Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Whitney E. Buttress TR 6-7 to 6-9

Here is a quick TR from a recent ascent of the E. Buttress rock climb on whitney (5.7)

My friend Steve and I left the portal monday at 7:00pm and hiked to UBSL and bivied there. We arrived there at midnight after driving from L.A. and carrying packs with axes, crampons, a full rack of climbing gear plus a rope as well as our camping gear. Our plan was to ascend to iceberg in the morning and climb the E. Buttress if we felt good. Then on Wed. we planned on climbing the Fishook Arete on Russell and descending to the car.

We awoke at 6:30am on Tuesday, went to iceberg, racked up and were at the top of P1 by 12:30pm. Steve was feeling the altitude more than me and I started having some concerns about our speed. After the 5th pitch we both realized that we needed to speed up. The route was now in the shade and was getting colder as the winds increased. Towards the top we got off route a bit and ended up french-freeing some 5.9 in order to top out asap. We were also forced to climb the second half of the route wearing gloves, hats, fleeces and jackets because of the cold and the wind. From the summit we avoided contact with snow most of the way to iceberg but an axe was very helpful, crampons not required. We went straight to the lake to pump water, only to find our water bladder hoses frozen solid. After about half a liter of water was pumped the pump was frozen solid. Luckly we had 2L of filtered water at camp already. I threw up several times before dinner. That night was cold and windy. I wore 4 layers on both my top and bottom, a hat and gloves inside a 20F bag, inside a OR basic bivi sack and I was still cold during the night. My partner said that it felt colder than times when he had been at iceberg in the winter.

The next morning we scraped plans for Russell and decided to descend and grab some hot pizza. Everything not inside a sleeping bag that night was frozen solid including a half liter of fresh pee placed outside in the middle of the night. On the way down there were some large storms on the other side of the Owens Valley. Crampons were mandatory for a safe descent. On the way down we saw ice as low as the ledges and it snowed (flurries) for about half an hour once we were below the ledges at 10:00am.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Matt

If anyone needed an example of how quickly weather changes in this region your experience was it. For three days prior to your climb we were in shorts and T-shirts all day long and the night time lows were in the 40's at UBSL.

The White Mtn. weather station shows a low of 7F that night!

I aborted an attempt on University Peak on Wednesday due to the severe weather. I also recall that it was much colder than expected in the tent at Onion Valley Campground on Tuesday night / Wednesday morning. The surrounding days were excellent, though.