Mount Whitney Rick Kent (19x) Tina Tretina (2x) 04/28/2007 The North Face was quite challenging this time -- made the Mountaineer's Route look pretty tame. There was a good deal of struggle. Had to kick steps all the way up the face. Just beyond half way up we ran into some difficulty and I wasn't sure we'd make it. Fortunately the ice fields were covered with soft snow from the last storm (as I hoped) but at times this overcoat was uncomfortably thin and it didn't support weight well. Any exposed ice was boilerplate hard and impervious to crampons and had to be avoided. Navigating around these problems took some skill. Slope angle seemed way steeper than I ever remembered (perhaps 55 degrees in a few spots). Was constantly altering course in search of something that I could kick steps into. Sometimes I'd have to kick a couple dozens times to carve out a single step into the underlying ice. In one spot we had to do a horizontal traverse where slope angle was at least 45 degrees and the powder overcoat was only a few inches thick). Self belay with shaft was not possible. Had to switch to use of the pick but it was hard to whack it in good enough to hold any kind of fall. Had to rely almost entirely on footing. Wished I had my ice tool. Tried to switch from snow/ice to rock at one point but this quickly got us into trouble (class 4+ on unstable rock). Had to carefully downclimb quite some distance before we got back to a safe spot. At this point I realized that our options didn't look good. We had little option for retreat. Downclimbing the face using our steps would have been hazardous and extremely time consuming. Our only way out at this point was up and I wasn't sure what further obstacles we would encounter. At the top of the face a huge field of clear ice barred access to the summit. Even with a hard kick my sharpened front points just bounced right off. Fortunately by traversing continually further to the West I finally found a way up to the summit plateau. The struggle and challenges along the way made this perhaps the most exciting/rewarding snow/ice climb I've done in the Sierras. It was the kind of experience I might have expected on a much higher peak. Tina did surprisingly well. We were both still suffering from sinus infections and neither of us had any kind of acclimation. I started at 4am (Tina at 3:30). We didn't return to the Portal until more than 18 hours later (after 10pm). Log 04:03am - Left Portal (Tina left abt 3:30am) 05:33am - LBSL 06:56am - UBSL 08:40am - Iceberg Lake (approx) 09:15am - Left Iceberg Lake 10:00am - Whitney/Russell Pass 03:00pm - Finished North Face - Reached summit plateau 03:26pm - Summit 04:08pm - Left Summit 05:46pm - Trail Crest 06:52pm - Trail Camp 08:11pm - Outpost Camp 08:43pm - Log Crossing 09:51pm - North Fork junction 10:09pm - Returned to Portal Stats Time from Portal to summit: 11 hrs 23 min Time on summit: 42 min Time from summit back to Portal (via MT): 5 hrs 1 min Total time: 18 hrs 6 min Notes Oh, I forgot to mention I had some issues with crampons balling up. As if things weren't difficult enough crampons balling up at just the right time was one distraction I could have done without.