Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Meysan lake/sky blue lake/summit (almost)

Thought I would put down a few words about our 4 day trip from Meysan lake to the Discovery pinnicles.
I have been to both the summit and Meysan lake, so I knew a bit of what I was getting into. Seeing the chutes above Meysan lake and reading the route in the book "Mt Whitney, hiking guide", with my partner, Dan, we decided to go for it.
In a nutshell, the book description is FAR different from reality.
The book does say "strenuous", and that is correct, but is is far more "strenuous" than that.
We started out by taking in the views and eating a monster egg, toast and potato breakfast, thank you Doug!
The hike to Meysan lake was pretty straight forward, hard, but the hardest part is the last mile before Grass lake, but I knew that. We were ready to put down the packs when we got there. We left Meysan lake late, as it always seems to be a bit of a thrash the first day out, getting our act together.
I had posted earlier a question about the snow in the chutes, and received some good responses, not much. As a result, we left the crampons in the car to save the weight. I would take them next time even if I were to use them for 300 feet. The scramble up the chutes is very hard, steep, loose and long. We went up the middle to the rock band, and then around the left side. There was a use trail there we followed. Next time I would go up the chute on the far right, especially with crampons. A better slope and it tops out in a great position at the top of the La Conte/ Mallory pass.
The descent down to Sky Blue lake is very steep. It is a mix of large rocks and decomposed granite (DG). As we descended, the rocks gave way to DG, and it became much easier. All in all the descent was pretty easy, but steep and you did not want to fall. We camped at the first lake at the bottom, as Sky Blue was too far, and it was getting late. I think that if we got a earlier start, had more snow in the chutes and crampons, we would have made it to Sky Blue. No problem as we had a great site in a beautiful area, in the sun. Life is good.
Our next day was to take us to Upper Crabtree lake. Got up early this time. It was a pretty easy day. The route is mostly walking until you get to a headwall above Sky Blue. This was not mentioned in the book. It took some doing, sometimes removing our packs, climbing the ledge and handing the packs up. Falling was not a option. Once above that we were at a unamed lake, WL3697, beautiful. Ate lunch as we studied Crabtree Pass. It looked rather imposing, but as it turned out not too bad. It is steep, but the footing is good, and we followed a use trail through the rocks. Descending to Upper Crabtree Lake is very steep, loose and rocky. Nothing new here. Just had to be very careful about your footing, falling is not OK, nothing new here either. We got there at about 2PM. Hung out in the sun and rested for the next day.
Our plan was to get to Discovery Pinnicles, drop the packs, summit and head down. We considered the MR, but decided against it, both of us had been on it before. Well, it turned out to be a very long hard exposed slog up to DP, longer than we expected. Lots of DG mixed with rock. Sometimes very slippery. We got to DP in the early afternoon, so we decided to ditch the summit and blast down the main trail. We made it back to the Portal by 6:30, plenty of time for a well earned shower, cheesburger and beer, thank you Doug, again!
Our only mistake we made, and it is not a biggie is the crampons. I would definately take them next time, even if I used them only for a part of the chutes, the weight would be very worth the limited use.
The one thing we did do well is adjust for the trip, changing our destination, not getting strung out on making the summit, where we both wanted to spend the night.
Neither of us suffered on bit from altitude except for breathing.
If I were to do this again, I would take at least 5 days, taking a full breather at Sky Blue. If you wanted to summit from Upper Crabtree Lake, that in itself is pretty much a day, so plan on spending the night there, and another day (6) for the trip.
I highly recommend the trip. Good luck.

Thanks for the update. You answered a lot of my questions about the Mallory ascent and Crabtree Pass. I was up at Sky Blue last Thursday and was trying to figure out the route to the next lake above for another trip in the future. Again, valuable input from you.

I'll agree that hike is more than expected. Last year 2 of us hiked over Arc Pass and stayed the night above Sky Blue Lake. The next morning hiked down to the lake and started up towards Upper Crab Tree Lake. The route was fairly easy to follow as it led through boulders and around lakes. Was a steep decent to Upper Crab Tree Lake but nothing too scary. Leading up towards the ridgeline out was a easy to follow use trail including switchbacks. At the top of this ridge we dropped packs and went to Hitchcock for a new peak summit. This stage took longer than expected and probably tapped some of our reserves. Back to the packs and continue around to Discovery Ridge. Accurate discription calling this a long slog. We crested slightly east of Discovery Pinaccle and dropped down to Whitney MT. By now it was late afternoon; to summit Whitney would have put us on summit close to dark. Just decided to hike on down. Maybe if we had not detoured to bag Hitchcock could have knocked Whitney out - but not that trip. Laughing later because our initial goal had been McCadie, Hitchcock, Muir, Whitney, Russell and maybe Carillon - on an overnight trip. Think I have to admit I'm slowing down in my old age.