This route follows the obvious arete and crack system located on the right-most end of Whitney Portal Buttress.  The route can be seen from afar.  Look for the clean left-curving crack halfway up the wall and you've found the crux second pitch.

P1: 5.9 PG-13 face climbing, 4 bolts and a couple horns for protection.  Climb an easy fourth-class ramp to the left to meet the Buttress.  Here there is a good stance to place your first pieces of protection in the right-leaning hand crack.  Climb up the knobby face, clipping 4 bolts and slinging a couple horns for pro.  The last move to the belay involves a balancy no-hands step onto a knob.  This pitch is slightly run-out warranting a PG-13 rating.

P2: The good one.  Lots of 5.10 crack climbing.  Layback/jam the obvious left leaning crack for 15 or so feet.  This is the crux.  As you go, the wide crack thins to fingers and becomes more vertical.  Climb straight up the 5.10 finger crack or look left for a perfect-handcrack, which is significantly easier.  This is pumpy!

P3: 5.8. Layback the super thin flake.  Climb up an easy blocky ramp.  After about 50 feet you can either end the pitch at the rap anchors or continue up the bolted slab, which climbs a few inches to the very edge of the arete.  The bolts are widely spaced on this upper part of the pitch.  Exciting!

Nimbus

Trivial Pursuit

No Country For Old Men

Beckey-Callis

Ghostrider

Mean Streak

Tanager (aka "5.11 Crack")

Gangway

The first pitch of this route, originally led by Kevin Powell when dinosaurs roamed the earth, is as good as it gets up here. The rest is not much worse.

A modern classic and one of the best in Whitney Portal. Ghostrider might have better rock quality, but No Country has more varied and memorable climbing and fewer crowds on the route. It's also a step up in difficulty from Ghostrider.

Pitch 1 (5.9) Start in an easy ramp to gain a brushy ledge about 50 feet up. Traverse right along this ledge for a while to a short section of 5.9 face on knobs past a bolt. Gain another ledge and traverse back left to the anchors.

Pitch 2 (5.10b) A long pitch of sustained face climbing past many bolts. Skip the intermediate anchor and belay at the bolts below the lieback pitch.

Pitch 3 (5.10c) A leaning flake/corner provides nearly a ropelength of sustained, awesome liebacking on offwidth crack. Leave the big cams at home and bring all the quickdraws you own, because this baby is bolted the entire way - something like 17 I think, but I lost count. Punch it all the way to the anchors at an awkward stance on the edge of the corner.

Pitch 4 (5.9) Up some more lieback flake, but with more features. Then cut right on a face past a couple bolts to an undercling flake. Then climb up the right side of the flake which is a little scary because the flake is very thin and the pro behind it is questionable. Belay on a big ledge.

Pitch 5 (5.?) The tunnel pitch. Start up some cracks near the right side of the ledge and then traverse left into the giant chimney/cave above. Chimney up and through, past a couple bolts to belay at another big ledge.

I actually couldn't figure out the start to this pitch and did a variation by just climbing up the left side of the chimney/tunnel. This variation was loose but easy, with pro behind the occasional chockstone. I would rate it 5.6R.

Pitch 6 (5.10a) Another great pitch of face climbing on Tuolumne style knobs. You'll probably want to first move the belay from the bolted anchors above the chimney to the left side of the ledge below the bolt line. Then wander up and right past many bolts and a short crux at a left facing corner that you pass through.

Pitch 7 (5.7 R/X) The "death-flake horror-show pitch". Up a shallow corner and then past a precarious loose block that is somehow still clinging to the wall. Then, ever so gently, climb up the super-thin, super-scary flake for about 50 feet. Carefully avoid another pile of loose blocks poised at the top of the flake. Belay at the bolted anchor at the top of the flake. It's hard to say whether it's more dangerous to lead this pitch or belay it.

Pitch 8 (5.9) Up and right on a fun and easy white dike. Then just before reaching the anchors at the top of Ghostrider, climb up and left past a stout 5.9 crux to a bolted anchor.

To descend rappel the route with 2 ropes. At the top of the 4th pitch (after rapping through the giant cavern), rappel straight down the face twice more.

The original line up the Portal buttress, tackling the proud left skyline. First established @ 5.8 A3 by none other than North America's most prolific first ascentionist, the Whitney Portal Buttress was described by Fred in the AAJ as "one of the last great unclimbed problems of the Sierra." The route goes almost entirely free at a reasonable grade, but has never seen a FFA. False rumors circulated that Bob Harrington had done it at 5.10+, but he denied those allegations. In reality it will be much harder, but the protection is not great for those yet-to-be-freed sections. Great positioning and an obvious line. Rock quality is variable, with many pitches being dirty, vegetated and grainy. A nut tool is essential for the leader to clean/excavate/mine out gear placements. The topo and route description in Fred's 100 Favorites book is bunk. Use instead the Craig Peer topo posted here.

Begin at the far west (left) toe of the buttress. Scramble 50' up a loose gully to the start of the route.

