Russell
8/23 Tuesday Backpacked in to Upper Boyscott Lake (UBSL). 4pm start and 7:30pm arrival (missed the turn off to North fork of lone pine). I got lucky and found permits a week before. It was my second time on this route. I was here this May on the mountaineering route for Whitney but was mostly following my friend. This time I was with my friend and it was her first time on this route and although she’s an endurance athlete, she’s also new to class 2 and beyond hiking. UBSL felt colder than what the weather predicted. I tried to get a few hours of sleep in my bivy with anxiousness and excitement for the next day.
Day 2
8/24 Wednesday at 7:30am after breakfast, we set off for Mount Russell. I was aware that it needed a new registry book (climbers were writing in the margins) and had requested the sierra club to mail me one. With a trail running vest, 3L of filtered water, snacks for the day, and the book+pen+pencil, we began the sand slow up to the saddle. I led the way and chose the right side of the slope for less wasted efforts with the scree. It’s interesting that Mount Russll isn’t fully visible until I was very close to the saddle (between Russell and Carrillon). The original plan was to hike Russell, Carillon, and if time allows, Cleaver.
We reached the saddle at 10:30am and began the climb towards Russell. Honestly, I wasn’t sure which one was the true summit peak for Russell >.< There were so many bumps haha. This was my first time up Mount Russell. There were a few moves up including a few knife edge blades, and something else that required a bit focus. We reached a low point after 2 bumps at 12pm, and my friend as satisfied with the progress so far and didn’t feel comfortable to keep going. At the time, i thought that we had passed the east summit and I just needed to get to the west summit. She was happy to wait for me at the saddle and we discussed that she should be alerted and begin to descend if I am not back by the saddle by 4pm. Moving carefully and efficiently, I began the climb and passed by 2 climbers. One of the climber is a guide and informed me that I was approaching the East summit and I have not passed it yet. There were a few cairns here and there and I chose to stay on the right side of the ridge instead of being on top. I reached the summit at 1pm with grand view of Whitney and the surroundings. I dropped of the items I came here to deliver, took some photos, checked my phone and began to descend after 10 minutes on the summit. I retraced my steps back and looked around when I felt stuck.I passed by 4 climbers who were ascending, who I actually saw around UBSL in the morning and had started earlier than my friend and I.
Coming back
I arrived back to the saddle at 2:10pm and happily found my friend waiting for me. We discussed going up to Carillon and began our ascend for only 5 minutes when the wind picked up and dark clouds started to roll in. It was a smarter idea to descend at such elevation, and we reached back to our campsite at 4:20pm. The 4 climbers also came down when they saw the dark clouds and did not continue to ascend Mt Russell.
Mount Russell is a pretty fun climb. I did not love the approach of the sand scree but the rocks are solid. I would like to be more on the knife edge next time and less on the easier side that actually felt more like class 2. I think it has a pretty big name due to its proximity to mount whitney, but I feel that Middle Pal was harder (partially due to the fact I wasn’t on the normal route), and that Clyde Minaret offered more fun, vertical climbing.
Day 3
8/25 We left UBSL at 7:15am, and began our hike towards Thor. We dropped our pack and took a day pack up towards the sandy class 2 scree. It’s been a while since I’ve been on such crumbly and vertical scree. My quads felt sore from the previous day and I followed my friend as she speedly went up the hill. Sadly, I did not verify where we were and when we arrived to the top of a bump, we had thought that we had reached Thor but just couldn’t find the registry box. Descending a similar route, we exited and found a familiar face who knew we were in the area and actually climbed Thor shortly after us. At 2pm, we finished our trip out with the last 30 minutes in the refreshing rain.