confident in my abilities to safely summit and return to camp. About 5 minutes later I encountered two guys who confirmed my feelings about the snow by stating that anyone who wore crampons down the snow chute was “an idiot”. And they expressed that ”From the speed you’re moving you’ll have no trouble getting up by 5 pm”, even trying to convince me to take a more sustained 3rd class route to the right. Just entertaining what a mix of people are out climbing. As it turned out, you could even bypass all but a short section of snow and I was indeed quite exhausted by the end, but on the summit by 3:45.
It turned out that Mt. Stanford was not the only summit missing its register. There was none on Mt. Williamson either – just a few sheets of paper someone had left last week. On my return I was reading through my last few weeks of e-mail and came across a reference in a Climber.org trip report to a spate of register stealing in the last few years and then found two articles on the subject [1] [2].
How sad. I expected to find several old registers on this trip – or at least see which of my friends have climbed the mountains in the last few years. I know several people who don’t like summit registers and neglect to sign them, but what do you accomplish by removing them? For me it makes a peak very special to be able to read the signatures and comments written by the Sierra’s great mountaineers from the 1940’s – and before. A special reason to climb the more remote and technical peaks. I’m rather sad to think that someone might be moving through the Sierra right now taking ever more old registers for personal collections – or the trash. I already tend to be silent about where I’ve seen the oldest registers, but from here out will mostly avoid even mentioning where I come across a book more than a few years old.
My exit through Williamson Bowl was a bit slower, but I made it to camp by shortly after 7 pm, many hours faster than I’d imagined possible. Stephan had seen people near Forester Pass, but Scott and Nina had managed to stay hidden from them in our camp.
On day 6 our goal was to move camp to Wallace Lake, right at the base of Vacation Pass and Mt. Carl Heller. I’d initially wanted to spend a night camped on the Bighorn Plateau, with its foxtail pines and expansive view, but that just didn’t fit well with the rest of the itinerary. Instead it was to be the location for an extensive midday break. Walking down a trail with ever-lighter packs was a treat and we reached Bighorn Plateau in about 2 hours. We plopped down near the small lake amongst the flowers (Alpine Shooting-star (Dodecatheon alpinum), Sierra Claytonia (Claytonia nevadensis), Lewisia sp., and Sierra saxifrage (Saxifraga aprica)) and marmots. As we looked around us, Scott asked about an impressive peak just west of Mt. Russell. It was Peak 4245 meters, which according to Secor has 3rd class summit rocks and was a 3rd class traverse from Mt. Russell. But it had no name. We then paged through the routes on nearby peaks, of course noting many first ascents by Galen Rowell in the Whitney region. Conversations wander, and ours led to the question of what peak was to be named Mt. Galen Rowell. We quickly christened Peak 4245m as “Mt. Galen Rowell”, thereby adding another summit to the trip’s required itinerary. After all, should our intuition be right, we want to have been the first to climb it after the name was proposed! It is certainly a beautiful unnamed peak with views of several of Galen’s routes, is just under 14,000 feet, and we think 300 meters above the notch with Mt. Russell.
Stephan and I then headed up Tawny Point, an unassuming sand and talus peak just above the plateau. The view from atop makes up for the lack of a “route.” Since Bighorn Plateau and Tawny Point stick out westward from the Sierra crest you have a good view of the headwaters of the Kern and its surrounding peaks. You also have a good sense of the differences between the east and west sides of the Kern: the peaks to the west are steeper, slabbier, and with bigger, blockier, darker talus, while much of the landscape to the east is composed of coarse, sandy granite that is slightly orangish. Many of the summits to the east are steep 3rd class as well, but the talus slopes are much sandier than along the Great Western Divide. We sat for a long time tracing our route and puzzled by how few people bother to take the 30-minute detour, although did note Adrian Martin's entry from two years ago. We returned to our packs, and while Stephan remained on marmot patrol, Scott, Nina and I wandered westward to the benchmark labeled “Bighorn Plateau” on the maps. This was undoubtedly an important triangulation point for the early surveyors, as you have unobstructed views both up and down the Kern.
