Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Portal to Iceberg Lake

Howdy!

this forum was a great resource for my peak hike last August so I appreciate the message board very much.

I've trolled through the messages to get background on this route. I need to dig a little more for some pictures and I've entered waypoints in my GPS for major stops such as the various lakes. (got maps and compass too)

It looks as if it will be snowshoes up lone Pine Creek with possible crampons at the Ledges. I'm planning on bringing a rope (if needed) to set up there and leave it in place for my return.

Any other advice or beta? Anyone been up that way in the last few days? Much avalanche exposure on this trail?

Some friends may be coming down from Whitney to meet me at Iceberg so I may get a chance to do more than just camp out that way.

Thanks!

Jim

Haven't been up there this month, myself, Jim, but at this time of the year you don't need to climb the ledges, the snow fills in the canyon, and you can largely just snowshoe up, probably with little bushwacking right now. Not sure that you'd need crampons anywhere up to Iceberg, as the snow is just not consolidated right now. Without snowshoes, though, it'd be waist-deep wading, I'm afraid.

What is "beta"? I hear that term a lot...

Thanks,
Andreas

Hi Andreas,

route information, rock conditions, etc.

What is "beta"? I hear that term a lot...

Thanks,
Andreas

Thanks Ken!

I'll keep the crampons with me in case
I get to go up higher than Iceberg. It
will be nice if I can just snowshoe
all the way up. I have some new ones
to play with so I am ready to rock.

Jim

Ken
Member
Member # 226

posted February 27, 2004 12:00
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Haven't been up there this month, myself, Jim, but at this time of the year you don't need to climb the ledges, the snow fills in the canyon, and you can largely just snowshoe up, probably with little bushwacking right now. Not sure that you'd need crampons anywhere up to Iceberg, as the snow is just not consolidated right now. Without snowshoes, though, it'd be waist-deep wading, I'm afraid.

Is this Jim from Climbx?

Spiderman:

Were you at ClimbX last Saturday when I brought in a bunch of teenage girls for a climbing party?

Who were you? The guy who works there or...?

Jim

A trip report -

Although I did not follow my original plan I still had a great time! Got into Lone Pine a little late on Sunday and was running on about 4 hours of sleep. I parked down at the "road closed" area and did my last minute preparations. Met a number of nice folks on the way up and spent some time chatting, always fun. :-)
Up the main road in the one spot marked for falling rocks there were some washing-machine sized boulders that had just rolled across the road before I came around the corner. It was easy to see that they had obliterated the fresh tracks of the folks that had just come down!

I tried out a small 3 foot kid's sled to carry some of my gear. This turned out to be a great treat for my back and shoulders! At the Portal I pitched a tent right at the trailhead. One of the two bathrooms at the trailhead was unlocked but some well-intentioned souls left their extra food in there so a mouse had a happy little nest and a huge mess too. :-(

Spent the afternoon setting up camp and preparing a small stash to leave in the bear locker as a backup for bad weather. My friends had gone only as far as Mirror Lake so I headed up the main trail, watching the clouds roll in and spindrift blowing off the peaks. I found a nicely cleared spot about .4 mi from Lone Pine Lake and set up my tent. I left a few things in the pack and pushed up to Lone Pine with the new MSR Denali Evos and Koflach Degres working super!

By the time I was at the Lake the snow was really pouring down so I retreated back to my tent and tried the cell phone to check on the weather. Sure enough a good storm was coming in. Decisions-decisions! Got up early Tuesday and packed everything but the tent and watched as the nicely defined snowshoe trail all but disappeared under the onslaught of snow. Time to bail out! I was down at the Portal in about an hour and recovered my stash. The slog out was long but at least I had no worries about losing the trail. It turned out that my friends were actually close behind me and at one point yelled out to me but in the storm I was only focused on moving fast and staying warm. The worst part was the front part of the road that parallels 395. The wind was really blowing there! I'm not sure exactly what time I got all the way down but I think I made pretty good time. I met up with my friends at Mickey-D's and spent a couple of hours viewing their awesome video and getting caught up on things.