TR: Whitney zone dinner plate peaks with extras

[Gazelle]

Sept 17/2016 Day 1 7.8 miles 7762 elevation gain 4759 drop. Whitney portal to Thor, gamblers special peaks and upper boy scout Lake

Got to Whitney portal at 7 am with overnight permit for north fork/mountaineers route, we (2 friends and myself I met from sierra challenge) had an uneventful trip to lower boy scout lake where we dumped our backpacks for day packs to proceed up to Thor( a big sandy slog!) I got to the saddle first and worked over to Mirror point, a class 5 summit block with amazing views and a very steep view to Mirror lake. Then traversed over to Thor where I met back up with my friends. Took pictures and hung out way longer than I would have but that is the nature of not going solo.

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Made our way back to Lower boy scout lake ate more food then up the beautiful creek to Cleaver Col area to climb Gamblers Special. The valley hiking up is gorgeous and the route we took up Gamblers was class 2 with maybe a little class 3. At the peak great views including cleaver Col which I will utilize someday for maybe other peaks. Again back to Lower Boy Scout lake the found the use trail up to upper Boy Scout lake which was quite busy with people found a spot for us and waited, it was 6:30 so quick dinner then went to bed as another friend was meeting us at 5 am for the big day tomorrow (the traverse of Dinner Plate).

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cont...

[Gazelle]

Sept 18/2016 Day 2 10.22 miles 4633 elevation gain 7598 drop, Upper Boyscount lake to Russell Carillon col, Russell East and West, Morgenson, Tunnabora, Cleaver, and Carillon back to Whitney portal.

Up early for breakfast and packing day pack for big day, Robert found us right at the meetup time of 5 am and off we went in the dark to Russell Carillon col. Robert and I led up and soon lost the other two and we kept to the rocks on the right till we reached the plateau, got there as the sun was rising and took some amazing pictures as we waited.

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On to Russell via the class 3 route up

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from the col nothing to scary or difficult in my opinion. First to the East summit then to the west one where we waited again for the others. I had not planned to do the traverse to Morgenson but planned to go down the North ridge and over, but Robert convinced me to do it and I am glad I did. So all 4 of us started toward that route but only Robert and I continued it. The others chose the easier North ridge route. It was some amazing route finding and some interesting choices to be made we took separate routes a couple times based on our perceived abilities. Anyway we were the first to traverse this ridge in that direction, from Morgenson to Russell you can see the route much better! There were definitely some class 4 sections with lots of exposure. We reached Morgenson a little before the other two as they had stopped to watch us on the ridge.

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From Morgenson to Tunnubora is uneventful and so is Tunnabora Robert and I reached this peak to realize that the other two were going to skip it as we still had 2 more peaks to go. We traversed to The Cleaver a fun class 3 peak with beautiful views and soon after met up with our companions where we decided to split with them for the remainder of the trip. Also Robert chose to do the ridge to Carillon and I went to Russell/Carillon col up to the peak we made it in about the same time. Down to the plateau and a great sand boot ski down to upper Boy Scout lake where I grabbed my backpack. I told Robert to go ahead as he is faster than I am and he could order the pizza in Lone Pine and by the time it was ready I would be there, but he got off trail…at little screwed up and we were about the same speed so he just went with me. Great pizza in Lone pine before my 6 hour drive home. Great trip and great people!

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[maverick]

Love that knife ridge to Russell and that beautiful dark blue color of Tulainyo it is always great to see. Thank you for sharing this TR and the wonderful pictures.

[gary c.]

Awesome report and such beautiful pictures and country.

[deadeyes]

Awesome report of an awesome trip with awesome pictures.

Awesome! LOL

"The Ridge" looks a little challenging; what an amazing route. Thanks for the armchair tour!

[SSSdave]

Some nice work, well done. You must like that pic standing atop Thor with Whitney in the background. I sometimes take such images too, posing, though not so much atop peaks but rather in places with impressive backgrounds.

I've always liked capturing images of granite aretes from spine positions without having to climb out to where they get scary. Sometimes on days with minor cloud build ups, one can wait around some till a cloud shadows background areas while a subject arete is still in sunshine.

Did you two purposely reach that location for the full moon above Whitney Russel saddle or was that just coincidental per your plan to be able to summit all those peaks that day? With your exceptional conditioning and peak bagging climbing skills, you could capture a lot of shots like that from the east side if you did your homework on where to be to be in landscapes for best perspectives when early sunrise light illuminates. The hard part with such landscapes that almost no others at your level are active at, is having the experience and map skills to be able to imagine what a subject will look like from different locations. In this era however, Google Earth is a huge tool making that easier.

David
http://www.davidsenesac.com/2017_Trip_C ... les-0.html

[Gazelle]

No the full moon just was a very lucky bonus of the trip! but I do love having beautiful scenes in the background, but usually I am alone so unless I take the time to self timer it I am never in the shot which sometimes puts the magnitude of the area in perspective. yes I do love those shots of Whitney and the Russell ridge . Thanks
Kristine