Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Who's the last person who made it to the summit, either by MR or Trail?

I've been reading a lot of reports about attempts, but can't remember the last time I heard someone make it all the way to the top in these winter conditions. I'm interested in who the last person to summit was, and who the next person will be, and how much time there was between the two.

Both hikes, the last, and the next, are tough hikes in winter conditions, very impressive.

We did not summit but I have been meaning to post a report. Started hiking on Jan 8th around 3pm and had to park 5 miles from the trailhead and spent the first day hiking the road and camped next to the portal store. We only saw 1 car, a 4 X 4 with chains, that was farther up the road but they were still 3-4 miles from the end of the road. The next day was brutal! We had 6 fit members in our group and it took us 6 hours breaking trail to go 3.5 miles to bighorn park. Even with snowshoes it was still hard work being up front. We didn't see any other tracks. That night (9th) at Bighorn park we realized the summiting was not gonna happen so we got up early the next morning and went down to the Alabama Hills and spent the day rock climbing in the sun before heading home that night. All the members in our group were fit and most had previous mountaineering experience but we would have needed at least 4 days.

I've been following this board for enough years to know that several members have summited Whitney every month of the year.

This is February, can't remember a summit report from January, is this an unusually difficult winter, and has nobody set foot on the summit for weeks, or are they hikers who don't frequent this board?

I've seen the pictures, and truth be told, I wouldn't try it, and if I did, I couldn't do it, but I can't help but wonder what's so different/difficult about this year?

Actually Bob, yes I was very curious to find out if the two hikers you met, both named Yanos?, made it to the top. I figured you just met them somewhere along the way, and didn't know about their final outcome.

I hope they post a report, I'm sure it will be interesting.

I plan on attempting the MR on Whitney from thur, 12 to mon, 16. We are also going to attempt Russell depending on how the Whitney summitt bid goes. I'll post a response if I make it to the top.
WWRD

We'll be there too this weekend. We'll see how the MR looks like and if it's too bad, we'll take the Whitney Trail. I will post a report when we come back.

How about these two guys (Yanos?) who made to the summit through MR? Did they post any pictures or a report somewhere?

Sounds like it may look like a summer weekend up there this week. If the weather is "nice," I plan on hanging out for an attempt on Whitney after the Russell attempt.

Dusty Dog and I were the first ones up the MR route this weekend. There were faint ski tracks from iceberg all the way down. must have been nice? Unfortunatly We did not summit. Brian came down with AMS and decided to stay at the notch. I soloed halfway up the first mixed ice and rock chute on the left, but realized my downclimb would be sketchy and decided to stop while I was ahead. Without a belay the exposure was too much...
WWRD

Congratulations!!! Any pictures?

Yes I have a few at

http://photos.yahoo.com/gallasch@sbcglobal.net.

WWRD

Sorry, the link isn't working.
WWRD

I fixed the problem. Here is the link

http://photos.yahoo.com/gallasch@sbcglobal.net

WWRD

So tantalizingly close! Wonderful photos. Did you have any problems descending back down from the Notch?

I had a bit of trouble decending the chute, but once we headed down the notch I was fine.

I can't view your pictures. Regardless if I sign in or not I get an error message "The document contains no data"; the links on your page don't work. Could you check it again, please?

The page was on the fritz last night and I guess this morning. As of right now it seems to be working fine.
I posted a bit more details on the trip under the topic, Almost There.

try pasting the address from that posting.

Sorry for the trouble...

I haven't had any trouble seeing the pictures at any time. Go broadband!

WWRD,

I love the picture you got of the South Face of Russell. It would have been nice to have seen that prior to our trip up. I think we would have been a little more motivated to continue had we known that once we were across the SE Face of Russell, it would have been much easier going (after the one last snowfield on the other side of the pass).

It was also interesting seeing how the wind has been scouring the snow from the MR couloir. Were you encountering the winds during the day, or like us, only at night?

I think the only major wind scouring was done during fri. night. We went to sleep and when we woke up the surroundings had completly changed. Besides that every other day was fairly calm. The only winds we encountered up the chute were at the notch, and they came from the west.
We still want to attempt the south face of russell and have even more great pics of it. Maybe we could get togather and attempt it.