Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Winter Access Forum Jan 9-11 summit

I hope the weather is good next weekend, six of us are headed up.

hit up lone pine on thursday, maybe stay at the hostel if they are open (I still gotta call them). Friday, head up to 12,000 ft. Try to summit on Saturday and back to 12,000 (base camp). Sunday, back to the truck and then drive home.


Hellkat

Good luck with that. 3 of us tried on the 28th of December and turned back at Lower Boyscout due to not enough time and the deep powdery nature of the snow. You should have some tracks to follow unless there has been a recent storm that covered them over.

We were able to drive up to about 1.25-1.5 miles before the Portal in a Jeep Patriot. We actually could have gone further but a rock slide made us decide to play it safe. We made good time to the MR trail, and it then took 11 hours to get to lower Boyscout Lake. You won't be able to take the ledges and they won't do you any good anyway. We had to spend a lot of time bush whacking up the creek and through the willows. We felt good when we met a party that had turned back in our tracks.

I realize that you may be doing the main trail, but expect similarly difficult conditions.

Thanks Jhodlof,

Thanks for the update. We are going to try the main WT, I just felt they powdery snow on the MR might not have set up enough to use snow pickets when we hit the last chute climb after Iceberg lake. What were your plans for the final chute? Any protection***?

In an earlier post I was warned about parking in the portal and along the switch backs because of rock fall/slide, snow/spin drift chutes and avalanche. Did you feel safe parking 1.25 miles out of the portal along the road? Is there a safe spot in that area?


Hummmm, anybody got kids with too much energy? I’ll pay them $50 each to run ahead of the group and pack the trail with snow shoes. They don’t have to do the whole trail just do as much as they can in five hours. That’s $10 and hour tax free!

Hehehe- no, I’m serious.



Thanks,

hellkat





***I don’t usually rope in, but a buddy and I were up at Shasta about 6 weeks ago (the same week that lady fell and died) and we roped in for what I call the “CC Step,” a steep (unnamed) section just before the summit plateau. I’ve been up dozens of times and never roped in but it was faster with the gear because we didn’t have to worry about the fall. The SE side of Shasta is littered with slope shelves that will shoot you over a 1,000+ foot drops (kinda like looking east from the Whitney summit. Hell, kinda like looking in any direction from the Whitney summit plateau) I dropped a picket on the way up and watched it go over the edge. It was scary to see a picket go over the edge because 8 months earlier I fell on an ice sheet just beside my current position. I tried to stick my ax, which was snatched from my wrist (leash and all) as soon as the pick took a firm hold in the ice. In a fraction of a second I flicked the ax, which released it from the ice and proceeded to parallel my descent but far enough away that I could not grab it. It took 200 feet of clawing like cat woman and pounding ice like the incredible hulk (resulted in a broken bone that took a few hours to recognize because of the adrenaline) to make a leap of faith for the ax (I guess I looked like a dog trying to get friction on a newly waxed wood floor.) it took another 100 feet of dragging the pick in the ice to slow down enough so that I didn’t have the ax ripped out of my hand a second time, when I set it. Another 400 feet and I would not be here today. Anyway, long story short, I’m just ready to throw down with some protection when I ascend/descend a chute like that.

We were working with the expectation that heavy snow in the chute would be unclimbable due to its unconsolidated nature this early in the season. We were planning on a mostly rock climb with no protection. The final 400' had too much snow in it we would have turned back.

hellkat
Are you still planning to take the main trail? My partner and I are going to take the mountaineer's route Friday to high camp, try to summit on Saturday, and retreat Sunday. We are planning for an extra day if necessary. We are of the mindset that if the conditions are anything less than ideal(sounds like this is the case), we won't attempt the summit and will hang out at high camp and build snowmen.

Any news on current snow conditions or the trail to whitney portal?

Hey brother, how are you going to climb the chute, free climb? Protection? I live in the Bay area so I get all my info online. There is a lot of it from various sources. From what I gather this is what I envision.

The last good reports come from just about New Years, when a couple of decent snows laid down some pack and powder. Since then the weather has been steadily easing-up and only getting better for this weekend. All weather sources predict a warm and sunny weekend, with good weather to follow in the week. I’m predicting this trend of weather is helping the snow laid down last week to consolidate. For my group I have three concerns; first is miles, second is the altitude, and third is the backside traverse from Muir to the Whitney plateau.

I would love to cut my miles in half but I think the ledges are unusable and there is not enough snow (yet) to cover the cottonwoods, so that sucks. And I don’t think there is enough snow in the final chute to use snow gear, that means dry gear. The group I have can understand the basics of snow gear, but dry gear might not be a good idea (the dynamics are too complex) with them.

