5 times up the main trail
3 times on the backside past Trailcrest
2 times turned back due to time/weather
1 summit
Trips summary:
- Tried to get to Trail Camp first day and didn't make it. Much harder hike than expected. Made it to Outpost Camp with sore feet from much too small of boots ( black toenails for almost a year afterwords ). Summit day was getting as far as Trail Camp. Hiking slow and taking too many pictures. From now on I do multi day ascents stopping at Outpost and Trail Camp.
- Successful ascent stopping overnight at Outpost and Trail Camps. Hiking slow and taking too many pictures! Summit day I turned back at the Keeler Needle notch due to weather. Was resting late in the day wondering if we should turn back when suddenly the air went still. This usually isn't a good sign weather wise, so we headed down. Sure enough, it was raining/hailing a good part of the way to Trailcrest.
- Ditto to the previous trip except this time the weather was better and got to spend almost an hour at the summit running around taking pictures!
- Didn't even try for the summit. Spent some time exploring around Trail Camp and climbed Wotan's Throne. Found and signed the register.
- Wasn't planning on trying for the summit, but ended up giving it a try. We were staying a couple of days at Trail Camp. The first day the group I was with was going to the summit and I joined them rather than stay at camp. Hiking slow and taking too many pictures! While the pictures look great, they DON'T convey how miserably cold and windy it was. I got almost to Keeler Needle and was no longer having any fun. While I was resting along side the trail, the rest of the group, that had gone on ahead long before, passed me heading back down and I joined them. The next day I achieved my main objective for this trip when I went partway up the NW ridge of Wotan's Throne and took this Gigapan Mt Whitney ridge line and south east face as seen from Wotan's Throne ( oops, guess I need to enter a real description for that Gigapan )
