Mount Whitney (East Face & East Buttress)
Mt Whitney, above Whitney Portal · near Lone Pine · Eastern Sierra
Rock Climbing
At a glance
- Skill level
- advanced
- Grade range
- 5.7; commitment Grade III
- Best season
- July-September
Permits and booking
- Permit
- CRITICAL: Whitney is inside the Mt Whitney Zone. ANY entry, day or overnight, requires a Mt Whitney Zone permit via the competitive Recreation.gov lottery (application window ~Feb 1-Mar 15; May 1-Nov 1 quota season). Approach from Whitney Portal up the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek (Ebersbacher Ledges) to a high camp at Iceberg Lake. Extreme altitude (14,505 ft) and severe afternoon lightning on the summit plateau.
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- No
Rock Climbing detail
- Climb types
- trad · multi-pitch
- Rock type
- Sierra granite
- Route count
- A few classic technical rock routes
- Nickname
- The Roof of the Lower 48
- Signature routes
- East Buttress · East Face
- Intl tip
- The permit is the crux: the Mt Whitney Zone lottery (apply Feb-Mar on Recreation.gov) governs every entry, day or overnight. The East Buttress (5.7) is the more popular of the two classic routes. Camp at Iceberg Lake, start pre-dawn, and be off the summit before afternoon storms.
The guide
The East Face of Mount Whitney is one of the landmark climbs of American alpine history - the 1931 route by Norman Clyde, Rober…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Mount Whitney (East Face & East Buttress) — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 36.5785, -118.2923