Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Second Day of... well... ummm... hmmm...

I thought I had a bit more time before this system came in on my head, but I guess not. Oh well, it was a nice - *yawn* - day of snowshoeing in Rock Creek watching the storm breathe in and out around me.

Three hours. That's all I needed... dang...

Some pics:

Mt. Starr, my intended target. Road is plowed only to the snow park, so it's a long walk in.


Just as I got to the base of the snow/rib I wanted to take to the top:


Bottom of the Sherwin Grade coming home:


Rest of the pics are here.

From the - *yawn* - luckiest girl in the world: Climb Hard, Be Safe.

-L

Thanks for the picks. Nice to see there will be some fresh stuff for my trip up next weekend. We're taking our WTC group up there for their snow camp next week...can't wait!!

Kim: What group # are you?

West LA-Grp 4...formerly Bill's group, now Eric's. We have 18 students this year.

Kim: are you guys going into South Lake or North Lake area. I'm going to be doing some reconnaissance for WestLA Group 2 after work this week, and I'd be happy to do the same for you guys. Would post pics on my flickr site.

LMK,
L

Wow, awesome!! But our group is going to Rock Creek on Fri so maybe just a few more details from your snowshoe this weekend would be cool. Our plan is to hike in (from wherever the road is plowed to-the snow play area I think)and camp at the North end of the lake, just past the bathrooms. We camped there last year and had about 5 ft of mostly dry fluffy snow to camp on and dig pits in, but we are about a month later than last year and well, that was last year! The other group on the bus with us is going to South Lake area, but not sure yet WHERE exactly?? We usually do some kind of dayhike on Sat, not sure where yet either.

Our two groups will be hitting Pizza Factory on the way out of town for a few hours in the afternoon Sunday, so swing by if you're around and join us for a liquid refreshment, pizza and snow camp stories...it's on me!! Thanks L!

Kim:

I'll see what I can do to get all the areas covered this week, although the group that camped up at Rock Creek last week from SGV (one of the leaders was Tina Bowman, so you could probably e-mail her) would have the best inkling of conditions as they were when they left Sunday. I have patients in Mammoth Wednesday so I may try to stop in there on the way and check things out. The road was only plowed to the snow play area as of Saturday. While the road was very firmly packed (perhaps much different now) stepping off the road without snowshoes led to a knee/mid-thigh posthole (made getting pics at the edges of the road interesting).

You could let the leaders of the various groups know to watch my flickr site over the next few days (see the link in my sig line below). I know group 2 is wondering about the avi conditions on the road above Aspendell, since that will determine their ability to move camp to North Lake or not (or so I'm told).

I plan on being at the PF Sunday night, so see you there!

-Laura

You rock! I'll email Tina and gets some notes from her, thanks. We'll be on snowshoes, so postholing shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'll keep watch for any of your future trips up there between now and then.

I'll pass on the link for your photos. We definitely owe ya one!! Please come find me Saturday and I'll treat!!