East Ridge of Mt. Russell

On Friday August 17, Jesse Hartz and I hooked up in the afternoon for a surf and swim session at Barney's surf break between Cardiff and Pipes. The water felt great, especially after the Tea Leaf Green show at Winston's the night before. After a little water refreshment we hit the road for Mt. Russell, just North of Mt. Whitney, in the Eastern Sierras. We didn't get it together far enough in advance to make back country or even campground reservations out of Whitney Portal so we spent the night in the back of the van. We woke up at 4:00 a.m. for a pre-dawn start on the East Ridge of Mt. Russell. We were on the trail by 4:50 and hiked up to Upper Boy Scout Lake in 3 hours. The Ebersbacher Ledges were no problem although there were other people on the trail so we didn’t have to do all of our route finding on our own.

It was quite the slog from the Upper Boy Scout Lake to the Russell-Carillon Col but we got some route advice from a fat crazy mustachioed hiker who told us about how he recently got helicoptered out of the Santa Monica Mountains. In spite of the suspect nature of the source, we hiked up a tough scree slope above the tree line and across the col to the start of the ridge. The approach up to the actual start of the climb involved a bit of exposed scrambling. Jesse didn’t care much for the drop offs but, after some discussion, continued to the start of the route.

Once we were on the actual route, over a couple of thousand feet of exposed slab to a lake below, Jesse's vertigo set in again and he decided to stay back. I, on the other hand, felt like I was really on my game and I went on to solo the route with only a bit of minor route finding issues on the way back. The route was spectacular with great exposure to Whitney on the one side and the Sierras to the North. The whole area was above the tree/shrub line.

We were pretty beat by the time we made it down to the cars. We ended up eating in town and sleeping in the van again before heading home early on Sunday. The drive home was painless and fast. We stopped at a Starbucks, in Adelanto of all places. Just a few years ago there was nothing but desert and desert rats around there. Even though it was Starbucks, it was still Adelanto and, in keeping with the flavor of the locale, a bum in the coffee shop hit me up for the remainder of my breakfast sandwich. Jesse, ever the good soul, credited the bum with helping to keep the place clean, etc. but, possible positive outcomes nothwistanding, I was somewhat pleased to see that some order in the worl remained and Adelanto was still Adelanto.