Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board any sense of conditions near Kearsarge Pass?

Hi,

I'm thinking of heading up to Mt Gould area this weekend. Any sense of what the road and mountain conditions are that way? Has the snow consolidated pretty well? Trails visible or no?

Any info is appreciated,
Jason

Just a drive-by today, Jason, but snow line is around 7K, so I think that first switcher on the east face of Kearsarge Peak might be the first significant snow on the road. I would imagine that some of the deeper switchers have a good amount of snow, while there are melted-out sections on the south faces higher up.

South face of Gould had snow with the usual blown-out section of scree about half way up and across the face. Looks like you would be on snow all the way from OV. It's a stretch, but the south facing slopes in Mammoth yesterday had about 1-2" hard, breakable crust with plenty of soft stuff beneath. Stepping off my skis to put the skins back on led to a bit more sinking than I thought would happen:



Can't say it's the same so much further south, but commonalities may exist.

Good luck, have fun!

-L

Hey Moose!

Thank you for the info. I can always count on you to be the "eyes" of the Eastern Sierra!

Seems like it may be real slow going trying to get up to Gould with the snow. Hmmm, trying to figure out an alternative. Want a somewhat easy summit this weekend to break the legs in.


Jason