As we continued down the JMT towards Wallace Creek we, as predicted, encountered people again. A group of three that appears to have taken our route in reverse and was now continuing north on the JMT to Yosemite. From what we pieced together they’d taken 4 days to reach this point via the North Fork of Big Pine Creek, Russell-Carillon Col and Wallace Lakes and were carrying enormous packs, including rock climbing gear. They’d hoped to climb the face of Mt. Whitney, but weren’t carrying the ice-axes (and crampons, apparently) needed for the descent. Instead they’d mentioned they were continuing to carry the climbing gear because they heard there was another peak to the north, the Citadel, which was good climbing. The Citadel is 100 miles north of Mt. Whitney in LeConte Canyon, and I think they had no idea how far away it was or that they were passing lots of other beautiful, if slightly shorter, routes on their way there. We left the trail as it approached Wright Creek, waded across, and then contoured towards Wallace Creek. We picked up the old trail as soon as we intersected Wallace Creek and followed it upstream. Our pace picked up around 10,800 feet where we reached a marsh and the mosquitoes became unbearable. They chased us all the way to the shores of Wallace Lake, although their numbers did decline somewhat.
We reached Wallace Lake around 4 pm, with most of us ready for a relaxing afternoon. Tomorrow’s goal was Mt. Carl Heller. I’d initially planned on climbing the 4th class east ridge, a beautiful classic climb, but somehow imagined that only the very top was particularly steep. As we’d re-read the route description over the past days and noted mention of “belay horns” every 100 feet we realized this wasn’t a route for 4 people with one 60 foot rope, 6 slings (including 2 for harnesses), and 7 carabiners. We spoke of Scott and Nina doing the east ridge, while Stephan and I went up the west face, but I also had people suggest I’d want a rope at the top of that route and was therefore hesitant to potentially give up my summit opportunity. As we sat looking at the very loose gully that presumably led to Vacation Pass (and the east ridge route), the west face looked even more appealing.
Not long after reaching camp, Scott announced he was going to circumnavigate the lake. The rest of us sat around camp, read bits and pieces of the Economist and swatted mosquitoes. Despite DEET, my pile surpassed 40 and the ants couldn’t keep up. In the process we lost track of Scott, who’d taken off at a run. We were in agreement that he was searching behind some pinnacles for a better route to the top of Vacation Pass. We jokingly predicted he’d then descended to the base of the east ridge and was ascending the route, as he’d certainly be happy to solo it. We looked up at the pass occasionally, but saw no sign of a person. By 6pm we were starting to think that maybe he was truly trying to summit Mt. Carl Heller by some route – or maybe even do the ridge traverse from Vacation Pass southward. By 7pm we were actually a little worried, but since we didn’t know what direction he’d gone, worry was pointless and we started cooking dinner. At 7:30pm he came racing into camp, at approximately at the same pace as he’d left, chugged a liter of water, and described his route. Indeed, the back of these pinnacles yielded a route to the pass, but to verify he’d headed up it. He’d then observed the beautiful, steep east ridge and agreed it was not practical for tomorrow. He’d then begun the ridge traverse south towards Mt. Carl Heller, but many of the intervening pinnacles were quite steep and he’d repeatedly descended onto 3rd class ledges along the west side of the ridge. When he was nearly at the top of the north, and lower, summit, he’d retreated due to increasingly difficult rock and pointed to a steep gully he’d just run down. I think he was at least as tired as I’d been at the top of Williamson the day before – but we each needed a good solo jaunt to burn off restless energy.
This had been the first day we’d observed significant cloud build up in the afternoon and I predicted a 50% chance of rain the following day (Friday), suggesting we should be off an technical sections of climbs by 2pm. As expected the clouds broke up before dusk, leaving us with a colorless sunset and stars when we went to sleep at 9:30. You can therefore imagine my surprise when I awoke to a drizzle at 10:30 and looked up to completely overcast skies. When we’d left the weather report had made a mention of possible monsoon moisture late in the week, but a storm that blew in at 9:30pm? To avoid the bugs, Scott and Nina were in my tent, Stephan in Scott’s bivy, and I’d been sleeping out under a bug net. Instead of a complete shuffle, Scott and I rigged up my tarp between two large boulders and I re-nestled down for the night. Five minutes later a great gust of wind lifted off my tarp and we went in search of larger rocks to hold it in place. Thereafter the shelter stayed in place, and therefore it did not rain again, but we awoke at 6 am to whisps of clouds near us and a large bank of clouds over the Kaweahs. Not wanting to spend the day sitting around waiting for it to rain we went ahead with our summit plans. We figured we’d be safe as long as we agreed to retreat as soon as the 3rd class got wet or we heard thunder – and we were carrying the rope for potentially wet 3rd class.
