Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board trail report 22 mar 08 main trail.

just summited day before yesterday, wanted to post my experiences with the trail. 3rd time's the charm i guess.

made it up to trail camp without putting on crampons or snowshoes. from there i decided to make camp there and continue to the summit with a daypack. didn't bring snowshoes with me to the summit and didn't regret it for an instant.

on the way up i found the switchbacks passable for the second half, before that i couldn't see them and the trail wasn't too steep without them. in some parts of it i found crampons neccesary, after i made it to trailcrest the crampons were deafdweight in my pack about 2/3 of the trail between trailcrest and the summit was clear of snow.

the trip down i managed to lose the trail and went down too far, backtracked and found the trail. unfortunately that lost me enough time that i didn't make it to trailcrest til sunset.

the trip from trailcrest to trailcamp was probably the most exciting/terrifying downhill i've ever done. if it had been light it wouldn't have been so scary. i guess there is something about the unknown that terrifies me.

the last place to get water on the trail is mirror lake.

good luck on your trails.

Did you simply miss the trail junction (walking right past it), or were you off the trail?

Did you hike too far down the fall line from the summit before traversing left toward the needles? I take it that there were no snow tracks on the summit. Were you following any cairns?

aye, i went too far down before heading left towards the needles, there were patches of snow, and i lost the tracks over a patch of gravel. and i only remember seeing 1 rock cairn.

Congrats on your summit.

Do you have any photos? I'd be interested in seeing any if you had some showing trail conditions (what can be ascertained from a photo anyway) and the scenery from this time of year. Must be stunning.

delete post

Wow! Nice shot of Muir and Trail Crest! The snow slope looks divine!

-L

Hi, all. As an FYI, I just heard from Bob R. that the road, which as of Monday was open all the way to the Portal, save for a short snowy patch, is now closed at 6200 ft. with chained barricades and dirt berms. So much for the March day climb we were trying for today

Dave

BOOOOOOO!!!!

I saw a dirt berm on the left side of the road when I was up there on the 17th, but you could still get around it on the right. Poop!!!

Runner 33, Very nice shots.

Where is that last photo taken from? Are those from the switchbacks, covered with snow? The snow looks pretty packed?

That last picture is definitely taken southwest of Trail Camp. In the winter the switchbacks are mostly covered with snow. Consequently winter climbers go west from Trail Camp and then climb the steep snowfield. That would place the location of the photographer west of the switchbacks. I would guess the switchbacks would be off to the right in the photo, where the two rock bands extend down into the photo from above. Compare the photo just before, and this photo from Bob R. in the large original size.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockwellb/2361430651/in/set-72157604245713728/

Together, you will have a better idea where the switchbacks go up. Bob R's photo shows the top of the switchbacks.

these pics should have an "R" rating, for obscenely wonderful. there's still time, as long as the road opens a little more.

Are you sure? The last photo looks like as if I am looking at Mt. Whitney from west almost as if above Timber lake with Mt. Hitchcock on the right side! I could be wrong! But the protruding needles on the back of Whitney look very familiar + the distant Owens valley mountains are visible in the smog! Just to challenge you!
Regards
Krishna

Absolutely gorgeous pictures!!! Sure looks pretty up there!
Just curious if anyone knows the approximate angle of the slope that goes up to Trail Crest?

Yes I can see now where they were taken. I also looked at my photos from October, albeit with a bit less snow. Man, I wish I were able to climb this week! Looks awesome.

RAC, Yes the last picture was taken from the base of the switchbacks. I was tempted to continue to 'Trailcrest' but didn't take the chance since I was alone. The snow was very well packed and didn't need crampons or snowshoes up to TC. I did bring my MSR denali snowshoes with me and used them only near TC during my descent back to east Portal.

Request to all people showing such great (and big) pictures:

1) Keep them coming.

2) Please do not link the wide ones into single blocks. on a 1280x1024 screen the large images don't fit on the screen in the WPSMB format. The horizontal scroll control doesn't appear until the very bottom of the block, several screen heights away. This makes it impossible to slide the top pictures back and forth to enjoy the full view.

Thanks.

I suspect there are some viewers with smaller screens who haven't even seen the full width of the images because the horizontal scroll bar is so removed.

Dale B. Dalrymple
http://dbdimages.com

To cut down the size of images in your posts you need to do two things:

• Select Using HTML and UBBCode in the Markup box when you originate your post
• Use the img HTML tag and add a width attribute

For an example of how to do this go to Adding Picture Images. NOTE: You cannot change the UBB Code setting when you edit a post.

I got a chance to hike to "Trail Camp" last weekend(March 22). Here are some pics that I captured during my ascent to TC. Couldn't ask for a better day.

VersatileFred and runner33

We are not communication well. My bad. Please note that I did not complain abouut the size of the pictures.



The problem is with the distance to the scroll bar, not the size of the picture. Let my try to ask about this again.

Is there some way to post these images so that each image has an independent horizontal scrollbar? I don't know how to do it. Does anyone else? I suppose that posting 1 image per post for big pictures would work but there ought to be an easier way. I don't know UBB or html well enough to answer. What about it VersatileFred?

The images are fine. I'm not asking for them to be smaller, just easier to view. I hope that will be understood this time. While I appreciate your fast responses I wasn't trying to make anyone pull their pictures, just figure how to make them easier to view from here on out if we can. It looks like there is still some figuring out to do.

Thanks

Dale B. Dalrymple