Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board weather

We have friends up at Mt. Whitney this weekend, do you know the current weather conditions?

While I was not at Mt. Whitney this weekend, I was in the Hoover Lakes area, below Bridgeport on Saturday. It snowed on the hike and the winds were so brutal I had to turn around. The gusts were probably 60 MPH and the clouds so dark and forbidding that I bailed on the hike after 3 miles. The weather was incredibly nasty for this time of year. Sunday morning I was planning a hike to Thousand Islands lake out of Mammoth but I awoke with an inch of fresh snow and it was still snowing as I drove home on 395. The snow stopped about 15 miles north of Bishop.

As I was driving by Whitney on 395, I couldn't see any snow on the mountains, but the area was covered by clouds, though not dark or ominous looking clouds. So my weekend was ruined by one aborted hike and one hike not attempted because of very cold, snowy conditions at Mammoth.

For anyone attempting hiking in the Sierras in the coming days, be prepared for unseasonably windy, cold and snowy conditions. I'm assuming this is just a fluke and sunny weather will soon return, but be prepared in any case. Shorts and a T-shirt didn't cut it during this past weekend.

Appreciate the update on the weather around Whitney and north up to Bridgeport. I'm coming with a few friends to hike the Whitney Trail on Sept. 24th. We're all in good shape, having done backpacking(summer) trips before, and have had to postpone this trip at least once. However, we're not prepared for anything requiring crampons and we're coming from the SF Bay Area for the hike. Anyone following up this message/thread and has more info over the next few days about the weather/conditions on the Whitney Trail would be appreciated!

We were up above Bishop, at Mt Humphreys and also got weathered out. We were attempting to complete the East Arete, and made it up to the lake but high winds (30-50 MPH) and pelting snow on Saturday turned us back. From the Buttermilks on Sunday there were dark clouds hovering over the mountains in the area and you could see snow down to 7000-8000 ft.
Melissa

I have always been a little entertained by this guessing game I play with Whitney weather. I check Bishop weather, Las Vegas weather, macro forecasts for the Sierras; I check Lone Pine and subtract 4 degrees for every thousand feet, I read trip reports from recent climbers - all helpful and interesting. And I do realize and appreciate the inexactness of it all. But it would be fun if there was some instrumentation on the summit that could be accessed by the curious websurfer. We have it for White Mountain (though not always accurate). We have it for other peaks. I read in "Mountain Lore from the Whitney Store" that Gustave Marsh checked winter temps from summit instrumentation some 95 years ago. So now, in the era of real-time, one would think the highest peak in the lower 48 might have something. I guess it's a research grant waiting to be written.

In the meantime, thanks to all for your regular posts & pictures. The human element is more enjoyable than a dry, impersonal chart or digital readout, anyway.