We raced up to the shelf south of Wallace Lake and then looped around to the talus field at the base of Mt. Carl Heller’s west face. From here we ascended sand and talus to steep 3rd class slabs, lying just left of the chute we were later to follow; the bottom 50 feet of the chute are too steep to ascend. Thereafter the slope slackens, the chute widens, and the rock is more broken. We zigzagged up the slabs until we could cut into the chute, continued up 3rd class slabs, around a boulder that blocked the center of the chute, and onto easy class 2-3 terrain that led to the final 50 feet below the summit. Both in this section and on the talus field below were scattered bighorn sheep sign, the first from this trip. They’d apparently used the same series of class 3 ledges as Scott to traverse from Vacation Pass and came across to graze on the alpine gold and sky pilot on Mt. Carl Heller’s west face. The final bit to the summit was quite steep and I decided unwise to solo. So I sent Scott ahead to solo it and drop down a rope. Stephan, Nina and I climbed on belay for about 20 feet, through two 4/5th class moves, and then scrambled across and through large boulders to the summit. At about the time I’d arrived at the tricky section I noted that it appeared to be raining just east of Mt. Carillon, although the clouds were more broken elsewhere. We all realized that despite the hour of 8:30 am this might be a quick summit tag. But the rain moved north towards Williamson without hitting us and we managed to take a few pictures and a short break. We descended as we’d climbed and as the rock was still dry were all willing to downclimb the 3rd class slabs at the bottom of the route – I think they’d been more daunting on the way up, probably because we half expected it to be pouring on us.
We re-assessed the weather at the bottom of the talus slope and noted that the clouds were less menacing than before. Scott and I looked each other, both thinking of “Mt. Galen Rowell” and wanting to climb it, since we knew we could quickly bail down the predominately 2nd class slopes if the weather turned. Stephan and Nina headed back to camp, with vague plans of hikes in the direction of Mt. Barnard that morphed into midday naps. As Scott and I ascended talus and snow up the stream drainage to the plateau just north of “Mt. Galen Rowell” it was clear we both had ambitions we hadn’t initially expressed. Scott was eyeing the undescribed northwest ridge and I was thinking of heading for both “Mt. Galen Rowell” and Mt. Tunnabora. We decided to meet on the summit of “Mt. Galen Rowell,” since Scott’s 3rd+ class route would likely take longer than the talus slopes I was intent on racing up and down. Within about 10 minutes I realized Mt. Tunnabora was at least 300 feet higher and more than half a mile further than what I’d pointed out to Scott, but I trotted on. Raced up, looked briefly at the east ridge of Mt. Carl Heller, enjoyed the wonderful view of Lake Tuleinyo from this location, and noted that the clouds above us were still broken, but were quite dark to the south.
I raced back down to the pass between Mt. Tunnabora and Mt. Russell and began traversing a moraine towards the northeast face of “Mt. Galen Rowell,” from where I climbed talus towards a snow slope. The clouds were growing ever darker at this point and just after I got on the snow I saw Scott emerge on the summit. At this moment I falsely imagined I was within 300 feet of the summit and yelled up “Within 10 minutes, I promise”. He agreed – although seeing me so far below was probably skeptical. I pushed as hard as I could and took a bit over 15 minutes to the top – I later realized I must have been at least 600 feet from the summit, as I took 10 minutes just to reach the elevation of the pass towards Mt. Russell. By the time I reached the last ridge to the summit my heart hurt and I could barely walk or breathe. As I staggered across talus blocks to the 2nd summit, Scott informed me there was no register and hence we couldn’t provide any name suggestions. Instead we both stared at the clouds and realized that we shouldn’t be this high on a ridge. We descended 3rd class slab to the top of a long snow chute on the northwestern face. We weren’t carrying our ice axes – having expected to be rained off Mt. Carl Heller many hours before – but decided the slushy snow was safe for a sitting glissade and descended a marvelous 1000 feet within 10 minutes. And then we plodded down the next 1000 feet towards camp. Although the clouds chased us ever lower the rain never materialized beyond a few drops.