P1) Jam up the left side of a white pillar with a small pine at the base to a bolted belay. 5.8

P2) Up the corner to the roof. A few-three moves of clean aid on small/tiny cams to get out around the right side of the roof. Continue up the crack for 100' or so until you can make an escape left onto a flake, then up easy ground to a belay at a tree on low-angle terrain. 5.9 C2. Long one - use lots of slings.

P3) Climb up a detached pillar, then step right onto a flake and continue up past a small rotten roof and horizontal dike to a belay on a good stance w/horn. 5.8

P4) Follow cracks up, stepping right to another crack which leads to a nice, steep, right-facing lieback flake. Go left up a groove at the top of a flake, past a bolt, to an awkward belay at a block with a bolt. 5.10b

P5) Follow the crack up and left until it peters out, sling a knob, past a bolt to the awesome Quartz Cave. Fixed pins/gear belay. 5.8

P6) Stem straight up out the Quartz Cave past a few fixed pins, navigate a small jungle, then a short squeeze chimney and jamcrack to a great bolted belay perch atop the tower. An excellent sandy bivy spot is down and left about 10 feet from here if you are into that sorta thing. 5.8

P7) The GOODS. Airy, exposed, and beautiful Tuolumne-style knob climbing past 4 or 5 bolts to a tricky water groove with some funky body english. Easy terrain up the gully leads to a belay at a large chockstone. 5.10c

P8) Blue-collar chimney leads to a ledge. Up a thin crack with tricky pro, left to another crack and up to a small stance above a bush at the base of the headwall. 5.9+?

P9) Up the steep and airy headwall crack to a bolt/fixed pin/gear hanging belay. 5.10 (vegetated & dirty!)

P10) Continue up the crack, stepping right to another when it peters out. Belay on a ledge atop the headwall. This is the only other pitch where we aided - 3 moves or so. About 6 fixed pins were present, mostly angles, but more than half of them fell out. This pitch went mostly free at 5.10+/11-, but the gear is challenging. Some clean aid placements might be available in the absence of the pins, but a hammer and a couple small-med angles would be a good insurance policy. 5.10 A2 (C2+?).

P11) Up and right following the path of least resistance to the summit. 5.6

Scramble/downclimb/rappel into the notch, then up a few hundred feet of 3rd/4th class to the higher East Summit. Locate the northernmost notch behind the buttress and descend down the gully to the east.

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 (5.10a).

P3: wild, airy underclings protected with multiple big cams (5.10a) culminating in a small bolt-protected roof (5.10a).  This pitch is the reason you should ignore the Satoris start variation!

P4: face climb past 4 bolts to a large bowl-shaped ledge (5.8).

P5-P8: bolted knob pulling for 4 solid pitches of carefree sport climbing (5.9, 5.9, 5.10a, 5.10a or 5.10c variation to the right).

Descent: rap the route (see topo for most efficient sequence).

Variations:

Satoris (5.8) joins this route at P4 but you miss the fun of P3, which is one of the highlights of the route.  Bring wide gear.

Wonderwall P1 was used for the FA, giving one pitch of runout 5.9 to a short linkup at 5.7 below the 5.10c bolted low crux.  This avoids the fun tunnel-through on P1.

Rumor has it that MS and an itinerant grad student are planning to bolt a finish to all this...

Mean Streak is a 10 pitch route up far the right margin of the buttress. Great rock and a variety of stellar cracks and thin face climbing make this a worthy adventure for the experienced climber. Begin to right of the highest pine at base of wall, up right from Clouds route. Look up and left for 1st bolt leading to small roofs, three more bolts lead to a ledge (a bit runout). The route is named for the second pitch; a long left leaning, left facing corner with a dark streak running down through it (bolts on this pitch added by some wankers after we did the FA! The crack takes gear all the way). Route finding and a short aid pitch (hooks in holes) above this leads to a horizontal edge left to a steep, thin right facing crack. Traverse back right across a steep face (bolts)and and then up more cracks.  At the top of the 7th pitch two options present themselves. The recommended route continues straight up the wall on steep looking cracks and face. The arete out right (look for bolt), while faster, is not much fun. Rap the route (two ropes) or walk off.

This is the right-leaning crack that is labeled "5.11 crack" in the Ghostrider topo posted on the Ghostrider page. This is an awesome pitch and is only 5.10b or so. Very sustained and pumpy. Jam and layback the crack to the bolts.

There are two bolts above the crack if you wish to continue up the slab. The rappel from the second anchor requires a 70m rope.

Gangway is a new route on the buttress established by Peter Croft with some help from Marty Lewis.  I haven't climbed the route but since Marty e-mailed me this beta I thought I would share it with every one.

The first pitch is, according to Marty, the best start option for Ghostrider.  4 new bolts and a little bit of gear. Wandering face on good rock to a ledge with a belay.

Not shown on the topo is the fourth pitch, which has bolts and gear to a two bolt anchor.

Also goes at 5.11a AO if not up to freeing the 2nd pitch.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Whitney Portal Buttress