So that’s our plan.

Hellkat

For planning purposes I'd suggest that you ditch this prediction, and assume that wherever the wind slab doesn't support body weight you're going to be postholing.

Steve,




I'm not sure what your talking about. What is a wind slab? After a week of good weather, why would I not expect the snow to firm up a bit. Of course we will have to snowshoe, and the snow shoes will sink a bit, but I don't expect it will be crotch deep post-holeing. I'm not discrediting your advice, I just want to know what you're thinking. Are you giving me advice like, "I should hope for the best but expect the worst," or are you saying you were just out there and it's unpassable.

thanks,

hellkat

http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/encyclopedia/wind_slab.htm



You might consider what the 'good weather' was. It's been sunny the past few days, but a storm blew through (at least up here) Monday morning. It's also been maintaining quite cold temps at the higher elevations, meaning less melt or melt-freeze cycles, meaning less consolidation. Playing around last weekend there was still quite a bit of loose, light powder that had not consolidated, and some whoompfing and settling on both low- and higher-angle slopes. In snowshoes w/ extensions I was still sinking to mid-shin, finding deeper postholes to thighs.

It'll be work, no matter how you look at it.

Ok, thanks for the tutorial. I hope to keep my focus on any slab form in our vicinity, including wind slabs. In fact any slab on the backside of the traverse from Muir to the summit is going to cause me to chew off my fingernails. For sure there is going to be some tricky snow out there. I’m looking at the sierra web cams and every one of them is looking ideal to me. Thanks for your insight everyone.

we will be pack and on our way in about 20 hours to check out the conditions first hand.


hellkat

Looks like you've gotten a link to answer your first question. The answer to the second question is more complex. Over time, and under the right conditions, a snowpack will gain strength through a process called sintering, whereby the individual snow crystals become more rounded and bonds form between the individual grains. But that process has limits even under ideal conditions, and certainly won't lead to a nice, hard surface for walking.

The sintering process is temperature dependent. It progresses most rapidly when the snow is a few degrees below freezing, but goes much more slowly as the temperature goes down (we're talking internal snowpack temperature, not ambient air). For example, snow at around 15F will sinter at about half the rate as snow in the high 20's. It takes about 18 days for fresh snow to reach its maximum strength when it remains just below freezing.

We're in the dead of winter, which means it's cold up there. Due to the short days and low sun angles there are a lot of places that see only limited sunlight. Even if the air warms above freezing, nothing is going to melt in any significant way. Inside the snowpack, it will remain cold, and the snowpack will gain strength slowly.

However, it isn't guaranteed that the snow will get stronger over time. In fact, it can get considerably weaker if there are significant temperature gradients (more than 1 degree C per 10 cm is the usually accepted threshold). Consider a snowpack a meter deep, and a ground surface near freezing (0 C). Air temperatures of +/- 10C are common, and sometimes it can be considerably colder for prolonged periods. When strong gradients are present you can get things like surface hoar, depth hoar, and facets (sugar snow). None of these are good for travel, and they usually contribute to increased risk of avalanche.

Last weekend I was out and about in Lee Vining Canyon and the Mammoth Lakes area. At around 9,000' in both locations we found wind slab. In LVC the slab was strong enough to support body weight wearing boots only. This was not the case in Mammoth. When we took our skis off we sank about a foot or more.

Personally, I prefer travelling in soft snow without the slab, because breaking the crust is more work, and you sink the same amount anyway. Unfortunately, most snow storms in the Sierra are accompanied by strong winds, and slab buildup is common. It won't necessarily be everywhere, but I'd be surprised if you didn't find any.

Hope that helps.

Our plan is to free climb if the conditions look good. Basically, we are assuming we will likely not summit, unless the conditions are absolutely ideal. We will go as high as is safe, scout out the area and come back another time if necessary.

Didn't read all of this and don't mean to be insulting (just don't have a lot of time to write diplomaitcally right now), but it doesn't sound like you know the mountain very well. There are usually only a few spots on the "backside" (from Trail Camp to the summit) where windblown snow packs up and causes the pucker factor to increase substanially. The rest of it will be be easy and it most places you can hop from rock to rock on the edge of the trail rather than deal with postholing.

I used to have trouble with this too, but let's be clear on climbing terminology. "Free" climbing can mean a variety of things - summarily that you are not using ropes/protection for aid or progress but you are using them in the event of a fall. "Soloing" or "Free-soloing" would be the correct term for climbing without ropes or protection. In conclusion, "Roping up" and "Free climbing" are not mutually exclusive.

I love outdoor forums, it's a chance for everyone to read whatever they want in-between-the-lines.

