Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Un-unsettled weather

Fortunately, the forecast seems to be changing, with Lone Pine weather stabilizing by the end of the week and temps around 90F. Should be hot and clear and cracklin' by the week of the Fourth!
I have a day hike permit for the 2nd. Anybody else there that day??

I should be there on the 2nd! Alot of snow will prob be gone by then if it stays warm. This will be my first CA 14er hike

Artsome,
I will be on Whitney July 2nd as well. I am leaving Cottonwood Pass trailhead on June the 30th. Camping at Lower Rock Creek Crossing the first night, second night at the "always popular" guitar lake. Then, up to Whitney, will attempt Mt. Muir and back down to the Portal. Maybe I'll see you on the summit. Have a good hike up. It's a long one.
Take care,
Greg Lukenbill

GLuke, We have a group of seven scheduled to leave Horseshoe on the 29th overnighting the first night at Soldier Lake. The next day on down to RC x-ing and then up to Crabtree and Guitar. Decided on the Soldier Lake route for the simple convenience of water. Apparently it's pretty dry between Chicken Springs Lake and RCC. The other route adds 0.70 mi to the trip but what is that among the 38 miles to Portal. Praying for a warming spell and big melt-off between then and now. Hope to meet you on the trail.
ps. We are sending out a scouting team today to make the same trip. They are going with crampons and ice axes and should return Sat PM. Will post with conditions at that time.

Old Alpiner,

We are doing that trip leaving June 24. Looking forward to reading the trip report from your scouting team.

thanks

Heart of Tiger,

The forecast is for warmer weather (finally) next week. Will get the latest conditions to you and others, check for post Sat PM or Sun PM. I've been planning this trip since last June so the excitement level is running high. Best wishes, be safe !

Old Alpiner,
That sounds great. Maybe I'll see you and your party on the trail. What date do you plan to summit? Mine is on 7-2. I'll leave my itinerary here:
6-30 Cottonwood Pass Trailhead to RCC
7-1 RCC to Guitar Lake
7-2 Guitar Lake, Summit Whitney, and down to the Portal.
Let me know what your scouting team finds out about conditions at the now, "dreaded cables" or any other information. I'm planning on taking my ice axe and crampons. Any information you can give will be very helpful.
Oh, and if you see a green two-man Go-lite tent at RCC or Guitar Lake, that would be me. Or, look for the 6' and 215 lb. "bald, 44ish-guy. I'll be flying solo this trip. Hope to hear any reports you have on the current conditions.
Take care,
Greg Lukenbill

We have a permit for day hike to the summit on July 21. If weather conditons return to the more normal pattern in the next few days, is there a reasonably good chance that most of the snow will be melted by then? Thanks

GLuke, The scouting team returned to "base camp" here in San Diego at 0100 this morning. They indicated significant snow above 13,000 but not much below that. They decided to go from Horseshoe up to Soldier Lake then pushed up thru Miter Basin, Sky Blue Lake and then busted trail thru some tough ground to Trail Crest and down to Portal. They had axe and crampons which one used and the other did not coming down thru the cable section which had ample white stuff. Daytime highs remained above freezing so the snow was soft and postholeing caused some delays.

We are leaving out of Horseshoe on 6/29 and so will most likely be a day in front of you. We also are planning on our summit attempt on 7/2. Will look for you at or near Guitar 7/1 if we are still in the area. Our group is changing so I will let you know of the dynamics later in the week. High temps next week are in our favor.
Regards.
OA

Gluke, it looks like we should be at Guitar on 7/1 and attempt the summit the next morning. There is a slight possibility that we may be one day ahead of this but I think we will have a full day to prep at Crabtree or Guitar. Look for a party of 5 with a old sytle orange tent. Please do drop by and say hi if you see us. The weather is in our favor and it looks like we all shall conquer the cables with little difficulty.

Best wishes on your trip. Be safe.

Hi,

I will be going up MWMT on July 2 also. I hope the snow is clear by then.

This is also my first hike up Whitney.

Hi, could you leave a snow/ice crampon/axe report for us here? We will be going up after you with a several beginners who will not have any mountaineering equipment. Thank you so much! Nancy

We finished our HSM, cottonwood pass, crabtree meadow Mt. Whitney Trip on June 29. It was an awesome trip.

As far as ice and snow conditions go we were surprised by the amount of snow still up there. Crossing the chutes up the west side of the JMT to the MMWT trail junction was pretty dicey and we would not have wanted to do them without crampons.

On the MMWT, not too bad, a traverse accross the snow chute at the top of the switchbacks requires a short boulder scramble to get onto when heading down from trail crest. We hit the cables around 4 PM and they had softened with the days sun. I suspect that if you hit them early in the morning or late in the evening they will be pretty icy and you would defintiely want crampons.

Things change quickly up there and we saw a lot of snow melt, but if I was going up again I would be prepared for snow and ice crossings for the next week or two.