Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board WPSMB Group MR Climb, Second Edition?

Did we ever depart from it?

I don't know about official or unofficial, but my personal plan is to sleep at Whitney Portal Thursday night.

Road Closed Plan: I'll plan on hiking up starting ?around noon? on Thursday. Depending on how far the walk is, Friday morning I might not wait for the group before starting my slow slog up to Girl Scout Lake.

Road Open Plan: Drive up mid-morning Thursday then moderate day hike from the Portal. Drive down to Lone Pine to meet some of the group for dinner. Then I'll see you all when you get to the Portal Friday morning.

This year I'm bringing a warmer sleeping pad and a shelter big enough to sit up in!

in 100% - just got my vacation cleared.

Will be heading out on the 18th, start doing silly snow stuff around the 21st around Tioga/Tuolumne, then work my way south to Whitney over a few stops (Taboose/Mather Pass on ski), White Mountain West Ridge, then Lone Pine for the good suff.

is this still on for April 1, given current nasty conditions, with more snow through Sunday at least, then cold/windy conditions moving in?

I am sitting here 2000 miles away, truck packed, but uncertain I should drive out and then find avalanche conditions on April 1 too dangerous for this trip to happen. Could easily change my departure date by a week or more if others feel that this unofficial climb would be better done a week or so later.

In fact, each day I look at the radar, I feel I should postpone past April 1, even if I should find myself alone on the mountain when I get there (unlikely on a mid-April weekend, right?)

Unofficially, some April fools will still be going....

I'll be at McDonald's at 5:00am, but nobody has said what time we're starting or how far up the hill we're going on day 1, so I may just sit there sipping coffee...

Seriously, if you can push your trip out a few weeks, it will probably lead to higher probabilities of success. I think the ideal time period for Whitney is mid-April until the snow starts to suck (too soft, except in real early morning), which in a normal year (which this isn't) is about mid-May.

I may finally have some high-altitude climbs under my belt by this later date so that I'd be willing to go up for a day-climb (which from my perspective is a whole lot more pleasant than camping).

And stirring it up a little: there are relatively few spots on the North Fork to the summit that expose you to Avi danger. (Carillon Creek crossing, ice dumps from the slopes above the lower portion of the drainage, the Secret Route slope above LBSL, the slope below Iceberg in really warm weather...)

good to hear I am not the only fool. Leaving tonight - first stop Telescope Peak, then Tuolumne Meadows on ski via Tioga Pass on Sunday or Monday if conditions allow. Alternate plan is either White Mountain's west ridge as a 2-day climb, or the groomed slopes at Mammoth. Then Lone Pine for the unofficially foolish weekend. I've just had far too much time to ponder the current weather.

I have plenty of room in my tent if you want to leave the bivy behind.

I'm an April Fool for the trip as currently dated, though I might be able to do it the next week if it has to slip.

How about a fallback location/route if conditions are too severe for Whitney/MR?

-Telescope Pk from Shorty's Well?
-White Mtn. from the Sparkplug Mine? (Though if conditions are too tough for Whitney they might be way too tough for White.)
-???

You're right Richard, conditions may be better in a few weeks. I'm thinking April 29th-30th. The Portal road may be open and clear by then too.

I'm still game to try April Fool's day. 5:00am at McDonalds sounds great. Just want to keep options open for a later date just in case.

Will be interesting to see how things look after this weekend.

Well, I'll just keep an eye on conditions and try to do a better job of watching this thread. Trips like this are always weather dependent. Judging from the snow that fell last weekend, the snow currently falling (from what I can see in the webcam and going from the forecast), snow that is likely to fall and the low snow elevations, the road will probably snowed over meaning we hike the road. (Can anyone confirm how far up the road we can currently drive?)

When we went up last, we also had to hike the road. I had grand plans of making it at least to UBSL and possibly Frog Pond. After humping our packs up the road and finally making it to LBSL, Richard strongly suggested dropping packs and setting camp there and that the distance from camp to UBSL or Frog Pond etc would be covered much more quickly & easily with day packs. He was right.

Getting to the point... If we still go and we have to hike the road, we might want to shoot for camp at LBSL. If we don't have to hike the road, we could shoot for UBSL or Frog Pond... Oh, LBSL also has the very good likelihood of running water. We'll probably have to melt snow higher up...

We've already been snowed/stormed out of two NF climbs this year that were planned in advance. Carole is suggesting that if this one doesn't happen due to snow/weather conditions that we don't plan the next one. We just wait for enough of a clear patch for the snow to consolidate and enough time to cover the trip, send a last minute notice and make a run for it!

Brandon

Ah, just read Kurt's report on conditions...

http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/forum/...age=1#Post83075

Thanks Kurt!

Sounds like a good idea.

I'm nominating and casting a vote for Brandon as the decision maker for this group outing. He sounds like a really logical person.

As alternatives:

The farther south you head, the easier the winter conditions become...

Olancha
Owens
Jenkins
Morris
Russell
Backus
Boulder
Five Fingers (The tough "guys" could go for 'em all in a day.)

The list goes on and on... Shin enjoyed his time down there and I'd be willing to bet that the majority of this group has never seen the summit of any of these. They aren't Whitney, but they DO beat sitting at home watching TV.

We could also go camping in Death Valley and pick off a few easy ones and a few tough ones (Telescope and co. being listed on the tough list right now).

Maybe even smell some pretty flowers...

Do we have to bring a motorcycle?

What? I'm sorry Richard, did you say something? Lalalalala. I will quote, again, from an earlier post of mine


There, take that!

well, I'm on the road - 5am at the McDonald's, check. I'll be at the hostel the night before, perhaps even a few nights before Friday if my ski trip into yosemite is too risky.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0vnlo6k81fMOQXhssFSz1aPQNt2YJXq8j

Fishmonger, there is a chance that the 5:00am McDonalds meeting doesn't happen. Just don't want you to drive 2000 miles and there's no one there. But if you're planning to come out and hike anyway then have a safe trip.

last forum check - yeah, if nobody shows, I'll probably know a few days earlier and make my own plans. I've got no problems heading up the main trail alone, so it won't be a wasted trip. Just need to get out of this place. Freezing rain right now - 5 cars in the ditch on the first 7 miles out of town and I forgot to load up my GPS, so one last last U-turn... but I won't abort now. It's unofficial anyway, right?