What a trip! Absolutely breath taking and by far one of my most rewarding experiences. We started our trip on 6-3, leaving the portal at about 7am. We were intending on camping at Outpost but decided to go to Trail Camp to escape the bugs that were not horrible - just a pain. We arrived trail camp at about 12:30 and hung out the rest of the day. It was cold at night, but really not that bad. The full moon in the middle of the night was exceptional and worth crawling out of the tent for. Getting to Trail Camp I think was key for our sumitt the following day. We started off on Friday 6-4 at 6:30 when the snowpack was still hard. OUr group probably used about 10 of the 97 switchbacks given the snow cover and ice. We boulder hopped up the right hand side of the SB and got to Trail Crest without any problems. We took a short break to enjoy the view of Sequoia and were on our way to Whitney. We peaked between 10am and 10:30. WOW! at the top you really understand how small we all are. I must say Whitney is a great place to view GOD'S great gift to all of us. With that we began our trek to the Portal. We glissaded down from Trail Crest which was not only a time and foot saver it was absolutely awesome. The snow was perfect at about noon. We then cleaned up our site at Trail Camp and were at the Portal enjoying one of Doug's spectacular cheese burgers and a few Coronas by 5:15. We sat around the fire that night enjoying some scotch and conversing about the climb.
Saturday we did a short climb to Kearsage Pass(a great recommendation from the Rangers in Lone Pine), Glissaded a few more times and took a quick dip in lake #3.
It was a great trip for a couple of guys from WI. Everyone was very helpful and the Sierra's will definitely be remembered and visited many times in the years to come.