I got someone who wants me to worry about one type of slab. Trust, I’m going to worry about every type of snow condition that I come across. I’m going to consider its physical characteristic and make a conclusion from my experience and the experience of others.

I got someone who thinks I don’t know the mountain. I guess the summit in ’05 and a double summit in a single day in ’06 and the fact I could draw a topo of the region in my sleep is not enough. I’ve logged more than 10,000 miles of trail and more than a 1,000 of that in snowshoes in regions that have recorded their worst weather ever at the time, but go ahead educate me about mountains.

I got someone who just read a book and learned the difference in ‘free’ and ‘free solo’ trying to educate me. Thanks DWade, you should try some of this education at camp 5. And when they laugh, trust, they are not laughing with you.


It’s just funny you come to a forum and say you’re headed up, you don’t get any relevant info to the current conditions, only random statements about what may happen in some far off distant galaxy.

**********************************************************

So If your headed up before then next major accumulation of snow…

If you have 4 wheel drive and a little clearance you can get to the trail head. Else, get some chains, that will get you to within ½ mile of the trail head.


Our 6-pack (group) made a fine trail up to Outpost. I pulled a sled so the trail looks like it was manicured. You can easily snow shoe up to 12,000. That moraine field just after Trail Camp and just before the final chute to trail crest is a B**CH. I didn’t have any problems because I have leather mountaineering boots, but the rest of my group used rented plastic boots and they could not make the rock hops. I hate to say it but they look like wet dogs trying to mush through oatmeal. The other option in that section is to traverse the Nface snow bank on the south side, but it has a 55 degree snow bank and I knew that if we went that direction there wasn’t a chance in hell that they would have enough time to summit. We didn’t break trail crest because of the energy and time used in the moraine field, so I got no info on the traverse from Trail Crest to the summit. All the Nface snow banks along the WT were consolidated enough for good climbing so if you are doing the MR, I would surmise the summit cute is in prime condition for a climb.


Happy Mountaineering All,

Hellkat

> It’s just funny you come to a forum and say you’re headed up, you don’t get any relevant info to the current conditions, only random statements about what may happen in some far off distant galaxy.

hellkat, congratulations on a successful winter Whitney experience.

The reason you got a bit of negative input here is that you came to the board and posted what sounded like an overly ambitious plan from a very inexperienced summer hiker. And your time frame did not appear realistic. You said nothing about your 1000 miles in snowshoe experience or the fact that you had been on Shasta in late November.

Now that you are back from your trip, everyone here would love to see any pictures from anyone in your group, and maybe get a more detailed report.

Thanks for posting all the info.

My daughter and I saw your group go by. We were haninging out at the hikers area after a night of hiking around in the snow with a great moon. We had planned to scout out some of the MR, but it was a new experience for her and she did not fair as well as I had hoped. Another day!

Glad to hear you had a good trip!

The only reason I wanted to clarify the difference between "solo" and "free-solo" is because there was a discussion of using protection on the final 400 feet. If you are "free climbing" you might be placing protection or you might not, it just means the rope is not used for progress only for falls. The term "free climbing" is often using when the correct term would be "free-soloing." For example, when you read that so and so "free climbed The Nose" they used ropes, they just weren't aid climbing. It's not like I don't know what I'm talking about. I've been up the MR, four times, in Winter.

From the guy who didn't think you know the mountain and still doesn't...

I was up there on Saturday and found that much of the track up to Outpost Camp left a lot to be desired. I will say it made it a bit easier than having to break trail.

Our trip report:
So, we decided to hike the main trail after looking at conditions and deciding MR was not going to go for us without some drama or unneeded risk. The couloir looked like it would take some dangerous snow-covered rock hopping to ascend, and one of our guys(there were 3 of us) ended up feeling a bit off, so we opted for the main trail.

Due to one guy feeling a little sick (maybe altitude, conditioning, or illness?), we took it real easy the first day and hiked up to about 10,000. We decided we would setup camp a little early with a good hot meal and plenty of sleep, and then assess our health in the morning. The next morning my buddy was still feeling crappy so we hiked back down and cruised back home.

While we did not summit, we had a fun trip with a good night of snow camping and some easy hiking. The main trail was in good shape. We used snow shoes about 2 hours into the hike as we started to posthole, but only up to mid-shin or knee. Weather was amazing; warm during the day, with clear skies and fullish moon at night. I love the mountains!

Also, we met one woman (I think her name was Tran?) that was really nice and snapped a picture for us. She was with a group of six, maybe hellkat's? Anyway, if she's on this board, thanks for the photo and it was nice to meet you.

We'll be back in a few weeks for another go!!