Hi,
My partner and I have booked a trip to the US early may. I am really hoping I can climb Mt Whitney somewhere between the 1st and the 8th. I have never climbed past 8000 ft, have no experience climbing on snow and there is a good chance I will be by myself. Is this an achievable goal? Would I need to take crampons/ice axe and if so do you need training to use them. I plan on doing a lot of summer training(as its hard to find snow in Australia) between now and then so my main concern is my lack of experience with snow.
Thanks in advance for any recommendations.
G'day mate!
As others have said, May could be a challenging month. While a native New Yorker, I lived in Sydney for a year and felt a craving for mountains, so hopped on a flight to NZ to satisfy the urge.
Given your altitude challenged country ( :-) ) and the fact that the Snowies down south won't offer you the needed altitude, a good idea for you to do from now until May would be to head over the Southern Alps in New Zealand and get some training and practice doing some moderate snow climbs to 3000M-3500M or so.
I'd suggest either Queenstown or near Mt Cook for getting either lessons with a Guide or practice with a friend with experience.
That will help a great deal in understanding what the altitude will be like on Whitney, though Whitney is a touch higher at 4421M.
You don't say if your coming to the US for another reason or for the purpose of climbing. We might have other suggestions depending on your plans here.
Good luck!
Rob
To give you an idea of May area conditions, here are two links to two of my Spring climbs in the recent past:
http://14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php...amp;ski=Includehttp://14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php...amp;ski=Include
