Climbed up the Mountaineers Route this past Saturday (May 28th)with Norma and Phil. Forecast was for 25-30 mph winds with gusts to 40, didn't sound too bad. We left the trailhead at 0315 with no wind. We were able to make it to LBSL before crampons were necessary, the snow was in good shape, no postholing yet.....
The postholing began on the left hand chute out of Iceberg Lake, the left hand chute was terrible, we almost turned back thinking there would be no way to make it all the way up in these crappy snow conditions. We decided to make it into the main chute and see what the snow was like there.....and it was great. The snow was nice and firm and we were able to make progress again. The winds became an issue once we got to the notch, very cold winds, couldn't stop for very long, just too cold.
The final 400 was in good shape, the snow was firm. The bottom portion was a mix of rock and ice. We climbed up the rock with our crampons on. The winds on the summit were really bad, I would guess 50-60 mph with gusts to 75 and beyond.
We decided to make the journey all the more and climbed down the main trail. The winds finally let up at Lone Pine Lake. There was a group who bailed from Trail Camp due to the excessive wind, just miserable conditions and to make it more fun, it started to snow.....boy oh boy.
Overall it was a good trip, it was beautiful.
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