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

Hey everyone.

Just fyi, I attempted the MR on Easter weekend. Started Thursday morning, ended up leaving Friday afternoon. Several people turned around at LBSL, due to avalanche danger. I hear they heard lots of cracking and poping, and may have seen a slide.

I spent the night near LBSL and heard at least one avalanche, and saw evidence of another in the area. Also got a little bit of snow on Thursday night. Lots of snow effect and the summit down to Iceberg Lake looked like it had high winds, but that is just a guess of mine.

Several other groups were headed up on Friday. I decided to turn around, just felt the conditions too dangerous. I hope the snow consolidates soon.

Just want everyone to be careful and although our sport has risks involved, don't create a situation that has undue risks.

Good climbing everyone.

Do you know if anyone made it up over the weekend.
I've got a MR climb booked for the 14th (2 weeks away) and I'm beginning to have 2nd thoughts...

not sure if anyone made it up. I saw one guy go up by himself, and then another group of three or four start on the road on friday. It seemed the conditions were good if you traveled late at night or early morning. Snow seemed pretty solid then, but you never know. Good luck on your trip.

Chris

I'm headed up with a group April 9-12. I will post a report when we return. FYI for anyone going back country in the San Gorgonio area I would strongly advise some pit analysis over the next week before going into the bowls. I was there this weekend and found several worrisome layers. On Sunday 8 inches of "fist" soft snow over a one inch "pencil" hard ice layer and then a two inch faceted grain layer at 2 1/2 feet. (I know, I'm slow to the metric system) Needless to say, we stayed out of the bowls and chutes.