Mt Whitney Zone Forums Trip Reports Trip Report - Main Trail 24 June

Party of 4 went up the main route on Monday, 24 June, 3 successfully summited. Probably set close to a new speed record - for slowness - over 24 hours!

We stepped off on the trail at 2AM, taking some switchbacks right off the main trail that avoided the first stream crossing. A very nice couple that started at the same time as us and happened to be our next door neighbors at the Best Western in Lone Pine showed us that trick. Thanks!

We trekked our way along the main route, encountering snow for the first time maybe 2.5 to 3 miles or so down the trail. There were various patches of snow that sometimes required navigation to pick back up the trail on the other side.

The trip up to the chute was largely uneventful. We were definitely one of the slower parties, and didn't start ascending the chute until 9:30AM or so if I recall correctly. The previous reports we read were correct - you really want to be at least on your way up it by 8 or so, as it was getting quite slushy and hard to ascend. It was a lot of work, and we saw many people glissading down (with relative ease it appeared!) while we were on our way up. The switchbacks are unusable, and ***I would not attempt the chute now without crampons and an ice axe!!!*** We actually met up with the couple from the Best Western who made much better time than us and were in great shape, but wisely didn't attempt the chute because they didn't have ice axes. You probably could do it, but I think it'd be extremely risky to yourself and those below you!

Also at the base of the chute we finally caught up to a 74-year-old woman who was in great shape and a serious trooper! She didn't go up the chute, but she had kept up with us (a group of guys in their 20s and 30s) until that point - super impressive! Apparently she had summited Mount Rainier the weekend before, too!

After the long slow trip through the slush of the chute, we went along trail crest. Altitude was starting to get to some of us, and the journey was slow. Luckily a lot of the snow along that section had melted since a trip report I read/saw pics from a trip about 10 days prior to ours, and the trail wasn't nearly as sketchy. There were a few slightly sketchy parts, but overall pretty safe and straightforward.

One of our party made the smart choice to turn back about a mile from the summit along with another kind fellow who joined our group along the way - with wobbly legs and altitude sickness getting to his head he didn't feel safe.

We finally got to the summit around 3:30PM, the last people to make it up there by a little over an hour. After taking pics and signing the book with our attempts at humorous comments, we headed back down the trail to meet up with our friend who turned back, who was waiting for us at trail camp. We had brought two-way radios that we used to keep in touch while we were separated. They came in handy!

Finally made it back to Trail Crest probably by around 6PM ish. The friend now at trail camp had warned us that the glissade was pretty scary! Indeed, we slid down the same path everyone before us had that day - only while the first people in the morning we saw slide down easily and gleefully, the path we took was now a deep rut of packed ice. In hindsight we probably should have slid down fresh snow besides that route, instead of whisking down like an amateur bobsled team, equipped only with one-day old ice axes and a couple youtube videos on how to glissade. Indeed, two of our party lost their ice axes on the way down, stuck in the ice as the person slid by them. The first guy lost his ice axe only 50 feet or so below the top, but met with great fortune and happened upon a stick as he slid down, which he used to slow and control his descent! I looked on with horror as I saw my buddy lying at the bottom of the chute, out of range to hear or answer my yelling, until he finally stood up and hiked toward trail camp. I put on crampons, hiked down and back up retrieving the ice axe so we didn't slide into it. The next person also lost their ice axe about halfway down but stopped only about 15 feet below it. I was able to glissade down slowly above him, retrieve his ice axe and pass it to him, and we glissaded down the rest of the way. ***Important note! Make sure if you're glissading down in the self-arrest position to have pants that won't ride up past your knees!*** One of our party has very bloody knees from the ice grinding into his knees for the entirety of the chute. Luckily we were so late in the day our follies didn't impact other parties, as they were long gone by then.

By the time we were back down to trail camp it was almost 9PM, pretty much dark. I didn't realize all the people in the tents around me were already going to sleep and pretty sure I kept them up with my loud talking for a bit - apologies folks! In addition to my buddy, we met back up with a fearless solo hiker who had hiked up part of the way with us. She had lost another party she was hiking with at some point along the way, and equipped only with the dinky paper map given at the permit office, lost the trail. She made it back to trail camp and recognized our friend who was waiting there for us from our previous hiking together, and decided to come back with us.

The trek back was long and exhausting. We ended up walking miles down a snow bank until we found a cairn and got back on the trail, though it did turn out to be a shortcut! I was so exhausted I ate most of a pack of beef ravioli and promptly puked it back up before finishing it. We pushed on, frequently losing the trail between the darkness and the snow over parts of the trail. Some good phone app maps (we used gaia gps) make quite a difference though! My buddy who turned back before summiting saved me on the way back, and carried my pack in addition to his own for the last 2 or 3 miles, as I was extremely exhausted and struggling to keep up. Eventually, around 2:20 or 2:30AM - over 24 hours from when we began - we finally made it back to the parking lot, parted ways with our new friend (I believe her plan was to camp out at the portal with just a tarp and sleeping bag!), and drove back to the Best Western. On our car the next morning we found a kind note from our neighbors we met on the trail, telling us they hope we had a good journey.

Finally, thank you to all who posted timely trip reports before us! They were super useful in staying updated on the conditions of the trail and what to expect. Also good to note, at the permit office there are papers on the trail conditions that some people fill out. They were quite useful as well, so please fill those out too! Y'all are a great community, and I hope others can learn from our experience and mistakes!