Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Conditions in the North Fork of LP Creek 4/13/13

I hiked up the North Fork yesterday as far as Iceberg Lake. Lots of climbers up there! To see my pictures on Flickr go to this link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/walterrnk/sets/72157633236282989/

It looks like the snow level is at about 10400 ft? I did not take or need snowshoes. I did take a trekking pole with snow basket, ice axe and crampons. Figure the snow level will start going up about 500 ft per week.

Road to the Portals is open (no signs) and clear. I hear the store will open next weekend?

Was it a scavenger hunt? Gloves, bottle holder, sunglasses...
I started the weekend without a water bottle and ended up with two.

It was nice meeting you. How was the postholing on your way down?

Great photos! I think I spotted myself in one of the pics.

Good to meet you, JimQPublic. Yeah the postholing was pretty bad above Upper Boy Scout Lake. I was able to get on the rock slabs in places but I still ended up on the snow a lot. Got stuck a couple of times!

Easy crossing at LBSL. We walked around S side of lake on the way up and N side on way back- N side was better but it will be slightly tricky avoiding willows going that way (coming down from above you can make out the path around willow patches.

LBSL up to the slabs was postholing in PM but firm in AM. Crossing creek was easy.

UBSL to the frog pond was the worst postholing when we came down around 4:00 PM. Should be ok early.

Frog Pond "Thor Lake" to Iceberg was mostly on snow and hard AM, getting soft PM. Used crampons going up headwall to lake.

"The Chute" is snow about 2/3 then loose scree/talus. Took the extreme left edge as snow was petering out. Party coming down the day before said head to the rock on the right ASAP, which was great advice. After the left edge lost snow, there was some rock there then crossed over to rock ledges on right. From above we watched a basketball sized rock get dislodged in the scree, when it got to the snow it started gaining a lot of speed- could have been fatal. Going up the chute be very alert to danger from above. Look at where rocks have deposited and stay well clear- I think the right side is probably best going up the lower part.

"The Final 400" was nice and dry. Decided to leave that for another trip.

Generally runoff was pretty light. I suspect the snowpack has diminished so much already (most snow fell very early season) that it won't be a problem barring warm rain. Exposed scree will be the biggest problem.

today you can add 2-3" of fresh snow on top of everything (starting at the Portal - talked to somebody who was up there this afternoon)

I assume whatever came down overnight will melt off quickly - up in Mammoth the moment the sun came out, the snow on the roads more or less evaporated. It is pretty darn cold up there, though, and I bet the ledges will be tricky tomorrow, but clear later in the day once the sun does its thing.