Hi all,
So my team's lottery app was not successful, but we were able to snag a date of June 17 for a day hike permit up MWT (assuming things open up again). We were planning on a August-September summit, so in taking this permit we wanted to make sure we are prepared for any snow that we likely will see on the trail.
We were also planning on climbing Shasta this summer around June 25th, and had a glacier travel class scheduled for early May to learn the requisite skills for Shasta (self-arrest, ice axe/crampons, self-belay) that was cancelled due to the virus. So now it looks like we are scheduled for a mid-June Whitney ascent, but we will not have had training in self-arrest or any firsthand experience with an ice-axe. Is this a terrible idea?
Obviously, conditions can change and we don't know what the trail will look like in Mid-June right now, but We want to make sure we are going into the hike fully prepared and don't want to endanger ourselves or anyone else. It will be hard or impossible to schedule a proper self-arrest course between now and mid-June, I think. I guess my question boils down to: how typical is it, in Mid-June, for someone climbing Whitney to be able to put microspikes/crampons on and go in without an ice-axe/a formal self-arrest course and still not be taking excessive risk? How should we know if, when the time comes, we should not hike or continue without proper self-arrest training? Thanks!
