Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board MR in early July?

thinking about doing this over 4th of July weekend. i did the MR a few years ago in late Sept and cruised up and down the main trail pretty easily. living full time at 6k feet in Truckee helps with the altitude... and basically made for a great day of hiking.

this July 4th, i was thinking about bringing my wife. we have both had fair amount of hiking, scrambling, climbing experience in the past.... with the last big climbing adventure for us was doing the Owen-Spalding route up the Grand Teton ~10 years ago. we do lots of the typical N. Tahoe hikes/trail runs for fun these days.

not like anyone has a crystal ball, but any thoughts on typical snow and ice levels on the route at this time in the summer? just trying to think about how we would prepare, and the gear we would bring up (we have crampons, rope, ice axes etc.) it goes without saying that we would be prepared for just about anything.... but just thought i'd check....

thanks.

It's way too early to tell how much snow will be there. If we get a heavy snowfall this winter there could still be a fair amount of snow up there. If we have a light year or a really warm month of June a lot could melt off. You'll have to keep checking back and ask this question again in June.

Obviously, I'll second what Kurt said. Just to add some reference, these are pics from our day hike up the MR last June 26.

Whitney MR 6/26/2010

I believe last year was a fairly heavy snowfall year and the snow hung around for a while but my memory could be off. The snow that was there was very soft.

Brandon