Below is my account of my climb up Mt Whitney.
We began at 1:30AM and our party included me (33), my wife (30) and her parents (68 and 65, both in excellent shape). I was the only one that had experience on Mt Whitney, as I had made the hike 3 years ago with little incident, and my wife and her parents were very excited to join in the fun. Of course the plan was to do it without all the snow but as plane tickets were purchased, time off was arranged etc, we were still going to give it a try and see how far we could get without endangering ourselves.
Our pace was pretty slow and we reached outpost camp around 6:00 AM, daybreak was around 5:30AM or so. The water was high in all the water crossings and we had little snow to go over during this portion. The only significant snow was at the split between the main trail and Lone Pine Lake but this was easy to cross in the early morning hours. After Outpost camp and Mirror Lake we ran into the second portion of snow where we had to be creative to get through and/or around. On coming down the trail I believe we were in fact off the main trail in the morning and this portion could have been avoided. The hike up the rocks was ok but past this point the main trail to Trail Camp is completely through snow.
Trail Camp to Trail Crest. This was the fun part and as someone else had mentioned in a previous post the crux of the hike. We did not have ice axes or crampons so at this point the parents turned around. My wife and I decided that we would give it a try and see how far we could get without risking injury. We decided that we would take the rock band in the middle of the chute then just go straight up from this point to Trail Crest if possible. Although we did not have crampons we made decent time up the first portion of the snow chute to the rock band. We both felt it was not dangerous just extremely demanding and strenuous. We took several breaks but noticed we were really not losing any time to those people that had crampons. Once on the rock band we did lose time as we went up in a switchback fashion rather than straight up. Those people on the snow chute made better time here but we felt this was the safer route as we did not have crampons. From the top of the rock band we just went straight up to trail crest. There was some talk on the board last week about cutting over to switchback #90 but by the time we had got this far we felt it would do us more harm than good to traverse the snow chute over to the switchbacks. Once again this hike straight up in the snow was very strenuous but we did not feel that we were in any danger. During this time we saw the first people actually coming down the summit via the glissade trails. They were coming down very slowly but seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Trail Crest to the Summit. From Trail Crest to the summit seemed extremely long as compared to the last time I made this trip. I believe this is due to the amount of energy that I had to expend to make it up the snow chute rather than the switchbacks route on my previous trip. Although the switchbacks are tedious and never-ending I do believe the route is much easier than going straight up the snow chute when they are not covered in snow. There were two main areas where we had to traverse snow from Trail Crest to the summit but once again these were not dangerous.
Summit. We did not spend too much time at the actual summit as it had taken us much more time that we had expected to get to the top and on our way up several other hikers pointed to a possible storm blowing in. We were up there just long enough to sign the registry take some pictures and split a celebratory Gatorade.
Getting Down. Here is where my wife and I had the biggest difficulty. By the time that we made it to the summit it was 3:30. We made it back to Trail Crest around 4:30 or so (we lost the trail for a bit after the second snow field). The snow chute was in the shadows by this point and the top of the snow had an icy film. We decided to glissade down using a trekking pole as a mode to stop ourselves. I would not recommend this method and in fact would probably recommend not even trying to glissade down the mountain after the side of the mountain is covered in shadows and iced over unless you are familiar with the mountain and have done it before. Both my wife and I made it to the bottom without an ice axe and we stopped ourselves via our feet, arms etc as the trekking poles were worthless. I sustained a type of ice rash on my arms from the journey and we both got some wear and tear on our bottoms but we were able to make it to the bottom. Looking back I think it was a mistake to try to make it down this way and I am very happy we both made it without serious injury.
All the snow that we experienced after this point on the way down was very sloppy. I found it easier to walk on the side of the trail rather than on the trail in several areas as I kept slipping. I expect that with the continued use of the trail and the warming temperatures most of the snow on the trail from the Trailhead to Trail Camp will be gone in a few weeks (or at least a clear path with be made with no snow to trail camp).
We did see several people use the rock band to make it to the top as well as several people without crampons and/or ice axes going up the chute. I have never used either so I am not sure if they would have helped on the way up but I am certain that an ice ax would have helped me when glissading down. I would be interested to hear about the glissade down by the others that did not have ice axes. For those of you doing a day hike I would add at least 2 to 4 hours to your estimated time. My wife and I were on the mountain over 20 hours (as compared to a 16 hour hike 3 years ago) and did the walk from Outpost Camp down using our headlights. Most of the people that day hiked passed us on the way up around the trailside meadow to Trail Camp portion and probably averaged better time on the way down so I expect the average time for a medium experienced hiker to be closer to 14-16 hours round trip. Also, if you plan on using either crampons and/or ice axe bring them with you as the Lone Pine Sporting good store is small and I believe he only has a few of each he can rent. Once again if you plan on using either and ice axe or crampons, rent or buy them from where you are coming from and do not expect to get them in Lone Pine unless you have made prior arrangements.
All in all it was a very exciting trip and I am proud that my wife and I were able to make it to the top and back. Good luck to those of you attempting this weekend.
