Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Mountaineer's Route Conditions

The rest of the photos from that trip are here:

Mt. Whitney May 16-18, 2013

day tripped the m.r. last weekend. first time, super fun!

m.r. conditions are nearly snow-free as of 6/10/13. snow-free up the chute, with a couple of patches of soft snow above the notch.


looking down the cute from the notch


looking up from iceberg lake

Did the MR twice on saturday the 15th. Conditions are more like August than June. Early morning ice on final 400 is easy to avoid, just agua later in the day. No ice/snow equipment necessary....

What do you mean by twice!?! Animal!!

Berne Mettenleiter

LOL been called worse. .... portal to summit via MR, back to portal, back to summit, then back to portal (was training for Rainier, weather had other plans for that trip to the PNW). I do ok for an old man....

Gator,
That was meant as a compliment!! Very impressive at "your age" haha, in one day! Hope you were safe up there in the PNW.

Berne Mettenleiter aka "Mountaingoat"

Berne

No offense taken, just having fun with it.....
Locals tell me WA has nicer weather in August than June (mileage may vary), so Rainier still on the to do list!

See you on the mountain sometime

Thanks for responding friend, and always be safe out there!

One never knows, I might run into you one of these days!


Best regards, Berne

I went up the MR yesterday and did not experience any storm-related problems.

Probably not your train of thought, but I still recall the Eye-Popping Experience seeing the SE Couloir (trenches 2+' deep in places) on Thor Peak after the Flash Floods of a few years ago...

This is what the Main Couloir looked like last Sunday:



Only the smallest little trickle of water on the Final 400' to the summit plateau. Some of it looked like it was trying really, really hard to freeze.

Any news on the rd being open all the way to the portal for a sedan? Or the final 400' Conditions?

Hi Road is open , the last 400' should have ice in the center and patches of snow , most years if you are a climber you can stay on rock and avoid the ice/snow, may have low class 5 moves for short sections.

Thank you very much. I am sure that all might change over the next couple of days

Hi All, I plan on a trip up MR December 27th. I was looking for any updated info on trail conditions. Also I saw some pictures of the Portal Road....looks like its not such a good idea to go past the road closed point. What is the distance from road closed sign to trail head? Is there anyone in the area that could be hired to bring us up the road with 4 wheel drive? Thanks for any info.

The walk up the road from the Turnout adds about 4 miles to the trip to the Portal.

Don't know about hiring somebody, but if someone happens to drive by, I'd bet you could get a ride up...

Hi Two weeks out all conditions may change , as of last night other than rocks on the road ,it was dry to the lower campground but closed, This means if you drive past the sign you may get towed or fined, also if a storm moves in and your car is past the road closed sign bring money (a lot of money)

As I have posted before 4x4 and chains get you about 100' past the road closed sign after a good storm.

You can crosscountry into the canyon and the distance to the trailhead is about 2 - 2 1/2 miles. First section is steep but may allow you to understand what the rest of the route will be and you can decide if you are going to make it anyway.

Check google earth and you will see at the base of the hill where the road takes the first sharp right/north turn climb up the ridge and join the road as it enters the canyon , If I recll you gain about 700' so measure that on google earth .


I will post if any of the condition change the next few weeks.
As always the wind is the main worry, snow, ice , you can protect but strong winds for hours will beat the best!!!! Thanks Doug

Thanks Doug, I very much appreciate any updated info. I am watching the weather closely. This will be our 3rd try, 1st try we turned back at Upper boyscout due to big snow 2 nights in a row (in March 2011), the 2nd try we made it to the chute, one of our team members didnt feel comfortable on the exposed rock (March 2013), so we turned back. This time we are a team of 2, we carry all safety equipment, and beacons, etc. We are on the East coast and try to gather as much info as we can electronically. Unfortunately because we have to book dates in advance, we have to go with it, knowing that we try our best and turn back when mother nature tells us to. We love to climb, and would like to continue to do so for many more years. It would be nice to summit, but the journey is pretty nice too, so if the weather gods are in our favor then the 3rd time will be a charm, if not we will try again. If it were easy, everyone could do it.

Two weeks until I head for the Mountaineer's Rt. & very curious about current conditions. I have heard very little good this year because of the low snow conditions
I think Curt W. has a group up there this weekend, so hoping he will share some info.

I just got down from Whitney. As you probably know you have to start hiking from the locked gate now. Plan for some extra hiking time.

I was with a father/son. Unfortunately the son got cold toes on summit day and in spite of my best efforts to rewarm them they wouldn't stay warm so we turned back at about 13,100' but here's what I can tell you about the route.

I kicked in a route below the Ebersbacher Ledges that follows the summer trail. The previous trail meandered a lot. Use the Eberbacher Ledges. There's not enough snow in the canyon to go straight up. There's continuous snow from Lower Boyscout Lake. Leaving LBSL I again kicked in a route that roughly follows the summer trail. The previous route went over willows and meadows and if it keeps getting used as the snow melts it'll cause unnecessary impact on that area (hopefully we'll get more snow though ). On the rock slabs below Upper Boyscout Lake there are some areas with blue ice. Snowshoes with good traction or crampons are advised.

I checked out the snowpack carefully and there are some very funky layers in it. The most glaring fact is at the base of the snowpack is a big layer of depth hoar. My theory as to why it is there is because of our shallow snowpack coupled with cold temperatures at the higher elevations. It's a similar pattern to what we normally see in Colorado. This is the funkiest snowpack I've seen in the Whitney area in several years. This layer of depth hoar won't go away anytime soon. It makes the entire snowpack sitting on top of it unstable. The picture below is me trying to point to where it is in the snowpack. It was about 12" in most places I looked at all elevations.


What this means is careful route finding is critical. It's not enough to make me stay away but you should have a definite reason why you take a certain path. Currently there isn't enough snowpack for avalanches to happen below Upper Boyscout Lake. The areas of concern are the gully below Iceberg Lake, the Mountaineer's Chute, and one of the gully's that offshoots from the Mountaineer's Chute. I'm very interested to see what happens to the snowpack over the next week as the snow metamorphoses.

The last time I saw snow this funky on Whitney a party was buried in an avalanche in early April in the gully below Iceberg Lake. I want to say that was in 2006. Richard P helped me post to this board a detailed snow pit analysis shortly before the avalanche happened. I searched but can't find it now. Needless to say make sure your avalanche transceivers are working properly and have new batteries and your team is all carrying probes and shovels.

I was breaking trail up to my knees above Iceberg Lake until we turned at approximately 13,100'.

The rest of the photos I took are here.

A lot can change in these two weeks leading up to your trip. I'm going up again this coming weekend and I'll try to post a report early next week. As always if you have more questions feel free to post notes on this board or get in touch with me at my office.

Nice update and report Kurt thanks