Left Wing Extremist
5.11 YDS 6c+ French 23 Ewbanks VIII- UIAA 23 ZA E4 5c British
Type: | Trad, Alpine, 2000 ft (606 m), 10 pitches, Grade IV |
FA: | Galen Rowell and David Wilson (1991) |
Page Views: | 4,243 total · 48/month |
Shared By: | Brian Prince on Nov 7, 2017 |
Admins: | Chris Owen, Lurk Er, Mike Morley, Adam Stackhouse, Salamanizer Ski, Justin Johnsen, Vicki Schwantes |
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Some of the peaks in this area are restricted (not all). See the Inyo National Forest's Mount Whitney Zone regulations webpage fs.usda.gov/detail/inyo/pas… for current information. Access is usually limited from May to October of every year from the highest elevations of most of the Lone Pine Creek watershed.
Description
Proud route up a monster, iconic face that no one seems to climb. Maybe not as classic as Hairline, but a good option for a quick, free way up the east face. This line holds a notorious splitter offwidth on the right face of a beautiful dihedral halfway up.
3 moderate pitches lead to a belay behind an obvious giant flake.
Next pitch is the crux. Reasonable 11a fingers in a corner leads to a ledge out left where you can belay or keep going. The crack off of this ledge was ridiculously hard for a few moves and seemed impossible with the giant bush growing out of it. Get past this and keep going up some nice splitters to a traverse back out right and a belay.
One more pitch up some steep and scary quartz leads to a marginal belay below the offwidth.
Offwidth is long and sustained. You'd expect, being the high sierra and all, you could mostly cheat the thing. This is true to an extent, but it's also real deal in parts. Overall, I'd say it's not too soft (imho) like David says on supertopo . but maybe not 10+ either, at least compared to something like generator. but that's probably not a fair comparison
After some more moderate pitches we followed the east face route to the top.
3 moderate pitches lead to a belay behind an obvious giant flake.
Next pitch is the crux. Reasonable 11a fingers in a corner leads to a ledge out left where you can belay or keep going. The crack off of this ledge was ridiculously hard for a few moves and seemed impossible with the giant bush growing out of it. Get past this and keep going up some nice splitters to a traverse back out right and a belay.
One more pitch up some steep and scary quartz leads to a marginal belay below the offwidth.
Offwidth is long and sustained. You'd expect, being the high sierra and all, you could mostly cheat the thing. This is true to an extent, but it's also real deal in parts. Overall, I'd say it's not too soft (imho) like David says on supertopo . but maybe not 10+ either, at least compared to something like generator. but that's probably not a fair comparison
After some more moderate pitches we followed the east face route to the top.
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