Trip Report May 9-12
A bit late to post a trip report, but I figure better late than never.
After reading all these posts and debating gear planning, I decided to take the Whitney Portal trail over a west side trail from Cottonwood Pass or Kearsarge Pass. There have been many discussions about Micro Spikes vs Crampons among other things on the message board and beyond. Because I was taking my 17-year-old daughter with me I decided to error on the safety side and took crampons, ice axes, rope, harnesses and belay equipment and used them all.
May-9:
After breakfast at Mt. Whitney Restaurant and picking up permits we got a late start on the trail at 11:00 AM. We weighed our packs at the portal and found them to be 42 and 34 pounds, respectively. Even without the scale, it was very obvious that we over packed. We encountered patchy snow toward to top of the switchbacks that lead out of the Portal. The ground trail was gone by Lone Pine Creek at about 10,000 feet but a well-developed snow footprint trail was easy to follow. The snow was slushy but only had occasional posthole problems. We did not wear crampons the first day. We stayed the first night at Outpost Camp. There was running water at the SW end of the meadow just before the bend in the trail. The meadow is fully snow covered, so we camped on the snow. A full moon made for a bright night. Winds were light and variable and temperatures were in the low to mid 30's.
May-10:
We broke up camp and we each ditched at least 10-pounds of food and gear that we were not willing to carry any further. On the trail by 7:00 with beautiful sunlight warming the meadow on the south-east facing slopes.Today we wore crampons from the start and found them to be an exceptionally good choice. Together with trekking poles, we ascended steep crunchy snow out of Outpost Camp to Mirror Lake with ease and then up another steep section of crunchy snow above Mirror Lake to the ridge that leads to Trail Camp. The hike to Trail Camp was easy--thanks to our crampons and trekking poles. We got there early and so we had most of the day to soak up the warm sun and set up a great camp site. Oddly enough, we found dry ground and a nearby trickle of running water coming off the rocks which made filtering 8 litres of water simple.
Throughout the day we talked to several down-hikers who reported on the conditions above Trail Camp. For better or worse, we gave more credence to those who had a narrative that supported us making it to the summit. Unfortunately, 90% were negative, leaving us with only 10% to hang on to. Most reports were something like "snow to your waist," "dangerous cliffs above Trail Crest," or "no one has made it to the summit in the last three days." The very last person gave us a report that we held on to. He said that 4 people tried to make the summit including him. The other three were PCT hikers, who we had met early on May 9th at Whitney Hostel. The PCT hikers came down from Horseshoe Meadows and were planning to summit Whitney from the east and then return to the PCT trail down the west side. Two of the PCT hikers had snowshoes and they were the only ones to make it to the summit. The PCT hiker without snowshoes gave up early and turned back to go down to Guitar "Frozen" Lake. The hiker who we met at Trail Camp said that he made it within 1 mile of the summit, but was postholing to his waist and could not make it safely up and back so he gave up too. His recommendation to us was to leave early and get to the summit by 10:30 AM to stay over crunchy snow.
Late in the day, we met an Up-Hiker named Larry. He too was a PCT hiker who hiked down from Horseshoe Meadows and was planning to summit Whitney and return to the PCT. We designed a plan with Larry to start hiking at 4:00 AM to give us the best chance to have light by the technical areas of the chute ascent and to reach the summit with good snow conditions. We pre-packed our backpacks with the gear we planned for our summit attempt and were in sleeping bags by 8:00 PM.
May-11:
My daughter and I jumped out of our bags at 3:30 AM and were on the trail promptly at 4:00 AM. Larry had a 60 lb pack and decided he was going to stay at High Camp so his snow chute ascent would be a bit shorter. We met Larry at the High Camp and were climbing the chute at 5:00 AM. Thankfully, the PCT hikers from the day before cut 33 beautiful switchbacks in the snow chute that made our ascent much easier. The 97 trail switchback are completely covered. Only the very top long switchback that leads to trail crest is slightly visible. Even though we had the previous hikers footsteps in the snow, we took extra time to cut each step to ensure that we had good footings in order to minimise the chance of a fall. Because my daughter was not well experienced in self-arrest beyond YouTube videos and practising with me, we roped up for added safety. At particularly difficult sections I would belay her up to a safe location. Larry was EXTRA careful in cutting every single step to be perfect. One wrong move with a 60-pound pack could be very problematic. Do to our cautionary ascent, it took us 3 hours to get to Trail Crest by 8:00 AM.
From Trail Crest, the trail was easy to follow. It was a mix of snowshoe tracks from the PCT hikers and one postholer. At 8:00 AM the snow was nice and crunchy. Other than the altitude, it was very easy to hike. There are a few sections that are a bit exposed and the snow path is only a single track. However, with trekking poles, we felt very secure through these short sections. There were actually several dry ground sections without any snow at all. Toward the top, the trail became very difficult to follow. We ended up following the snowshoe tracks over toward the Mountaineers Route before arriving at the summit at 11:00 AM. The snow was still very good and easy to walk on.
