The Whitney Portal is home to many cragging routes as well as some longer, older Beckey routes. The sought-after climb is Bony Fingers, but there is supposedly quite a bit of development going on there in recent years. Unfortunately, comprehensive information is unavailable... I think.
Getting There
Take Whitney Portal Road west from the town of Big Pine, past Alabama Hills, and up into the mountains until it dead ends at the trailhead for Mt. Whitney. Pretty simple.
The Classics
Mountain Project's determination of some of the classic, most popular, highest rated routes for Whitney Portal:
Great route -- well-protected face cruxes and some wild, varied trad climbing on pitches 1-3, transitioning abruptly to sport-bolted knob pulling for the next 5 pitches. You can leave your packs in the bowl atop P4 if you plan to rap the route, since you will pass by here on the way down and won't need the gear after this point.P1: tunnel through a bizarre chimney to a two-bolt belay, 5.9. P2: tightly bolted face climbing (5.10c) to a wide crack...[more]Browse More Classics in CA
The Whitney Portal Road leaves from the town of Lone Pine about 40 miles south of Big Pine. Head west from Big Pine if you want to go to the Palisades or Temple Crag.
Marty Lewis is coming out with a new guidebook entitled "Bishop Area Rock Climbs—The climbing Guide to the Eastern Sierra-South" which covers the Whitney Portal area. Coming out this Summer.
"Marty Lewis is coming out with a new guidebook entitled "Bishop Area Rock Climbs—The climbing Guide to the Eastern Sierra-South" which covers the Whitney Portal area. Coming out this Summer."
Yeah LuLu, where's our guides? Less handyman, more publication!
For those interested in the Portal but concerned about those old 1/4" manky bolts: Thanks to ASCA support over 250 bolts have been replaced with stainless fatties in the past couple of years, and next year will see more replacement activity. And of course, everything new has bolts that are up to code. For information on which routes have been replaced:
The list is fairly current as of this post, but still needs an update for Candlelight Buttress where all but a handful of bolts where replaced late in the year.
Thanks to the ASCA, Johnny Woodward, Darrell Hensell, SP Parker, and everyone else who invested their time in rebolting this area. Thanks also to Peter Croft and Marty Lewis for putting together such a nice guide. Now I am psyched to go climb there.
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