We were back in camp by 2 pm and spent the rest of the day lounging around reading the bits and pieces of the Economist we hadn’t yet looked at and waiting for it to rain. Every hour a few more raindrops hit us, but it never rained enough to wet the rock and by evening the air was clear and crisper. Although it appeared to be a short-lived system, we opted for a 5 am wake-up to ensure we crossed Russell-Carillon Col before the weather deteriorated – and preferably could climb the east ridge of Mt. Russell unhurried by clouds.
In the morning we each took a different route to ascend the 1000 feet to the plateau north of “Mt. Galen Rowell”; we were just spread out enough leaving camp that none of us were sure where the others had gone and each did our own route finding. I expected Scott and Nina, always the first to be ready, to head for the talus and snow that Scott and I had descended the previous day, but never saw figures on the snow. So I assumed they decided to avoid the icy morning snow conditions and had headed for one of the rockier routes. I eventually saw Stephan ascending 3rd class ledges and assumed he was following them, but decided the rocks would be too steep for me. Instead I headed further right, in the direction of Wales Lake, to what appeared to be a ramp in the slabs heading due east from Wales Lake. Indeed it was and I climbed the entire elevation on vegetated moraine or along grassy streambanks. We regrouped on the plateau and plowed forward. Scott reached Russell-Carillon Col at 9:15 and the rest of us followed behind. Lake Tuleinyo in still largely frozen, but we encountered little snow climbing to the pass.
Around 10 I began to ascend the east ridge of Mt. Russell. I went ahead of the others knowing there were a few bits of 3rd class on this route where I’d spend a long time sitting and staring, but eventually move forward. As I navigated through the first section of 3rd class I was feeling a bit shaky, but better than when Chris Tuffley and I climbed the route in June 2002 - I suppose this time I knew what to expect. In the beginning there are a few 3rd class moves to climb over boulders and then a long stretch that looks exposed from a distance, but follows a near-path where a dike has eroded. After some distance this “path”, which is on the north side of the ridge, suddenly ends along the ridgeline. Here the fun 3rd class begins. As predicted the others caught up as I was staring at the path ahead. High or low… High of low… In light of this being the east “ridge” I was convinced to try the high route and mostly felt better than on the lower route I’d used last time. Eventually the ridge became too exposed for me and I retreated to a feldspar dike to climb the last of the elevation to the east summit. The others maintained greater ridge fidelity, but I heard mutterings that it wasn’t 3rd class. Over the course of the trip Nina had done better and better with the altitude, but was again feeling a bit off and opted to wait on the east summit, while we proceeded across easier terrain to the very slightly higher western summit.
Back at the pass Stephan and I headed off for one last peak: Mt. Carillon, just 300 feet above the pass. You climb this peak for the view of the east ridge of Mt. Russell, which looks remarkably intimidating even after you’ve just done it. As I looked through the register, the following entry stuck with me:
“You Yanks sure have got great mountains. Look after them. Compared to this the European Alps suck.” - Chris Conley, Mt. Carillon register
Even Scott was talking of coming back with real rock gear to climb the northeast face of Mt. Russell!
And finally the decent down a rather sandy slope all the way to Clyde Meadow. There we met more people, always noteworthy when you’ve seen so few of them for days, who compared Scott and Stephan to gazelles for their fast descent of that sand. From Clyde Meadow we headed on down the use trail along the north fork of Lone Pine Creek. The going felt slow, probably because of the effects of a long descent on four pairs of well-used knees.
A little after 5 pm we arrived at the Whitney Portal trailhead and stopped to read the new signs posted around the trailhead. There we spotted a hanging scale – ostensibly to weigh your pack and make sure you hadn’t forgotten one of the many essentials listed beside it, but in our case to see just how many extras we’d been hauling around. We weighed in at: Nina - 30 lb, Scott - 34 lb, Stephan - 40 lb, and Lizzy – 46 lb. And that was after we’d eaten most of our food. Time for a smaller camera for me, although I don’t think I’ll be able to pass up carrying the plant book around. We then descended to a 107 degree Owens Valley.
P.S. Snow conditions are becoming more normal for this time of year. The only large expanses of snow we encountered were climbing Mt. Francis Farquhar and Mt. Brewer, ascending Harrison Pass, patches near Lake South America, the JMT near Forester Pass, and Williamson Bowl. Throughout the rest of our hike we were never on snow for more than an occasional patch. In contrast, water levels are still very high, probably because the ground is so saturated that all snowmelt is now flowing into streams instead of soaking into the ground.