At the summit, we discovered that we had forgotten all of our food. We only had a 600 calorie freeze dried dinner the night before because we had left everything else at Outpost Camp. We planned for two energy bars each for the summit day and that we would be returning through Outpost Camp after summiting on our way down to the Portal. My daughter bonked and had absolutely zero energy at the summit. I bummed an energy bar from a very nice woman who had come up the Mountaineers Route and was planning to ski down. I figured that after she had eaten if she had an extra bar it would not be too much of a burden because she would quickly be down to her base camp. My daughter sprang back to life within 30 minutes and felt great.
We left the summit at noon and began our descent. The snow was great until we got onto a south-west facing slope. I began postholing. At first, it was every 20th step. Then it was every 10th step and it eventually became almost every step. I fell to my knee most of the time and occasionally to my hip. It was miserable. Larry had snowshoes and because he needed to make it to Lower Crabtree Meadows, we said our goodbyes. My daughter walked behind me and because of her relative light weight and that she could see what didn't work for me, she was able to avoid 90% of the postholing.
Five hours of postholing later, we made it to Trail Crest at 5:00 PM. We roped up again for the descent. When we got to a safe slope to glissade, we tried that while roped together. Even though the snow was slushy, it was not soft enough for my daughter. She said that it hurt and that she would rather walk. This meant that I had to posthole from about half way down the chute back to Trail Camp. She ran ahead to trail camp and I dragged in around 6:00 PM. Like my daughter, I ended up bonking. Without any food, I had no energy. Every posthole was an episode. Back in the tent, I didn't even have the energy to chew the energy bars my daughter was shoving in my face. I eventually got them down and within an hour I sprang back to life, but there was no way that I could face hiking down to Outpost Camp to get more food and hike out to the portal in the dark. We decided to stay the night at Trail Camp.
May 12:
The wind built up throughout the night and was blowing 30 mph and gusting to 40 mph. I had guyed the tent very well and nothing broke loose, but the tent would flatten out on top of us every couple minutes. I knew the forecast was for heavy winds on May 12 so I change our trip plan to summit of May 11. I just thought that I would be down at the Portal on May 11 as well.
We broke camp and started hiking down at 6:00 AM. Hiking in heavy winds was exciting. It would blow our trekking poles in front of us on every step and we would have to angle them to help resist being blown over. In the sun by 6:30 AM or so, it was not cold at all and actually felt quite warm. We got back to Outpost Camp and picked up our gear and food. I can't believe we over packed so badly. I think it was the fear of cold that made us pack more.
Leaving Outpost Camp we saw some tracks that lead down Lone Pine Creek. Rather than ascending out of the meadow following the normal trail, we got suckered into following the "easy" path. This path lead us down some steep terrain. BTW, the snow gets soft at 8:30 in the lower elevations in the sun. This path turned out to be anything but easy. One path became several paths and then became no path. We ended up getting lost. What should have been a simple descent turned into a bit of a problem. Lucky enough, I spent the extra $50 when I bought my Garmin InReach GPS to get the one that comes with a map screen. I was using the Garmin InReach Iridium satellite texting feature to send messages back and forth with my wife to let her know that her baby is safe at night and so that she can track our progress online based on automatic 10-minute position updates. I pulled GPS and figured out how to calibrate the compass and enter waypoints. After analysing the topology map screen I set a waypoint for the trail which told me it was only 450 feet away. After a couple of attempts and going the wrong way a few times, I learned how the GPS worked I got us back to the trail at the intersection of the Whitney Trail and Lone Pine Creek. What the GPS did not tell me was that I would have to cross logs and snow bridges to get myself to the trail and soon enough we were again on dry ground.
There were many lessons learned, but here are the highlights for me:
#1: When hiking in snow on Mt. Whitney, thou shalt wear CRAMPONS. On the way down and in all our wisdom, we would see up-hikers and would poll amongst ourselves whether they were going to make the summit. We saw people with Micro-Spikes and no ice axe who said they were going to the summit. There is NO WAY they are making it. Keep in mind that it was blowing 30 mph at trail Camp.
#2: When hiking in snow on Mt. Whitney, thou shalt bring snowshoes. In fact, I think snowshoes should be talked about more on this forum. The use of snowshoes should be part of hiking etiquette. Larry, who wore snowshoes told me that on some of the east coast trails, snowshoes are required whenever there is 6 inches of new snow and hikers are required to stay on the previously forged path as well.
We absolutely ruined the beautiful path that the PCT hikers with snowshoes forged to the summit the day before us. Now, my postholes are horrible for the hikers behind me and in some cases are actually dangerous. Even when the snow is crusty it is not enjoyable to walk a path with postholes. This leads to multiple paths and a degradation of the beauty that we are there to experience. I'm planning to climb Mt. Whitney again on June 6 and will definitely be bringing snowshoes.
#3: When you are the first people out on new snow, taking the time to make switchbacks and cut safe steps is very much appreciated. I am very grateful to those PCT hikers who started the switchbacks leading up the chute rather than just carving a straight line. Larry taught me that cutting good steps that are safe for you and others is worth the extra time it takes to reach the top.
You can see a YouTube video of our trip if you are interested. At 50 minutes, it is a bit long, but you can skip through to sections of interest to look at the snow conditions.
https://youtu.be/-S_cd7eO_nc 
