Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board MR-iceberg or UBL

I am leaving this wednesday for whitney is there
water at UBL I know there is at LBL and Iceberg is frozen..I am wondering which is better to stay at for two nights iceberg or UBL.Wednesday night I am staying at LBL.and thursady and friday night at one or the other lakes....mark
PS...Thanks to all of you for the notes and pictures these past few months NOW it is my turn
to play in the snow!!!!!

Above LBSL you will be melting snow for water. There are a couple of places where you can get water during the day: the stream is exposed near Clyde Meadow, and there were rocks with small pools of water (during the warm part of the day) below Iceberg.

If I had know about the snow block shelters below Iceberg (above where we camped last weekend), I would have stayed there. Camping at Iceberg means you have to hump your gear over the cliff below, and I didn't notice any place to get out of the wind up there. The rock shelters are still under a couple of feet of snow.

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I would say you can keep both options open and just go as far as you feel like humping your gear. That was my plan. By the time I got to UBSL I didn't want to haul my stuff any further. I tend to be more of a dayhiker though and don't like carrying a heavy pack. While I was at UBSL somebody said there was a hole cut into the ice for water, but I didn't go over to see. It may or may not still be there.

-Rick

I went looking for the outlet at UBSL, but gave up in frustration after digging through about two feet of hard snow. If we were planning on camping there, I probably would have tried harder since I know it's a reliable source.

The group of skiers were planning on chopping a hole in the ice (they didn't want to melt snow), but after a week, I'm sure it'll be frozen again.

We were able to use a hole in the lake for water and the skiers also had another hole to the right of ours as you face the lake.
They were a little tricky to see at first, but you can take your axe and knock open where we were using it rather easily. I would not haul the extra fuel needed to melt snow. Our group had alot of fuel left over that we left at the ranger station if anyone is traveling by air and wants to contact them about the fuel. There was about a gallon left there by us for other climbers to use.

Richard,

Our party build the snow block shelters at about 12,400 ft. just a short distance below Iceberg Lake on Saturday 4/23 that you refer to. We build the walls because it was very windy and we wanted to make sure our gear would still be there when we returned from the summit on Sunday.

I agree with you that there is little point in carrying your overnight gear all the way up to Iceberg Lake this time of year. Not only is it very exposed to the wind but you also lose the afternoon sun quite early as it dips behind Whitney and the Needles.