Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board warm up climb

got the ok from the wife to head out in march and join the SMI group for the mt. skills/whitney climb on the 13th. i have read many good things about SMI on this board and am looking forward to whitney with snow, done it numerous times but always in the summer/fall. anyway been trying to get out to do some climbing/camping back here in lovely new england and we had a great weekend weather window so up to mt. washington i went.
hit the trail on saturday and hiked up to hermit lake. we have had a pretty good snow year so tuckermans has about 5-7 foot base. nice cold night at hermit lake, 4 degrees with clear skies and a big old moon. sunday morning hit the lions head winter route for the climb up. if you west coasters every get the chance to come back east try to schedule some time for this climb. lots of fun, fairly steep but safe with good weather. the summit cone had the standard 10 inches of bullitt proof ice everywhere. hit the summitt around 11.00am, a balmly 6 degrees and the windchill was approx -30f. took my time coming down, with the slick conditions, didn't want to fall and go into warp speed. i was surprised that i saw numerous people climbing without a ice axe???? looking forward to some warm california sun.

I agree with you, MT Washington is a spectacular climb in the winter! I day hiked Wash Feb 16 last year via Lions Head winter route. From what I recall reading from the data collected that day, I got temps of 6 below 0 and wind gusts to 70 mph! There were times that I had to hunker down and hold myself to the mountain via planting my axe in the rime. I pretty much hiked in my down parka...it was that cold!



Have fun on Whitney next month!

Yeah..good luck on Whitney! I did the same thing..signed up for a guided hike up Mt. Washington a couple years ago. Our group was led by a fantastic guy..the head guide there at Eastern Mountain Sports, Joe Lentini. He was fantastic...just like most professional guides I've met he doled out useful information and set a just right pace the whole day. We had a balmy day on the summit with light winds..

Trip report here: http://www.mudspike.com/lionhead.htm



I took that knowledge to the Whitney Mountaineers Route the following year in March and promptly got my ass handed to me by the mountain.. Though similar in some ways..the scale and exposure on Whitney felt much larger for some reason.. The 3 guides I've met from SMI were all the coolest though..I'm sure you will have an awesome trip!

Good luck on Whitney!

Chris

-30F, sounds like a nice day :-o Surprised it wasn't colder! I did the TR trail just before it iced up in the fall and winds were a' howling up top at 85mph. Pretty cool climb though. I have to try and get the time to do it in winter conditions.