Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Mountaineers Route (semi-winter) video posted...

Alright..I finally had a chance to re-render the video of our April 2007 ascent of Whitney via the Mountaineers Route. There is a good bit of snow..sort of gives you a feel for what the conditions are like toward the end of winter/early spring (or maybe early fall too?)...

The video is 3 parts:

Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnxLVshayAE

Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaDQKuwZV_4

Part III: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjDDNL8v8bM

Hope the video helps some people see what some of the conditions might be like on the route...

Mt. Baldy WPS Message Board Hike Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2764bKOpDh0

Mt. Baldy WPS Message Board Hike Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH4B8I-OwC8

Regards..
Chris

Thanks for posting this. It should be fun and educational to watch. What kind of camera did you use to record it? I'm just curious if you used a regular digital camera with the video function or a dedicated camcorder. Thanks..

Hey Beach!

Great videos! Even though my recent summit was via the MT in summer, your videos still took me back to that hike instantly!! I can so relate to your feeling as you're topping out for the first time -- lots of emotions on a very special mountain. The music and editing was really good and surely enhanced those sections where it was added. Thanks for sharing these.

CaT

PS - Ain't it great to be off of Crystal's list at last!

Tony..here is a reply I posted a few months ago when I sent the video out via the mail to a few people:

<snip>

I recorded the video on a JVC MC500 video camera..it's a fantastic little digital video camera that writes to a Microdrive. It also films in widescreen mode (16:9) which is nice for capturing the "space" of outdoors scenery.



In a couple years I'll upgrade to something like a Sony High Def video camera..that would really be nice.

When I get home I plug the camera in, download the video to my hard drive and import it into Adobe Premiere. Premiere is a fantastic program for doing home videos although it does take some time to get used to working with it. I'm still a rookie at it..but I can add titles, set up pans and transitions and some other creative stuff. Once the movie is made I export it to a DVD folder for burning to DVD. The version you viewed was highly compressed using Windows Media Encoder which changes the format from MPG2 (DVD format) to .WMV format. That is good for web downloading though because it took the 2GB movie and dropped it down to about 280MB. Obviously you lose a bit of the size and quality..but it is good enough for web viewing purposes.

Premiere Pro program window:



I enjoy the hobby of putting together films of our hikes. In a case like this one I was really fortunate because so many people took still photographs too..which adds a lot of variety to the still/music sequences. You almost can't take a bad picture in the Mount Whitney area..

<snip>

If anyone wants a copy of the DVD sent to them just drop me a message. The DVD copy is obviously of much higher quality than the YouTube version and it looks great on a widescreen TV.


I don't really care what he (Crystal) thinks at all...that I only went 2 for 5 on Whitney summits just meant I got to come out an enjoy the area all the more. I managed to summit but he still has to be who he is...so I knew I won in the end anyway...

Regards..
Chris

Beach:

Every time I need a little pick me up I watch that vid! It's so much fun to go along for the ride. Thanks for putting it all together!

-L

One year anniversary of that enjoyable FA is coming up soon... Head on out again!

I can't wait to get out and hike with you again Richard. I commented the other day to Marisa that I needed to schedule a trip out west soon because it would give me incentive to drop 15 lbs. and get into better shape! I'll put something together soon...I can only take so much of watching all these weekend trip reports being posted by you guys and gals. Lucky dogs.

Chris

Thanks for the information about the camera used, etc. I've tried Adobe Premiere a bit in the past, but it was too intimidating for me to try to get into. I am decent with Photoshop though.

I know what you mean about it being a fun hobby to make videos, albums, blogs, or whatever from your past hiking adventures. It allows you to revisit the experience in your mind and also share it with others.

It might be worth mentioning (to anyone who wasn't following the weather last winter) that the 2006/2007 winter was exceptionally low on snow, so the conditions in the video are not typical of April.

Updated the top post and added the video I made of the Whitney Portal Message Board group hike hosted by Kurt Wedberg up Mount Baldy in October of last year.

In the next few days I'll add my failed (and clumsy) attempt up the Mountaineers Route in March of 2006 and the successful Main Trail summit with Richard P. from October 2006...

Chris