Here's text from a report from Summit Post, posted Jan 30, 2003: "Mt. Russell, Mt. Muir, Mt. Whitney, and Mt. Carillon in a Day"
(Link) We re-joined the trail, headed for Whitney, and made one detour to fill up on water from a melting snowfield before reaching the summit a little over an hour later. Amazingly, there were only 3 tourists on top, and as we arrived, they started down, leaving us to enjoy some solitude on one of the busiest peaks in the U.S., in the middle of the summer climbing season! We took in some calories and water, and descended toward the top of the Mountaineers Route. When we arrived at the notch that denotes the right turn to continue the Mountaineers, we kept on straight down the north slope.
The north slope descent was much more difficult than expected, steep and loose, with intermittent cliff bands and polished slabs. Patient route finding kept the difficulty in the 3rd-4th class range. There were many relicts of past rappels left on the slope, we found a servicable #2 Camalot, and an old ring piton, along with many rotten slings. The descent to the base and the subsequent crossing of the basin to the base of the South Face of Mt. Russell consumed an additional hour and fifteen minutes.
And here's a description from RockClimbing.com on climbing the north face of Mt Whitney:
Mt. Whitney : North FaceA description by Rick Kent:
Mount Whitney - The North Face 2007 Pictures from that trip are here:
Mount Whitney (19x) - North Face - 4/28/2007It sure looks hairy!
