Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Descent from Russell East Ridge

A friend and I are planning a dayhike up the East Ridge this weekend and a descent of the SW slope (a la Rick Kent). Photos indicate the Class 3 chimney is very near to the East Summit. Rick (or anyone who's done it 8 times!), is this entry fairly obvious from the ridge above?

I have been up there four times and I would say it is not too hard to recognize the entrance to that chute. I have a group doing the same hike this weekend (Sunday) as well. We are headed up the chute for the summit and then down the East ridge on the way out. That assumes the new snow has not made the East rideg too dangerous to negotiate. What is your schedule time frame for your hike?

Right! I haven't heard about the effects of the storm on the ridge. We're planning a 4 am start from the Portal, which probably puts us on the East Ridge at 9 or 10 am. Conditions permitting, we're likely to run into you. Are you coming up the Rockwell way from UBSL or past Iceberg and over Whitney-Russell pass?

No, we plan on hiking up the drainage past UBSL and going over the "Sakai Col" to gain the Southeast chute. Bob Rockwell posted this picture a while back depicting the route.



We are planning to head out at 5 AM Sunday morning. I'm sure we will cross paths at some point. Hopefully at the summit.

There are two chimneys above Russell's South Slope. One is on the SE side of the East summit. I haven't used that one. The other is about 1/3 of the way from the East summit to the West summit. This is the one I've always used (left side of the headwall when looking up from below). There are some ledges that lead up to it. From above it's pretty easy to find because there aren't too many alternatives. From above it looks a little scary but it's not as bad as it looks.

Here's a shot looking down at the chimney:

http://www.rickkent.net/ViewerPlus/viewphoto.aspx?ID=84731

Here's a shot looking up at it:

http://www.rickkent.net/ViewerPlus/viewphoto.aspx?ID=84735

-Rick

-Rick

Thanks for the shots and the notes, Rick!

Richard — if there is snow or ice on the East Ridge, you've probably chosen the better route to the summit. We might try Sakai Col instead of W-R pass on the way out. Hope the rock is better than it was on Cleaver Col last month!

Here is a shot of the Sakai Col from the East. There are some nice ledges to cross under the ridge line aiming for the low point just to the left of the thumb sticking out just right of center in the picture. This thumb is also very prominant when you approach from the west.



The rock and hike/climb over the col is straight forward. This was my third time back to this area so we decided to make it a bit more interesting getting over the pass. There are routes much easier than this.



Here is another shot from SE chute showing both the Sakai Col and the W/R Pass



Have a great hike. Hope to see you up there. By the way, we will be doing Thor as as well on Saturday.