Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Has anyone climbed Whitney recently?

I am planning to climb Whitney in a few days. I would appreciate any info about current climbing feasibility. Have anyone climbed it recently or is planning to climb it soon, or maybe you know someone who tried and could share his/her experience and observation?

For the last few years I've been climbing Whitney every winter between January and March; however, this year the conditions seem to be different and I'm not sure if it is good time to challenge it. I don't want to drive from San Francisco just to find out that I would not be able to get through the snow or walk long through areas with a high risk of avalanche danger.

You're out of luck 'mrcs' it seems everybody wants to talk about something other than the Whitney Portal area.

MRCS, somewhere in these threads is a post from someone who was up there recently. In short, the trip didn't go well. Deep snow, very cold night time temps. Wednesday night on the news the local weatherman reported that the Southern Sierra is at 146% of normal for snow.
In addition, when I called the FS office yesterday to get my June permit for the MR, the lady who I spoke with stated that they were going up this weekend to get a snow survey. You might want to call on Monday to see if they took it. Otherwise,good luck.

mrcs,
I don't have any first hand recent Whitney info but was up for backcountry skiing in the Mammoth area earlier this week. My wife and I had plans that we changed since the take was that the avalanche conditions were prime. We stayed on lesser degree slopes where the danger was low and found the snow to be setting up pretty well. I was sinking in about 12" on my tele boards and I'm about 145 lbs. My wife found my tracks to be pretty compacted as she followed my lead. Still, some of the steeper areas looked like places to stay clear of. High winds were indicated along the higher elevations on our drive home going south through the Owens Valley on Thursday. The higher areas and peaks along the crest showed plumes of blowing snow. Not sure if the wind has subsided but it was reported over 40 mph on the Mammoth Crest. Hope that gives you some insight even though it was several miles north of your destination.

HI Cold all last week and ice on the Portal Road about 1 mile before the road closed sign. Days are warmer now and no wind, but as the winter storms pass expect high winds and drifting snow. Jack and Betsy hiked the road last weekend to the portal and the last storm put about 18" at the trailhead. They found one set of tracks heading higher. So that would indicate about 4-5' at the higher elevations. For snow level reports go to our homepage hit the weather button and search backcountry snow reports some are updated daily, look at Cottonwood area and Crabtree sites.
We have had winters like this before they start with one or two big storms and the rest of the storms are North of Whitney some even North of Mammoth, several years ago Mammoth got 40'of snow, we had about6' What to watch is the drift areas in the canyon above mirror lake and trailcamp and wait after the storms for the snow to settle , winter mountaineering seems to be based on your dealing with ever changing condition and making the choice to bail or continue .

Thanks Guys for the info,

However, I left for Whitney before your responses. I spent there four days. The weather was perfect, sunny and no wind. Unfortunately, most of my hiking was in the shade. I have no idea what the temperature was but it was quite cold, especially at night. Due to the low temperature my first set of head-lamp batteries died on the second night. My photo-camera froze over the third night which seemed endless. That night I could not boil any more water; I thought I run out of propane but after coming back home the gas burned normally.

The snow was dry and the snow-trail well defined up to the ledges on MR and Mirror Lake (I gave up MR and got back to the trail.). Fragile snowshoes tracks led right-up of the Mirror Lake. I decided keep left where the real trail goes. I made a new track up to the canyon above the lake. I used snowshoes on MR and from just below the Lone Pine Lake. I did not see any signs of avalanches except small ice slide on MR.

Due to the deficiency of fuel, on the forth day I decided to kike down to the car which I left by the lower gate.

I am going back soon to get to the top as planned regardless of the weather and snow (no more excuses), according to the saying: "Expect the worst and you will never be disappointed."

Here are a few pictures from my trip that may be useful to see the snow condition: <a href="http://www.worldofadventures.com/marcus/pictures/mrd/whitney/20040110-13">
worldofadventures.com/marcus/pictures/mrd/whitney/20040110-13
</a>

mrcs: about the stove....propaine stoves and those small blue gaz stoves (propaine/butane) do not work well when cold...the air molocules slow down too much in freezing temperatures.. I stopped bringing mine up on Whitney, even in the spring - fall months. Up on the snow you can hardly see the blue flame.

If you don't have one get a white gas stove...like the whisper shaker jet. They work well even in freezing temperatures.

Thanks GoneHiking. Any recommendation? I tried to use one long time ago and could not boil the water. That’s why I gave it up.

The liquid gas stoves are clearly superior in most respects, in cold and at altitude, although it is interesting that on Everest, they use propane.

Personally, I HATE liquid gas, in *always* spills on things, and the MSR ( which I affectionately think of as "firebombs"), are something that scares me every time I light one. I hat the thought of having to do so in a vestibule. But they work.

Other options: The new "exponent" cartridge stoves by Peak1, which are designed to work at any temp or altitude. Those I've asked who have them give them a big "thumbs up".

http://www.campmor.com/webapp/commerce/command/ProductDisplay?prmenbr=226&prrfnbr=8051952

Also, although I've not had a chance to try it, I've heard there is a trick with standard cannister stoves, which is to put a plastic bag with liquid water surrounding the fuel can, and apparently this acts as some sort of heat conductor, to make it work well in the cold.

Your milage may vary

I use mostly the MSR whisperlite shaker jet. (Go onto REI.com and do a search for camping stoves..it is $59.95) The trick is to try it out at home and learn how to prime the pump. You pump it about 10 times and then let out just a little bit of fuel...just enough to see it in the bottom of the cup and then close the fuel off. Then you light the fuel in the bottom of the cup and let it burn out ( a minute or so). Once the flame goes out, turn on the fuel so you can hear it hissing and light it with a new match up on top near the burners. This heats up the tubes so that it is ready. Once lit you have to pump it every so often if the flame starts to die down. Once you do it a few times it is easy. Make sure the lid is screwed on snug so you don't have the firebomb mentioned.

