Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Almost to the Summit

So my plan was to spend Friday night on the Summit of Whitney.

I spent Thursday night at the portal. I left the portal around 4am Friday morning no hurry to get up there. I took my time going up the Chute to Trail Crest heavy pack with extra warm clothes and gear, 10 steps at a time then taking a break. Now I new there was a low pressure coming in Saturday but I heard that it could come in Friday night. So 1.4 miles to the summit I saw some clouds coming in its the afternoon now and If I went to touch the summit the Chute will be getting ice over at that time. If I stayed at the summit I would be worried about the weather, so I went back down to Trail Camp and spent the night. Nice weekend just being there.

And on the way back down to the Portal Saturday East of Outpost camp along the rock wall the stream is overflowing the trail and its icy in the morning and at night well 3/4 the way across I step on a rock that I thought was a non ice issue was covered in ice it dumped me in the stream up to my chest laying sideways, I jumped out and said to myself at least its getting warmer the farther I go down hill. I did have a extra pair of waterproof shell pants in my pack If I thought I would need to change but by the time I got to the portal I was 95% dry.

Just another Bitchen time at Whitney

pictures here Whitney 5-11-18

Love your positive attitude. Heading up this weekend.

Thanks for the photo of the snowfield up to Trail Crest... excellent presentation of the current conditions (although it does make the slope look a LOT steerper than it actually is).

I had a guy tell me last weekend that he was postholing up the slope... was it firm enough to stay on top of, or did you encounter soft conditions as you went up, or down?

Also, any opinion of the condition of the Switchbacks?

What happened to the stache???

Hi Richard
The snow was soft but good foot prints to go in, at times just make your own, I slipped only a couple of times in the soft snow no postholing going up. On the way down glissade slow top half in the chute and just let go on bottom half(fun), postholed on the way back to trailcamp.

The 1/2 mile I went on the backside there was 1 snowfield, people told me there were 3 snowfields to the summit but they had good footprints.

sorry about the angle screen is hard to see with bright sun and dark glasses.

The stache will be back in time

mark