Tuesday June 9
Our group of 10 left the Bay Area at midnight. After getting permits and equipment, we hit the trail about noon and made our way up Outpost Camp for a night of acclimatization. We got snowed on fairly hard from about 1330 to 1730 but then it cleared up. We had a nice cold night after that!
Wednesday June 10
We went from Outpost Camp to Trail Camp in a few hours with decent weather, no snow this time. We hit a few snow patches just below Trail Camp. We had a leisurely day at Trail Camp, sizing up the route and talking to people coming down. Most people coming down were not making the summit and all were saying that crampons and ice axes were mandatory. The switchbacks were obviously covered with snow as seen from Trail Camp. It was overcast but only a little bit of snow during the night.
Thursday June 11
We woke up to clear skies and sunshine! We hit the trail at 0800 and soon broke into smaller groups. I put on crampons right at the cables and I did not take them off until I was back below the cables later that afternoon. If we did not have crampons/ice axes, this trip would have been extremely dangerous if not impossible. We made it to the summit at 1300 and had a wonderful view from the west and saw that the east side (including the return route!) was totally socked in with fog. We started back at 1330 and made it to Trail Camp about 1700. When we got to Trail Crest it was near white out with fog. We waited a few minutes and listened to a few guys debating their glissade. We were not about to try that and we started very carefully down the switchers. We made it across the first big switchback and then as luck would have it, the fog blew out! We slowly made our way back safely down to Trail Camp with big smiles on our faces!
Friday June 12
Down to Whitney Portal about 1100 to invade the store for a dozen of the best burgers I have ever had....
A few notes:
In my opinion this trip would have been impossible without ice axe and crampons. I was on Mt Whitney last year June 30-July 4 and there was no snow to speak of. This time there was snow everywhere and I would guess that it is not going to melt away anytime soon! I had on crampons from the cables on as the trail was completely snow covered all the way to the hut on the summit. 99 percent of the people I saw had crampons/ice axes and the few that didnt wished they had them!
The weather changed multiple times on our trip and especially on our summit day. I went from a t-shirt to two long sleeve outer layers back to one long sleeve outer layer during the time I went to the summit and back.
We met alot of nice folks on the trail durig our trip, Mt Whitney seems to attract good people. We also saw plenty on unprepared people but you guys already know those stories!
This message board is invaluable. I overheard a few people talking about things they had read on this board during our trip. Thank you all for your trip reports, they ultimately helped us reach the summit! I dont have any pictures to share yet, will post later....