I used my big green propaine canister at the portal...it worked great. Then I carried it up on the snow. The next morning I got it out and could hardly see the flame. Anything close to freezing really shuts down those canisters. If you could somehow have the canister resting in lukewarm water, it would work good...just like the previous post suggests.. Not easy to do, however if you have to melt snow, just to come up with water warm enough to make a difference.

I use a liquid fuel stove and claim no experience with gas cannisters. I will comment that gas used makes a lot of difference. The cannisters do not work well below the boiling point of the fuel because it is liquid!

Propans should work above -40 degrees (F or C). I lived in the Northeast for years and had a propane tank *outside* my house to fuel the stove and water heater. Because propane boils at -43 deg. F, there was no problem even in the dead of winter. Exception: One needs only a tiny bit of water in the line to shut down the flow on a cold day.

Camping stoves do not generally run on propane. Butane boils at 31 deg. F, i***utane at 11 deg. F, and the 20% propane/80% butane and 30% propane/70% i***utane (used by MSR, I believe) somewhere in between the extremes. (I don't have the figure here, but someone out there must know.)

OK, I can't use "i***utane" due to censorship, but I think I can use "i-s-o-b-u-t-a-n-e."

Using AlanK's boiling points and assuming a linear interpolation for mixtures, prop/but would be 16F and prop/i s o would be -5F. The liguid must actually be somewhat warmer than these numbers to create the slight pressure required to push the vapors to the burner.

As you use the fuel, heat is pulled out of the liquid to vaporize the gaseous fuel that is going to the burner. This cools the liquid, reducing the pressure. The effect is worse if you are low on fuel because taking a given amount of heat out of the liquid causes the lesser quantity of liquid to drop its temperature faster than a larger quantity would. The stove can only burn fuel as fast as heat can transfer into the liquid from the air outside the canister. AlanK's home tank would not have this effect since it has such a huge amount of liquid in it, and a huge surface area to get heat from the outside air.

The liquid fuel stoves can work better because they must be using the heat of the burning stove to preheat and vaporize the fuel that is approaching the burner. Am I correct in assuming that gravity gets the fuel out of the bottle to the preheating area? I am not sure because I have the Gaz canister type.

I'll bet they use propane on Everest because of safety rather than performance. In those extreme conditions, climbers are not always thinking and performing well, and they don't want a mistake to cause a disasterous fire.

I used my MSR Superfly with ISO fuel canister at LBSL last November and June without any difficulty except the piezo igniter will not work at that altitude.

I'm thinking to leave for Whitney on this Friday, so I would start climbing on Saturday.

I will take 4 small (to keep the pressure higher) blue B/P. I'm afraid to experiment with white gas right now. I've always been using the B/P on any elevation (including the top of Rainier and Shasta in summer as well as 2 years ago on Whitney in winter, January). I've never run out of gas regardless of the temperature. Maybe this time was much colder and the amount of B/P in the big blue bottle was insufficient for that low temperature. I will let you know how it worked this time.

Could you explain what LBSL is?
Also what kind of Propane and stove they use on Everest?
I heard that on Denali they use only white gas. Is it true?

Also be aware that a storm is predicted for this weekend. Don't get yourself into a situation where getting out would be a problem.

g'luck!

MRCS, which route are you planning to take up? I'll be heading up for the Mountaineer's Route on Saturday, perhaps I'll see you. I'm taking a MSR Superfly stove with ISO fuel. I'll also be taking a pile of jumbo hand warmers and one of those cheap flexible lunch-type coolers. I'll keep my fuel in there with a couple hand warmers to keep it from getting as cold as it would otherwise. I'll rubberband a handwarmer to the fuel while its actually in use.
Ken, where did you see that forecast? Everywhere I look states just clouds and sun throughout the week.

Hey Mjollnir: Nice to hear from you. The best local forcast is www.395.com weather link to Owens valley. It states snow line could be down to 6000 feet with a chance of showers and snow, mostly Saturday. Earlier in the week it sounded like a bigger storm.

Using hand warmers with your stove...GREAT IDEA!

Safe travels...hope we get to see some new photos.

Hey Kashcraft, good to see you're still around. Thanks for the link, those forecasts are more detailed than the stuff I've been looking at.
I'll be posting a short trip/conditions report when I get back. I'll include some pictures for sure.

-Steve

Thanks guys.

mjollnir: I'm not sure if I take MR; that was my previous plan. I wanted to take MR, climb Russell or just take some pictures, get to the summit of Whitney and back the classic route--spend about seven days in mountains. Unfortunately, it was too tricky to get through MR, so I took the classic one and still did not finish.

So this time I want take the possible easiest and "shortest" route with the highest probability of summiting regardless of snow and weather conditions. I'm not sure about the final slope on MR (never done it in winter) but I can approximate the feasibility of the classic R. I believe it may bring less surprises/disappointments/excuses.

I want to walk on the ridge late afternoon and take a look of scary, cold lakes on the left. I want to experience sunset with the colorless rock turning red, and then rapid grayness covering the horizon with the last warning, and finally (almost) complete darkness dominating the surrounding world lightened by billions of stars. I want to wake up in the morning and be stunned again how the world is beautiful.

Hope the weather won't play a jock. Nevertheless, see you there.