Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Winter Black Kaweah

clsest remote snow sensor to Black Kaweah, gives you real-time info on snow depth, and if you keep track for a while, you can tell whether there's beena big recent snowfall:
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/staMeta?station_id=CHP

Late March 1997 Shawn Hazelwood and I climbed the southwest face of Black Kaweah. Two or three years earlier we had skied through the area with Mark Hirni meeting up with the high route at Glacier Lake and then on to Pear Lake and Wolverton. Shawn and I attempted the West ridge reached fairly high on the ridge but turned back on time and I not wanting to over extend (some hard days ahead) myself. March 1997 was to climb Black Kaweah by way of the Southwest face. If I remember it was fairly straight forward snow, hard snow and a little ice climbing with some rock at the top. We took a rope but I do not believe we used it on Black Kaweah. We approached from Mineral King, Spring Lake and Little Five Lakes as before. We also climbed the north face of Lion Rock (and maybe Triple Divide or that could be earlier trip) on this trip.

As for Art de Goede being mentioned in the Sierra Club notes that is my father.

Happy Climbing
Art

Hey Art,

There's access to Mineral King in the winter?

Want to head back in there again?

Kevin

Kevin,
The gate already closed for the winter. It's an additional 6 miles in to Mineral King. Bummer.

From Wolverton?

I believe it is roughly 13 miles from Wolverton to Bearclaw Meadow first following the trail to Alta Peak then drop down to the HST from Mehrtan Meadow. From there it is another 11 miles to the Big Arroyo Junction, at the base of the Southwest Face.

From MK, it is about 2.5 miles to Glacier Pass then another 2.5 miles to Hands Knees Pass then another 7 miles to the summit. Check out the elevation profile here: http://www.snwburd.com/bob/maps/black_kaweah_1_profile.html

Have you mapped out a route? I've been looking at the Topo for the area and I have a good idea of the route. Only concern is the avalanche terrain which will need to be crossed. The other is the the tunnel which I've read about. Hope it doesn't get snowed in.

Yeah, I've looked extensively and we're not willing to cross the avy prone areas. We're going to go in via Tablelands then down to the Kaweahs. We're hoping a few parties will be ahead of us and lay a decent track on the Sierra High route. Wishful thinking, but hey, a guy can hope.
The extra 6 miles is to get to Mineral King from where they close the only entrance road.
I took this shot earlier this year it is a scary climbing traverse that isn't worth it in my opinion. The Tablelands route is much a much more sane option.

which lake am I looking at?

Looks like Hamilton Lake, showing the High Sierra Trail going up from the lake.

Taken from a helicopter?

Yup, that's Hamilton Lake taken from 4SierraHotel en route to Tyndall Creek.
I took the shot just because of how steep it was.

Hey I'm interested in how you plan to get into the Big Arroyo from Tablelands without crossing Hamilton Lakes. Looking at a map, I see that you can drop into Lonely Lake and then get to south of Elizabeth Pass but then that just leads you directly to Hamilton Lakes.

just called the Ranger Station at Mineral King. It is 6 miles from the second gate and that's just to get to Mineral King Ranger Station. It is an additional 2 miles to get to the trail head heading to Glacier Pass. That's 8 miles just to get to the trail head. Ouch!

Kevin. Give ne a call sometime and we'll chat about this.

My number is on my facebook info.