Lyndon, I feel responsible for the tough time you had with the shortcut. I am pretty sure you took a route farther to the left (north) on the steepest part of the climb. I am really sorry it was so much trouble.
Here's the picture I posted showing my route on the "Whitney Creek Shortcut"
And here's your picture ...I drew a red line showing the same route--it is clearly visible when you show the
full-size view.
This is the picture I took (the top one above is just a zoomed-in crop from it). Note that you can see the same trees in your picture as in mine.
