I was snowed out of my first Whitney trip (late August 1964, 4" snow at Trail Camp). Typical hot dry day on lower half of the trail. Probably 85-90 at Mirror Lake. Noticed cloud cover building at Trailside Meadow. By 4:00 pm at Trail Camp, overcast and temp dropping, starting to mist and drizzle. By next morning it was about 25F and clear, 4" snow on the ground .
Trip leader called it based on his view that such early winter weather systems typically ran several days, and that we could therefore expect to get snow for the next 5-7 days in the high country we were bound for (Lake South America). I never really determined whether this was a sound analysis or a convenient story. On the plane from LA to SF a few days later, however, there was still fresh snow visible down at least to 10,000', so as far as I know, the prediction held up. Anyone have experience with early winter systems dumping snow for several nights running?
My 3 Whitney ascents since (2 summits) were all in June and July.
