Sun Ribbon Arete and Moon Goddess Arete are two parallel rock routes on the North side of Temple Craig, near Third Lake on the North Fork of Big Pine Creek. They are long climbs requiring considerable route finding. Repels and downclimbing are often needed to bypass the many towers encountered on the climb.

Peter Green and Ken Brameld chose Moon Goddess Arete, while Bryan Johnson and I attempted Sun Ribbon, a few hundred feet further to the West. We set our alarm for 4 AM and were on the rock by 5:45. Bryan and I had a false start; we thought the route started near the base of the arete but actually it begins several hundred feet up the gully between the 2 routes. To reach the start, we traversed right on a very large ledge until we saw a corner that looked like a 5.7 pitch.

We followed the topo in "Sierra Classics", which works well. However, we didn’t even try to lasso the block do a Tyrolean Traverse on pitch 9 as the book recommends. The crux was pitch 11 consisting of a jam crack followed by a friction traverse. Nothing else on the climb had anywhere near the technical difficulty of this pitch. It was rated 5.9 but it seemed much harder. There was lots of up and down for the remainder of the climb.

Peter and Ken finished the shorter Moon Goddess climb first. It was 7:20 PM by the time Bryan and I finished the last pitch of Sun Ribbon (No 18 according to the topo). We descended talus towards Contact Pass but needed a rappel to reach it. Snow was present for much of the lower descent, which slowed us down. We were wearing running shoes and had no ice axes. We reached camp at 9PM, finishing a 17- hour day with a vertical gain of 2500 feet.

Mt. Russell - Fishhook Arete – Grade III / 5.9
Mt. Whitney – East Buttress – Grade III/ 5.7
Mt Carl Heller – East Ridge – Class III
July 26-28, 1997

It takes a day to hike to East Face Lake, just below Mt. Whitney, from Whitney Portal. Bryan Johnson, Peter Green, Greg Corless, and I had come to climb Fishhook Arete on Mt. Russell. A 4 AM wakeup got us over Russell/Whitney Col and to the base of the climb shortly after daybreak. However, we were second in line. Murray Zichlinsky and his partner, who were also attempting this climb, had asked us the previous evening what time we planned to start. Little did we know that it would be a race to the start! (Ask Murray, however, about the rumor of waking up at 11:30 PM, a mistake in reading the time, a very early breakfast, an "Oh Shit", and a return to the sleeping bag.)

There is a lot of room on the Fishhook Arete, even with a cue! The 3 groups of two all picked a different first pitch, which led to the same ridge that was easily followed all the way to the summit. The threatening weather, which was the reason for the very early start, dissipated nicely, and we had wonderful sunny skies for the climb. The hardest of the 8 pitches was probably the first. We all arrived on the summit around noon.

The descent route involved traversing the class III ridge east over a secondary summit and then descending a gully south back toward Russell/Whitney Col. We did one rappel, but I think this could be avoided by choosing a different gully further to the Southeast.

The following day, Peter, Bryan, and I climbed the East Buttress of Mt Whitney as a party of three. There are many variations to this route but the general direction is obvious. Each of the 8-˝ pitches had some climbing in the 5.4 to 5.6 range but nothing any harder. Another beautiful sunny day as we reached the summit about noon. The Mountaineers Route provided a fast descent back to East Face Lake where we packed up and started the descent to Whitney Portal.

I decided to spend an additional day and climb the East Ridge of Carl Heller Peak. Ever since I saw the magnificent aerial photograph of the East Ridge in Sierra Classics (p. 51), I had wanted to climb this route. I broke off from Peter and Bryan at Upper Boy Scout Lake and set off by myself. I crossed Russell/Carillon Col, descended past Tulainyo Lake, and camped close to Wallace Lake. The following day I crossed Vacation Pass, descended to the base of the East Ridge of Carl Heller Peak, climbed the ridge, reached the summit in a hailstorm, and descended the western slope of the peak back toward Wallaby Lake. I packed my camping gear and hiked out to Whitney Portal the same day. The third class ridge was good solid rock with some airy straightforward climbing. The hardest part was near the summit when there is a choice of ways to go. Some of the paths don’t work, and some are 4th or 5th class. It is a beautiful climb but it was a long way to come for 1400 feet of third class scrambling.