Best Sierra Alpine Climbs?

Hey guys. A friend and I are around the Sierra for a few days and hopefully want to snag a classic alpine climb. Any suggestions? We are going for a backpacking/basecamp type thing and aiming to be in the backcountry a few days. I lead 5.10+, my partner more in the 5.7 range. We were looking at seeing if we could get a walk-in permit and do Mount Whitney East Buttress and Mount Russell Fishhook Arete. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

If you can't get a permit for Whitney, consider the N Ridge of Lone Pine Peak. It can be done in one long day from the Whitney Portal Campground, although people do bivy on the route. If you're set on a backcountry base camp, Temple Crag, Sill, N. Palisade, Starlight and Thunderbolt all have fun routes on them.

The Citadel!

Oops, sorry, you said "classic" not "obscure." Basically anything in the supertopo guide then.

Yeah, the Supertopo High Sierra Guidebook is the ticket:

supertopo.com/packs/highsie…

The North Arete (5.8) on Bear Creek Spire is a lot of fun. You can camp at Dade Lake.

Get Peter Croft's book. Supertopo is nice also, but Croft will get you in the mood to push yourself.

Thanks for the replies! I'll check them all out. Also, I don't mind "obsure" if it's classic-level climbing, so anything goes! I've looked at the SuperTopo, though without buying the guidebook doesn't give too much info. I'll probably pick up either that or the Croft one soon.

limpingcrab wrote:Oops, sorry, you said "classic" not "obscure." Basically anything in the supertopo guide then.

By obscure here he means a ~50km round-trip with ~11 pitches of roped climbing up to scary, vegetated climbing up to 5.10+. I can vouch for it being quite the adventure.

The Croft guide has a great selection of routes, from a few pitches to 8+ mile traverses, not to mention some entertaining personal stories. It's the check-list of classic Sierra route. If you want blow-by-blow pitch beta I would lean toward Supertopo.