Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board DANGEROUS CONDITIONS on the Main Trail!

This is exactly the time you should be looking for the axe and crampons. Most outfitters will be having Memorial Day Sales starting soon and the stuff will be quite a bit cheaper than in season.

I thought Doug may have been talking about Mel Gibon: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/191088/mel_gibon_the_person_you_love_to_hate.html

Gibon: "a small mound of soil in which seeds are planted."

Gibbon: "smallest and most perfectly anthropoid arboreal ape having long arms and no tail; of southern Asia and East Indies."

I would take the Gibbon because the long arms of the ape could take the place of an ice axe provided you had trained the ape on how to self arrest.

On a serious note, this topic has been very informative. Thanks, everyone, for the input.

MC

Good luck, and be careful!

-Rick

Unprepared would be an understatement. All of them glissaded without the use of an axe, trekking poles, or sense.

They were lucky the there was slow snow conditions and that not of them tumbled.

Hi Used the 24 hour rule to reply , would the gibbon/gibon have the ROW, I Also noticed several ladies made the summit last weekend by " a fair means" trained all winter long and praticed ,continued to expand skills to make harder climbs.
Are the conditions on the trail dangerous? Or is it a lack of the needed skills and experience. Hard questions to answer how do you get the experience if you don't try .... if then! , had lunch yesterday with SP Parker we were talking about his book on Ice climbing and I said I had tried Ice climbing in the 70's and thought it was about equal to suicide without the control factor., but now the tools and protection may make it safer, his said no you still get that I will never do this again please get me off this Ice . Thanks Doug

In their defense (since they probably don't know this board) I did have a fairly long-winded discussion of skiing/snowboarding/backcountry skiing after they mentioned they were from Reno (assuming they spend a lot of time at the Tahoe Resorts). They were disappointed that they hadn't brought gear up so that they could ride down from TC. Someone good enough to ride down that slope probably would not have any fear of sliding down it on their butt (me being the exception - recall the fear I expressed when I did the glissade with Bob R last Spring).

Thanks for all the ink, we do know about the message board and have enjoyed reading your comments. What is that saying, oh yes “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Growing up in Reno/Tahoe/Alaska and having just spent a month in Nepal, these conditions where nothing new to any of us. We would have never gone up the slope if we did not believe the snow would be soft enough too glissaded down in the afternoon. Anyone on the mountain that day can vouch for our hiking ability and speed. The backcountry is not new to us but Mt. Whitney was, that’s why we asked for a few friendly pointers. Thanks for the comments about my girlfriends legs though, she appreciated it. But being called fools and senseless was not appreciated. Good luck to all of you in the future.

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Another bump.

...posting a reply brings a topic back to the top of the list.

bumped due to the new conditions

Hi Please see the post by "10 year old climber" makes summit great photos of the very limited snow left on the trail, short section near the cables , most now are using poles only and doing the trail up and down ,if this short section bothers you on the way up expect it to be icy on the way down, also the cables will always have ice in the area until late summer EXPECT IT ,water flows from the rocks above runs down the trail, that black rock most likely will be ice, nothing new here , so the more snow in this section the better as it tends to allow a boot path to follow so as conditions change more ice/ less snow.
I would worry more about ice in sections that can form above Trail side meadow, Outpost camp area and the runoff areas below Lone Pine Lake. This can happen if we have a cold air mass move in and stay several days , rocks look wet but may be covered with thin layer of ice.Thanks Doug

One of the sage pieces of advice that Doug handed out when we were up there a few weeks ago: put some sand/gravel in you pocket. It works wonders for making ice less slippery if you toss it in front of you as you prepare to cross.

Great tip, Sierra Snail! Btw, I may be borrowing your name when I get down to the Sierras in June.