Hi All,
Quick trip report for everyone.
Our group was made up of 5 males, 1 female, ages ranging from late 20's to early 40's; varied experience levels but most of the group had no actual backpacking experience. A couple of us had done the hike up to Lone Pine Lake before, but the main Whitney trail was new to all of us.
Note: We did not summit; thought I'd get that out of the way to save you the suspense
We headed up to Trail Camp on Sunday, the plan was to overnight and summit on Monday. We did not head up on Monday morning however - all the reports we heard from people coming down were that the switchbacks were okay until the end, where the ice/snow would very likely require crampons, and knowledge of how to use them; our group had neither of these. Rather than go all that way only to be turned around due to lack of gear, we headed back to the Portal. A lot of people were taking the chute, but again, our group did not have the right gear (or skills) to try that.
I heard from someone recently that some people tend to exaggerate the difficulty and we may indeed have been fine up there without crampons (Doug Sr. had given us a good lesson on using our trekking poles almost as movable railings or handles along the way) BUT… the reports from others telling us that we would need winter gear for the final section on the switchbacks was a little bit of a relief. We were all pretty beat up - the hike up to Trail Camp was more brutal than we had realized, so an excuse to not further torture ourselves was welcome. We all live in L.A. so Whitney is not a far trek for us - we went into this knowing full well that we hadn't conditioned/trained nearly as much as we'd wanted to, and as I mentioned, this was a first backpacking-trip for most in our group, so it was really kind of a test run. Basically, we learned a lot, and we'll be back
Hope this info helps some folks that are thinking of heading up in the near future. We really only padded through a couple of snowy spots all the way to Trail Camp, all with clearly trodden boot prints for us to follow, no post-holing or anything. Have fun and stay safe - we did
-Caroline
p.s. if anyone wants more detailed info on our trip (pack weights/footwear/etc.) feel free to send me a message. I plan on doing a longer trip report - sort of for friends and family but also for other Whitney enthusiasts - which I'll post separately once finished. But, if you have other questions in the meantime, I'm happy to share. Beautiful, amazing, awe-inspiring trip, and I'm happy to talk about it with others that are interested
