Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Winter Access Forum Mountaineer's Route

I am planning on going up Mountaineer’s route in the next couple of weeks and was wondering if there are any reports on the conditions, or if there are any teams planning on making this ascent in the near future (next month or so)? Planning on a Friday & Saturday with a Sunday descent (spending the night at the portal on Thursday to get an early start).

Thats a good timeline if you want to take things slow. Depending on your fitness and skills, some can still make it a one day trip but you would have to start very early (make it to LBSL at sunrise).

But if your fit, got some skills under you as well as the equipment, then I don't see why you can't start early Friday as your planning and camp out at UBSL or Iceberg then summit on Saturday and come back to the portal.

I went up a about two weeks ago and had to start using crampons just after the boulder field right above LBSL. The talus was all ice. From that point to Iceberg lake I was taking my spikes off a lot because there were a lot of sections where they were not necessary. Probably not the case because there was a recent storm. Maybe snowshoes would be a good idea to bring in case but hopefully a majority of the route is fairly packed enough to get by with crampons.

Good Luck!

Justin

Huge storm front coming in next week, dumping lots of snow. Check the weather and conditions before you head out.
The snow from this storm might stick around for a while up there.

Let's hope so!!!!!!

Thanks for the notice on the weather BiletChick! I am hopeful that storm front will have passed through by the weekend of the 17th as I would like to get up there before the Holiday season.

Sure thing Sphazo.
Good luck on your trip, hope to see your pics and a TR soon.
Have a safe and happy holiday season.
Take care,
Stacy

Looks like it's happening Brent!

Anybody know how much snow was dumped on Whintey during this last front? From the webcam it looks like a fair amount!

maybe it is just me, but the latest webcam picture I am able to view is from 3rd of December..... I am guessing it would look different up there now... hopefully filled in with more snow, and snow at lower elevations too.

Mine was doing that earlier as well. If you erase your web browser history (or possibly just your cookies), it will refresh the image.

Try this: http://www.whitneyzone.com/webcam/whitney.jpg

I have a shortcut to show me the image when I boot (a little treat every morning). The shortcut used to be pointed to http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/webcam/whitney.jpg but that file hasn't changed since Dec 3.