First, I want to thank the many experienced folks on this site who give so generously of the time and experience to help we first-timers be successful and stay out of trouble. What a generous community.
We camped at Trail Camp (TC) Friday night arriving at dusk. It quickly got cold. As others have noted, trail to TC is 99% clear of snow. There were many sites clear of snow to pitch tents. We had 2 for our party of 3.
We awoke to ~ 1 inch of new snow. Unlike matureunicorn, who posted above, we elected not to strike out early and waited to see what conditions evolved given all the uncertainty about the weather. We encountered groups coming down who had gone quite early and had been caught in a white out, leading them to turn back. Others found they didn’t feel the had the needed equipment to handle trail conditions they found in the SB at and above the cables.
By 8AM, the sun was shining brilliantly and we got our stuff organized to leave at TC and headed up the SB. Just prior to the cables, we encountered groups struggling in the deeper, softer snow on some of the turns. Several abandoned there. We put on our crampons there and ended up keeping them on till the summit, using our hiking poles the entire way. We ended up catching and passing groups who were less sure of their footing. Weather changed constantly, from bright sunshine to dark clouds and snow flurries.
At Trail Crest, one of our group elected to go down, feeling she did not have the endurance to summit and get all the way back to the Portal. Thankfully none of us had any AMS symptoms, probably helped by our stay Thursday night at Horseshoe Meadows (10,000 ft).
As mentioned elsewhere, the backside 2 miles to the summit has lots of packed snow and ice. We were very glad we had our crampons, as we were able to maintain a good pace with confidence about our footing. We encountered in the last mile a number of the groups who had gone earlier and successfully summited. Some reported it was socked in and others clear, giving you an idea of how fast things were changing over the course of the day.
We summited at 2PM to a largely clear sky. One day-hike couple hit the summit just ahead of us and did an immediate u-turn as one was clearly having AMS and needed to get down quickly. Thankfully we know they safely reached the Portal. We lingered, savoring the views and the rest, ate, and then headed down. We quickly noticed some nasty looking weather to the north and northwest, though it was unclear if it was moving over Whitney. Humorously, we encountered a group of three, about 15 minutes from the summit, just before you can see the hut. When we said they were minutes away, they said that’s what folks had been telling them for the last hour and they didn’t believe us! We saw them at breakfast Sunday AM and laughed about this. We also encountered numerous day-hiker groups further down, several of whom had a long way to go and looked pretty exhausted already. We worried that they were prepared for the long and partly dark return to the Portal. That several were wearing blue jeans did not inspire confidence.
We descended the SB and were again glad to have our crampons, as we were able to move steadily, catching folks who had left the summit ahead of us who had less reliable traction. We reached TC in 3 hours, broke camp, loaded up and hit the Portal 3 hours later, just as it was getting dark.
