Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board snow shoes necessary?

i have the ice axe and the crampons, but are the snow shoes necessary? I am starting wednesday june 8th, and going for the summit the mornin of the 9th... do-able without snow shoes?

-matt

We used crampons and ice axe heavily, but didn't have snowshoes. There were a few places where it would have been nice, but it never felt essential, and certainly wouldn't have been worth the extra weight. I'd say I postholed maybe a half dozen times total. I've gone on trips where I postholed nearly every step, and so this felt quite nice! Also, we did the main trail between lone pine lake and mirror lake - some of the people went offtrail on the way down (the "shortcut") and I saw a lot of postholing there. One guy was wearing tennis shoes and shorts, and postholed to his waist!

By next weekend the snow will be lower and perhaps slushier, so perhaps someone will add an opinion if they go up later in the week.

This late in the season snowshoes become of less and less use. Even if you are sinking in to the snow, it is very heavy. If you wear snowshoes the heavy snow collects on the top, making it exhausting to walk very far with them. So without them you may be sinking in, which can be bad. However if you take them it may not be that much better due to lifting your feet up and down with all that extra weight on them.

As the snow continues to melt and consolidate it gets more and more packed down. It is better to travel early before it gets soft. I never take my snowshoes this late in the year.

I carried snowshoes up and down on the 4th of June but never once used them. They're not required. You need to be careful of where you step, especially where the snow is near rocks and over streams, since the snow forms bridges which collapse with one's weight. Travelling early morning makes it so much safer.
--Ajay