Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Whitney Trip report May 31st-June 2nd

We did Mt. Whitney on may 31st to June 2nd. Conditions were very well described by Bob R. Here is a brief report. Photos can be viewed here: http://homepage.mac.com/tobiasdansen

We headed to the Little Lakes valley on May 29th to acclimatise. The Mono Pass Trailhead is at 10300 ft. We hiked to Ruby Lake at 11200 to spend the night. Lots of snow here, and a quite chilly night. Beautiful area though. The portal camp was booked when I tried to reserve a site, so we slept at Lone Pine (elev. 6000 ft) on may 30. We drove to the portal on Memorial day and hiked up to Trail Camp. We were preparing dinner when we saw somebody take a fall on the chute (see Bob R's pictures). Andy and Ingo went with Bob to get the guy before it was to dark. We were very pleased that the guy (Venky from San Jose, as we learned later) was fine. We were more worried about a guy that had tried to get Venky down too, a young guy that descended the chute in shorts and soaked tennis shoes. He said he was allright but he seemed confused and insisted on heading down to the parking lot. Jorrit and Hilde went after him and had to put him back on the trail since he seemed lost. He refused to stay with us at Trail Camp. Some other people that went down promide to keep an eye on him. Does anybody know whether this guy is allright?

We got up the next morning and started to climb the switchbacks at 7.45. About 70% was snowfree, the rest was quite challenging for non-mountaineers as we are, but still doable (we were fully prepared to turn back if things seemed uncomfortable). We summited at 12.30 and saw Bob R there again. We turned back at 13.00 and were back at Trail Camp at 16.30. 4 of us took the chute cramponing down, the others went down the switchbacks. Andy, Abi, Denise and Ingo decided to go all the way down to Lone Pine to get a pint of Guinness. Nannette, Hilde, Jorrit and I descended to Outpost camp. There we were woken up at 2 am by a bear going through the stuff of the people in the tent next to us. We scared it away by clapping our hands. The poor guys in the other tent were up the rest of the night to guard their stuff (which made us sleep very well). The next morning another guy that was camping tehre told us the bear got a hold of some pringles he stashed under a rock... How stupid can people be? may be an IQ test could be implemented as part of the permit lottery.

We headed down June 2nd. The trip was excellent! Beautiful weather, and we made it all 8 to the top.

Tobias, Nannette, Jorrit, Hilde, Ingo, Denise, Abi and Andy

thanks for the info, 4 of us will do a day hike on this saturday 6/5. we've all been to the summit 3 times except it was in september. this is our first time to do this early just to experience the snow. do you think we'll make it to the summit w/ out crampons and ice axe? we do have ski poles though. is crampons and ice axe a must? or at least crampons? any advise will help. what's the best time to leave portal..4 am or 5am. what's the average day hike time at this time w/ ice and snow...

Great pictures, Tobias. Our permit is for June 30, July 1 & 2. It will be our first time up. These are the best pictures of the trail that I've seen, start to finish.

Tom H

edu:

I cannot give you a straightforward advise on the crampons and axe... We didn't need them, but we were carrying our crampons in our backpack in case conditions would change suddenly due to clouds or nightfall. On the other hand, the snow was melting very rapidly, and I reckon it will be even more clear this Saturday if the weather doesn't change dramatically. Ski poles I can definitely recommend. Going up the snow was easy at 8 a.m., but when it softened it was slower going down. Bare in mind that after nightfall the snow freezes up in which case you might need crampons.

I don't know about dayhike times, because we did it in 3 days roundtrip, up to trailcamp w/ backpacks and to the summit without. We averaged 1 mph over the way up, 2 mph down including breaks. There were some other posts about hiking times on this board recently.

scotsrider: thanks for the compliment!

have fun up there!

I must agree with scotsrider. Great photos!! If you don't mind me asking, what type of camera were you shooting with? Did you use any special filters? Just curious becuase they were really good! Thanks for sharing. Looks like you had a great hike.

Thanks for the great report Toby, also I will be sure to put my pringles in the outhouse. We are planning to use outpost on the way up and back. Now I know to bring earplugs just in case the bears get noisy...rattling outhouse doors. Actually i dont mind the bears but folks clanging their pots together keeps me up. Clapping, wow these bears are still wild. A few more pringle incidents and that will be changed. I am also questioning crampons but with the bad weather coming in I guess I have no choice.

drhabes:
I use a very simple 2 megapixel camera. It's a fuji finepix 2800. It has a 6x optical zoom, which is very nice. I think the key thing in making pictures with good lighting with an automatic camera is this: use the mode where you push the exposure button halfway down, to lock the focus and exposure-time. Depending on where you aim on when you lock it you get the desired lighting. For instance, when you aim at the horizon, the sky is lighted good, and the rest is getting darker and vice versa. Locking on different objects and then move to the desired composition gives different lightings. I occasionally used my hand above the lens to block sunlight. Also, use the viewfinder if you have one: lots of people try to shoot using the lcd; holding the camera 2 ft away from them. You can't see what you're doing then.

Snokone:
hope this thunderstorm will blow over. Otherwise, lure some bears with your pringles and use them as lightning conductors.

have fun,

Tobias