Mt. Whitney Again, this time for Climbing
As I was sitting in my office on August 7, 2018, I was already in vacation mode. I peaked at Instagram around lunch time and noticed that Yosemite NPS had just posted that they were planning to open up highway 120 at 1 pm. Perfect timing!!! Tyler Shopshire and I were going to have to divert all the way down to Bakersfield to avoid the Ferguson Fire but the timing worked out. The drive to the Whitney Portal went quick and stoke was very high. I was very hyped for this trip. We got in before 11 and slept in the car. We packed up that morning and hit the trail to Upper Boy Scout Lake. We got off trail towards the last bit of the hike and the result was brutal bushwacking. We set up camp and packed our rack and rope for Russell. It felt so light. We cruised over the Whitney/Russell Col and it felt like we entered Mars. I love this place. Writing this makes me desperate to go back. We hiked over to the start of Fishhook Arete and started to climb. The first pitch was fantastic. And so was every other one. We swapped leads and went fast. We climb well together. The entire climb was incredible and made me stoked to be in the alpine. We climbed the first half of the route in T-shirts! We descended the east ridge and made it back to camp with plenty of sunlight left. In fact, I went to bed when it was still light out.
I woke up the night of 8/8/18 to headlamps illuminating the walls around Upper Boy Scout Lake. I was confused and after a couple minutes I realized it was a meteor shower… what a treat. It was an incredible site. We woke up, packed up slow and ate a warm breakfast before a solo hiker named Josh ran into us. He was a climber as well and after about 10 minutes we realized he had run into my friend Mac two days prior when they went up and climbed the East Buttress and Face in one day. Josh was a homie and we hiked up to Iceberg Lake with him. We set up camp next to the largest boulder and lounged out for a bit. Today was our rest day. We racked up and set off for the East Buttress. We brought one microtraxion as we were hoping to simulclimb the entire thing. Tyler and I experimented with microtraxion simuling on Fairview and I loved the concept. However, if I did this route again, I wouldn’t bring it. I led the first block to just below the Pewee. Tyler led the next and I finished it off. 3 total blocks. Just over 1.5 hours. The rope drag was bad but overall, it was an awesome climb. We got to the summit, and we were heroes… according to the mass of hikers we found up there.
While I was researching routes around Whitney the week before, I found an online article from Climbing Magazine that described Renon Ozturk and another climber, doing a massive linkup of Whitney and Russell that included a downclimb of the East Face. It stayed in the back of my brain, but I had no intension of repeating the downclimb, especially onsite. After summiting the East Butress I was set on climbing the east face. I had mentioned the linkup to Tyler the day before so when we got to the top I asked if he thought we should go downclimb it or head down the Mountaineer’s Route to climb up it. He suggested the first option... That's why I like this dude. We were about to embark on an adventure. As we peered over the east face, we had no idea where the route even started. Hikers were already looking at us at the top thinking we were crazy, but they had no idea. It's so crazy to me that a hiker looks the same at a party that just climbed the East Buttress in 8 hours the same as they would look at someone who just put up a bold first ascent on Keeler. I certainly felt closer to the first. Anyway, we began to descend the 4th class start (end) to the East Face and after a couple of belayed downclimbs we easily found the grand staircase. The route didn't have a ton of 5th class climbing but there were some short sections of fun crack downclimbs. There was one offwidth downclimb that was quite burly down low on the staircase... definitely not the normal route. We somehow missed the fresh air traverse, but the tower traverse made up for it. We finished the climb with smiles on our faces but that quickly turned to a frown when I unclipped my approach shoes from the back of my harness... There was only one shoe. The other surely was still up on the climb. I had just purchased new La Sportiva TX2s. Excellent shoes with one pitfall, they have a rubber band sinch system that encourages the climber to only actually clip one shoe to the harness. Tyler suggested I reclimb the tower traverse to look for the shoe on the other side. The shoe wasn't there and I walked back down to basecamp with one climbing shoe on. After we came down, we spoke to a group of climbers who thought we were a troubled climbing group who decided to bail from the east face. We told them the downclimb was intentional and of our plans to climb Keeler the next day... They were quite blown away. Turns out they were here for 3 days just to climb the East Face and they were going to set out on the route the following day. I told them to look out for my shoe.
Keeler Needle was the big objective on this trip, and I was very determined to make it happen. Tyler wasn't really that motivated but I wanted Keeler bad. We racked up the night before and woke up at 5:30 to make a warm breakfast. The approach was tiring and took much longer than expected. the snow section slowed Tyler down a lot... but I can't blame him, it was a bit sketch. We finally started the climb around 8 am and I managed to get off route on the first pitch. Bummer. I set up an anchor and belayed Tyler up so I could lower. Luckily, there was already a nut there... I was not the first one. I climbed through the first 10b roof and god damn it was burley. What a sandbag... or maybe it was just the elevation. It was pretty clear that I was going to lead every pitch of this climb. I was quite positive we would be bailing. I climbed the second 10b roof and got a little bit of my confidence back. I French freed both offwidths as I had expected I would. I still have yet to develop any real offwidth technique. The Red Dihedral pitch really took it out of me. I have never in my life climbed something so sustained. Secor calls this pitch 5.9... ha. Thinking about it now, probably, since no single move is that difficult, but damn, that was a pitch. Hand jambs for dayz. The chimney pitch after the seocnd OW was really fun and after some route finding difficulties we made it to the third class escape option on the left side. We were totally worked, and Tyler wanted to do the escape. I wanted to keep on the regular route, but I didn't put up a fight. I was worked. We brought less than 2.5 liters of water between the two of us and we were completely dehydrated being in the sun for the first half of the day. The escape probably took just as long as it would have if we just stayed on the route. I was a bit bummed we didn't climb the main route to the top but after we got to the ridge, I was stoked. I had just climbed my first grade V and my most serious climb to date. It was definitely out of our leagues. We both talked about the idea of having our kids climb in the alpine. We agreed that we would be okay with it, but we wouldn't be very stoked if they had attempted Keeler after less than a year of Trad climbing. We summited Whitney, took some water from a friendly hiker and descended the Mountaineer’s Couloir. I still only had one approach shoe. It wasn't too bad. It got dark about 1/3 of the way down the couloir and when I got back to the tent, my approach shoe was sitting next to my tent!
We woke up late to a group of 5 dudes who looked about 40 years old walking past our tent. They said they were on the way to climb Mithral but they weren't carrying any ropes or gear. Woah… they were able to solo it. How rad is that! We got a late start on purpose and passed one party walking to the base of Russel. When we got to the base, the soloists were already done but two other parties were just beginning. They were going very slow... bummer. After two pitches, we were fed up with the pace and with the look of bad weather coming in and a distant sound of thunder, we decided to bail.
