Hi All,
My friends, Liz and Chris, and I snowshoed up to the Portal Saturday and spent the night, returning on Sunday. Conditions on the road Saturday included:
Anywhere from 6" to 1.5 ft of mostly unconsolidated powder snow on the switchback lower down.
Past the switchback 1 to 1.5 ft powder to the Portal.
We knew that poor weather was forecast for Saturday night so we were prepared for it, and at about 8 PM that weather showed up. It started snowing steadily with wind gusts that would blow snow hard against the tents. About 2 AM I got up to check on things and cleaned 6 to 8 inches off our tents. We had brought our winter bags and tents so it was not a problem --- I actually slept fairly well. In the morning after checking the tents again there was another 6 to 8 inches on top, so I would estimate that there was probably 1 to 1.5 feet of new snow that night.
Daytime temps on Saturday were probably in the high 30's or better as the sun was mostly shining, but the mountain up higher was covered with clouds. Saturday night was probably +/- 20 degrees for the low.
On Sunday it continued steadily snowing as we packed up and began to snowshoe out, and didn't let up until we got on the switchback part of the road. By the time we got back to the cars blue skies were showing in the Owens Valley, which were a welcome sight after all the storminess, but it continued to snow back up near the Portal. We had parked right at the "Road Closed" sign, and even there had received about 6 inches during the storm. The higher parts of the Alabama Hills even had snow on them in some places.
Highlights of the trip include:
A 300-400 pound boulder coming crashing down no more than 25 feet in front of us as we were snowshoeing up the road. Talk about an adrenaline rush!
While we were setting up our evening meal, a cute little raccoon showed up and began watching us. As soon as I turned my back on him he tried to get into my pack, and then tent. Well I scared him away only to have him come back again and again, so finally I emptied my pack and opened it up so he could look inside. That cured him of his need to inspect MY pack, but evidently he still wanted to look at the other packs too, so later after we were in our tents he came back and tried to get into the other packs. Then, finding nothing, he actually tried to chew his way into Liz and Chris's tent while they were in it. Luckily as he was biting through the fabric his teeth hit one of the tent poles and could not get all the way through. Well, this was getting more than a little annoying so they decided to check again to see if there was anything they might have left in their tent that was attracting this raccoon. They did find an overlooked tube of sunscreen which they removed and placed in our food canister, and then the raccoon finally disappeared.
On Sunday on the way out we only saw one person and who should that be but Richard P. skinning up the road on skis. It was nice to meet him, and we sure appreciated walking in the tracks his skis made in the powder. Thanks Richard!
All in all it was a great snowcamp, we got to test out some gear, get some winter experience, and just enjoy the wintery side of Whitney Portal.
Mark
P.S. I'll see if I can get some pictures up soon!
