Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Photo of Whitney, from Langley summit, 03/08/2014

Started at Tuttle Creek on Friday, camped at 10100 feet, took NE Couloir route to Langley on Saturday.

[img]http://pkuroda.smugmug.com/Other/Misc-photos-and-scans/22555443_NH2sRF#!i=3114274474&k=MgPD6bW&lb=1&s=A[/img]

Photo of Whitney from Langley

What were the snow conditions like both on the approach and in the NE Couloir?

On the first day, we hiked up to 10,100 feet. On the left side of the creek there was pretty good snow cover. On the right side, there was mixed snow, shrubs, and bare ground. There wasn’t really a good trail to follow, so most of the time we just went cross-country.

On the second day, we started in the dark, and reached the base of the NE Couloir at around 5:30 AM. For the first half of the couloir, we used MSR snowshoes with heel lifts, and trekking poles. Eventually I traded out the trekking poles for an ice axe.

After we reached the top of the couloir (13,600 feet), we thought it would be an easy walk-up, but it wasn’t. There was a steep snow slope with a breakable crust, and we kept sliding backwards. The next 200 vertical feet were difficult, and probably took about 45 minutes. Eventually we reached the summit plateau, and from there it was an easy hike to the summit.

Mescalito345, wast that you guys we ran into at creek crossing on your descent?

We followed your snow shoe tracks back to the car but boy were they difficult to follow in soft deep snow halfway down the canyon, hopefully we didn't make it too difficult for you guys to retrace those tracks, the heat of the day made the snow way soft and postholing was a PITA but fun considering how little we've had this year.

Nice work on making the summit, hope to see the rest of the pictures if you get a chance to post of "link" to them.

Sat was a great day out there

Lilbitmo

Lilbitmo: during the 32 hours that we were on the mountain, we saw only one other group out there, and it was probably you and your friends. We were the two tired-looking hikers, with heavy packs, that you met at around 3:00 PM on Saturday. You may have seen my green Xterra at the trailhead.

I’m planning to upload some photos to SmugMug, and after that I’ll post a link. By the way, my friend and I have done winter Whitney a few times, and we both think that winter Langley is tougher.

Langley photos

Beautiful photos and it sounds like it was a great trip.