Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board The Mountaineers Route

Hello and thank you to anyone who can give me some advice. I have permits for the MR on May 15th -17th. What are the conditions like? Hows the snow and the temps. Has anyone recently done this climb that can shed some light on their experience. The best offense is to have good intelligence...Thank you so much

My one piece of advice is make sure you have a map spelling out the route in clear terms. It can be a bit unclear the first time up.

what he said above^ and you got a PM

Hi I think the lack of answers is that no one can tell you what to expect in the future and are not wanting to give out false information, that said hot for this time of year snow melting fast , that sounds good but at the upper elevations that melt turns into ice during the night , if you look into the mountains before you drive up and the slopes are shinning this is the condition , Below Lower boyscout lake the route is clearing fast I would expect that dry by next week and much above Lbsl also Watch the webcam photos and focus on the area around upperbsl and the notch before you turn the corner rock showing near the top of this area as well matter of fact study the LARGE VIEW AND YOU CAN FOLLOW MUCH OF THE ROUTE you can see alot of rock showing, this weekend should get some reports of the North Fork.


Worst case now is we could still get a storm and drop several feet of snow on the upper elevation making the trip like a full on winter climb, last May near the ends of the month we had 7 days of snow and temps in the freezing range at the Portal. Thanks Doug

Man mountainboy you must have been tired.....the sun rises in the east

And there is no way the sun even begins to come up at 3:30 a.m., esp. in May (except perhaps in northern Alaska)!

Ha! I remember Mountainboy's report, from 06-04-2008 (Shameful Ascent of East Buttress ), specifically this:

Doug, Thank you sir for the info. It really helps. Looking foward to this hike and climb but also with caution. Camping at iceberg lake for the first night. Ice is the concern for this trip along with the weather. Thanks again. Kev

Mountainboy11, you are quite the entertainer! The rest of your state was on Pacific Daylight Savings Time when the sun rose at 5:41 am in Puyallup!

Last year, when you were looking in the far west at sunrise, the sun rose at 5:15 am PDT over Mount Rainier, while the sun snuck up 20 minutes later at 5:35 am PDT above Mt. Whitney's eastern horizon.

You are correct. Your phone was two hours ahead (for Pacific Daylight Time).

You certainly got to savor a rare moment on Whitney, to observe a sunrise. I've been below the summit many times for sunrise, but I have seen plenty of sunrises at 35,000 feet.

Thanks for the entertainment!

Hey, I didn't think you could see Half-Dome from the Central Valley, either!

Mountainboy11, I started my Sierra experience over 50 years ago, and over the years have climbed hundreds of peaks from southern California all the way to your great mountain, Mount Rainier. I was rewarded with a wonderful sunrise on Mt. Rainier when I made my climb, but I was between Muir and the summit when the sun rose.

Sunrise is a specific astronomically defined event. When you say sunrise, we are not talking about first light, but when the sun transits the horizon. I have a couple of neat Websites that I use that you might want to check out:

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php

http://squ1.org/wiki/Solar_Position_Calculator

I did a corporate move six years ago from San Diego to here in beautiful Charlotte, so I am kind of on the backburner here, although I do mountaineering trips from time to time, from the Alps in Europe to the Canadian Rockies, and, of course, our beautiful Sierras. Because I am not doing so much climbing now, because the mountains (yes, North Carolina is the most mountainous state east of the Mississippi, with over 2,700 named peaks and 53 over 6,000 feet. Hey, out here, 6,000-feet is impressive! And I got to say, there are some real beauties out this way, even though their heights are not as impressive as the Sierras.) are two hours away or more, I've finally concluded I can see more mountains than I can ever climb. So, I created a peak-sighting computer program that tells me where all the peaks are from any spot in the US. My database is now over 70,000 peaks in the 50 states. It comes in real handy identifying peaks in photographs and panoramas.

I'm a numbers guy, so when your numbers--your sunrise times--are so far off, it doesn't compute for me. Some years ago I was really bugged by all the counts people quoted in their trail reports for the switchbacks from Trail Camp to Trail Crest, so I set out to find out for myself how many there really were. I saw counts from 95 to over 100. I stood at each switcbback and recorded its GPS position and its elevation with an altimeter. You can see the map HERE.

I've also posted route descriptions in the past for the Mountaineers Route.

Anyway, nice to meet you here, and like I said, thanks for your entertaining "time" quotes.

You know when someone says sunrise I just kinda think , matter of fact when someone says something I was taught that as a listener we accepted another persons words and thoughts . Thanks Doug

True words, Doug. We appreciate your board and all the latitude you give us. Even you speak up from time to time, and your comments and mountain wisdom are much appreciated. Thanks.