Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board snow conditions

Hey all-

I'm a former Californian whose living out in Colorado now.

My friend wants to get up to Whitney at the end of this month (march 27-28th). I was wondering what the current snow conditions are like out there in the lovely Sierra?

Specifically, hows the snowpack on the MR, what condition is the route in this year, and hows the approach? Is the snow firm enough to forgo the snowshoes if we travel early enough (I will still bring them to the TR, just curious).

I can't tell you all how much I miss the snowpack in CA, out here in CO its avalanche city almost every day.

Any other info would be greatly appreciated. Obviously this is all conditional on the weather that weekend, but hopefully we have good weather.

Thanks!
Doug

doug, pretty grim right now. Got some great snow, but it is deep and unconsolidated. No one (that has posted) has been on the summit in about a month, I think. One party reached Iceberg....they were the subject of a potential rescue, as posted elsewhere, don't know if they got higher. Suffice it to say that the weather in the next three weeks will say it all. If there is some major consolidation, it should be great.

snow in socal is melting fast. 75-90 degrees all this weekend and should be the same for the week ahead. Should make for a muddy trip up san jacinto in april.

i hope the snow melts back on the whitney trail for my 6-4 summit.

see ya on the trail
Leroux

Myself and a total of 5 other climbers reached the summit by the MR on the 7th. Take snowshoes and a lot of "I think I can"

-Steve

Here is another group that made it by way of the Mtr rt this last weekend. http://www.summitpost.com/show/mread.pl?f_id=22&t_id=7226

Hey Mjollnir: You made the summit....and in the middle of the winter. You are the man! I have nothing but admiration for the winter groups...that certainly is doing Whitney the harder way.

Dave F - That's the same group I was with. I was climbing with Tauru007 (Bill). We saw Kris on his way down.
Thanks Kashcraft! It was hard work and I'm awefully sore right now. SO worth it though. BEAUTIFUL summit!!!

We flatlanders demand pictures!

(Please.)

How do I post pics?

Thanks for the updates everybody!

I was hoping to hit some of that nice SoCal snow, since I've been slogging all winter with snowshoes out here on our 14'ers, but thats alright.

mjollnir: Great to hear you summited! Did you just spend one night on the route?

DPS - We had to park the Jeep at about 7400ft on the Portal road because of snow (trailhead is at about 8300). We went up to Iceberg Lake (12800ft) in 9hrs, never took our snowshoes off once. Next morning we hit the summit and were back down to the Jeep around 5pm. The snow in the gully to Lower Boy Scout Lake was good in the morning as we headed in. The same snow was nasty in the afternoon on our way out. I also found the snow just above LBSL to be kinda soft in the afternoon.
Everyone used snowshoes except Kris and his partner - they left from LBSL at around 1am though and covered most of the ground at night (awsome full moon).

What time did you leave on your summit attempt?

Last year we got snowed out three times in the winter because the road was closed pretty much on the days we had free.

Thanks again for the beta, its sounding better and better.

We left our bivy spot around 7:30am. If the road says its closed you can drive on it anyway (no official assistance available if you get stuck though)

Congrats on your winter ascent!!

Was there was enough snowpack to go straight up North Fork without going thru the E-ledges?

Thanks! It didn't feel like winter with the sun. We spent most of the time in t-shirts or a single layer. Once in the shade it got chilly though. We went straight up the gully, no need to use the ledges.

According to the rangers, the Whitney region received ~18" of new snow early last week. I did the MR with Jim (aka Icejock) and several other parties over the weekend. Jim and I hiked from ~7200' to LBSL on Friday, up to the moraine below the east face on Saturday, to the summit and back down to LBSL on Sunday, and then back down to the truck on Monday.

A group of three guys from Ohio broke trail up to the Portal on Thursday night, up to LBSL on Friday, and with an alpine start (0330) to just below Iceburg Lake on Saturday. They claimed that this was their first visit to the Sierra Nevada, and that they didn't have much mountaineering experience but I don't beleive them because they did a perfect job of routefinding and breaking trail!

The snow was perfect all the way up but the prolonged period of warm weather is changing that pretty quickly.

As of Monday afternoon, the road was mostly melted out up to the big rockfall. There was a few hundred yards of 8-12" deep snow on the switchbacks. Beyond the rockfall it was all snow. There are a couple of small sections of trail between the portal and the NF that have melted out.

There was enough snow on the NF to stay on the creek without having to climb the Ebersbacker Ledges. But it is rotting fast and I would expect that a few more days of warm weather will make it necessary to climb the ledges. At the very least, people going up the North Fork will want to travel the sections below and above LBSL at night.

The slope leading from LBSL to Clyde Meadow had 6-8" of unconsolidated snow sitting on top of a very hard layer. There was evidence (debris) of small slide activity below the N slope of Thor at Clyde Meadow. The headwall of the UBSL basin released 4 times during the half hour while we were watching it around mid-day Saturday. The base of the Pinnacle ridge is a very large, 6" thick hard slab.

All of the SE facing slopes have been getting isothermic in the afternoons, and were very active dropping snowballs while we were there. I would recommend being very alert for point release activity on those slopes, and avoid traversing SE slopes or being in the runout zones in the afternoon.

Snow in the east face couloir was sun-crusted but stable. A decent glissade was possible all the way down that couloir, but it was a bit slow and bumpy.

Where the sun hits the base of the NW chute (right above the notch), there's maybe 15 feet of exposed, iced-up rock that can be pretty tricky and gave some parties some difficulty. This can be avoided by sticking to the dry rock on the N side (3rd class). Above that, the snow was absolutely perfect all the way to the summit. The first person up on Sunday kicked steps that held solid all day for 6 people going up and down (I was the last up and the last down on Sunday). I measured the steepest part of this chute with a clinometer, it is roughly 55 degrees (but seems a lot steeper). If the snow softens up, it will be pretty treacherous.

With the warm weather, conditions are changing fast.

Congrats Crag on making the summit. My friend and I attempted to summit during the Leap Year weekend but we ran out of time and knew that storm was coming. Flakes were falling as we were heading down on March 1.

At the notch at the top of the couloir which route did you take? Up the gully and along the ridge or traversing the north face? How were the conditions from that point on?

GOSC!

gosc:

Thanks! We were really fortunate to get absolutely perfect weather and snow conditions.

That traverse around the back side looks hairy!

Everybody stayed in the first chute on Sunday, and nobody roped up. Where the sun hits the bottom of the chute there was ~15' of icy rock without much for handholds. Above that, the snow was perfect styrofoam all the way to the summit plateau, which was snow-free.