Goldscott, did you end up climbing the East Buttress?
I omitted to write a trip report on our own East Buttress climb on July 12 2016. This particular was a good reminder of the importance of a good mental gear checklist as forgetting a headlamp led to an extended descent: more on that in a second...
We had a great time on the climb itself. Left the car around 4:30am, and hiked up to UBSL via NFLP - awesome morning alpenglows, and just great atmosphere all around. Took a little detour on the way to Iceberg as we ascended the wrong gully (turned too early) and ended up climbing some class 4 or low class 5 on the ridge towards Iceberg. No big deal.
Iceberg lake was busy with campers getting ready to climb Mountaineers Route, East Buttress and East Face routes.
East Buttress climb was mostly eventless - it is simply a wonderful moderate (5.7ish) rock climb with ample time to rest at each belay station on ledges large enough to park a minibus on. We really enjoyed the last few pitches as you are really free to pick your route, harder or easier depending on how you feel.
On the descent via the MR it became apparent that my climbing partner has a little less mountaineering experience as it seemed to go on forever. We descended together with another group of climbers who completed the East Buttress with us and were kind enough to wait for us.
As we got down to Iceberg Lake it became very clear that we would be descending in the dark with the sun already behind the horizon. At this point we remembered that earlier this morning my partner had realized he had forgotten his headlamp. Luckily I had mine. Past UBSL it was pitch dark.
My partner wore my headlamp as he felt this would make him a little more comfortable moving fast down the trail. As we got to what we thought was the e-Ledges around 10:30pm, we had trouble route finding. Somehow, every direction seemed to lead to a big drop off. We searched for the way out for an hour or so, even hiking back up a third of a mile or so to try to find a better way. Shortly before midnight we made the decision to honker down for the night, feeling slightly embarrassed, but certainly keen to stay safe.
The night was fine, albeit a little cold given I wore shorts, a t-shirt and a very light shell jacket - some shivering involved, but definitely bearable. At some point during the night we saw the lights of cars driving up to Whitney Portal and realized we were a very short distance away... so close!
Around 4:30am we got up and started looking around which confirmed our fear - we were situated on a ledge system ~200 feet above the valley, cliffed out. We were probably a mile past the E-ledges. At this point we considered our options - we could certainly hike back up 1.5 miles or so and get back on trail, but that would further delay the gargantuan Lone Pine breakfast we were now really craving... At that point we noticed a rappel anchor with a bunch of slightly worn webbing and decided to rappel down to the bottom of the valley. My 60 meter rope got us to another ledge roughly 30 feet above the valley bottom and we down-climbed from there.
After 5 minutes of bushwhacking through the alder jungle we hit the trail maybe 200 feet above the intersection of NFLP and the main Whitney trail - 30 minutes after leaving our improvised bivy spot we were in the car racing down to get the above-mentioned gargantuan breakfast!
A little bit more of an epic climb than we had anticipated as it took us around 25 hours car to car, but still tons of fun! Lessons learned besides bringing a headlamp? Make a real alpine start (1-2am) for long car-to-cars unless you want to sleep on a ledge... Oh and always be ready (warm clothing, safety blanked, maybe even a super light bivy sac) for an unplanned overnight on a long climb as things don't always go according to plan!
