We left the portal at 7:30a and didn't need snow shoes. There is still a lot of snow on the main Whitney trail. We brought crampons and ice ax but didn't use the crampons until about 4 miles in. They weren't necessary then, just made it a bit easier. Trail is a little difficult to follow in the snow because of multiple paths. They all lead to the same place but some of the tracks are downhill tracks and you definitely would not want to go up those routes. Basically keep an eye out ahead of you to select the right path. We camped just above Outpost and it was cold! The tent frosted up on the inside and whenever a gust of wind came by it would drop frozen dew on us.
We left camp around 6a and used crampons and ice ax up the snow field above Outpost. Could probably get away without the ice ax but we felt more comfortable with them. We took off crampons above trail crest but probably should have left them on. Summited around 10a, rested a bit, and then headed back down. Kept the crampons on the entire way down until about 2 miles above portal. Very fast decent and only took 2 hours from outpost to portal, but trail was very difficult to follow and we wound up off path for sometime. Snow gets a bit slushy so you may want to plan for that. Weather was great though and trip was gorgeous!
