Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board NO TRAIL

Hi I see post this time of the year asking about trail conditions and need of gear .

Very straight forward answer do not expect a trail and if you are on the trail for short sections that will not be the case higher up , you then will be following boot tracks or making your own trail across snow/ ice and hard surface that will change during the day from a very hard ice surface to soft snow, you may sink waist deep or deeper if you fail to avoid tree/rock wells.


Watch for trip reports and follow the lnks to the photos, I see dry rock when people are on steep snow fields they could avoid.

If we have several weeks of warm weather the trial will clear fast , if like last year we had snow the first 3 weeks of June and the melt was slowed.


This time of the year Trailcrest is a very solid goal for a day hike , the summit adds that extra 5 miles and turns the day into a very hard hike.


Be safe , don't give up on the trip the first time getting to see the mountain and these conditions will be help you on later trips in the moutains.

Noon Update about 35 in the Portal, but the wind stopped for the now. Thanks Doug

Thanks for that Post,

Helps out those of us from out of town, way out of town.

J.

Whereabouts are you in Ontario?

West end of Toronto.

Hi The switchbacks are starting to be used now and the rest of the trail has has cleared enough that very few people are having trouble finding the trail . Still use caution the run off during the day can still freeze at night and we did have several short snow storms this week . Thanks Doug