Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Water Crossing Mountaineer's Route July 3, 2011

I have two videos here of the waterfall crossing right before climbing up to the e-ledges. These were taken on the way back. This is the waterfall crossing. You can only see the first part of the crossing on the one video, then the other half of the same crossing on the other. I changed into old worn out running shoes which I put in the bushes so I could use them on the way back. My son Cy just used rubber slippers, while Kaleb went barefoot the first time, then went in his boots the second time. His boots got pretty wet. And the water is numbing cold.

Mountaineer's Route Waterfall Crossing

Mountaineer's Route Water Crossing

Water is running very high and is higher in the afternoon as more snow melts. There is one snow bridge left up between Upper Boy Scout and Lower Boy Scout, but it should be gone this week. Snow is melting fast and on the Main Trail, many of the switchbacks are clearing. I heard multiple reports of people hanging on the outside of the cables.

Those are major crossings! Amazing amount of water flowing.

Watching those guys go through that waterfall crossing made my ankles ache. Makes me glad the northside route misses that one.

How was the first crossing (where you cross over to the south side of the creek instead of going up the north side)?

It was easy in the morning, but the flow was a couple of inches higher in the afternoon. I just need to learn how to jump from rock to rock better. I didn't video that one because it wasn't real difficult. No need to change shoes or boots.

I tried to day hike the mountaineers route on July 5th but was unsuccessful due to the rain. We had to turn back a few hundred meters before iceberg lake.

I avoided the water crossing on my way towards the summit and took the route on the north side of the creek. This trail is not well maintained and I had to bushwhack a little. Further up crossing the elephants ear was the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. Ebersbacher ledges are nothing compared to the elephants ear.At some places the ledge is only 2-3 inches wide. On the way back I crossed the creek and was much happier despite the soggy boots. I highly recommend crossing the creek despite the slightly higher water level in the creek. This trail is easier, faster and you also avoid bushwhacking.

The snow bridge below the upper boyscout lake(UBSL) looked unstable(chunks of snow were breaking off the edges) so avoided that on the way to the summit. Again had to bushwhack a bit going up to UBSL. On the way back there were two groups of people who had crossed the snow bridge so we decided to take the snow bridge and it was stable.

To summarize I wasted plenty of time (1) not crossing the creek and (2) avoiding the snow bridge when hiking towards the summit.

Steve, If you can, put the video of the "elephants ear" up. I still can't figure out how the heck people do that one. Scares the crap out of me. What is it, 10 inches wide? How far of a drop is it? E-ledges look like a piece of cake compared to that.

Joe, the Elephant's Ear is about a foot wide. I'm not reaching down to measure it! Going up is a piece of cake, going down is scarier. The drop off by my estimate is 50-100 ft. If you think nothing of the E-Ledges, this will not be a problem. If the E-Ledges terrifies you, don't do it. It's hard to turn around. Once you're going, you need to go all the way.

Joe, here's the link to Steve's MR video from last year:

Steve's Mountaineer's Route Videos Parts 1-5

The Elephant's Ear is in Part 2, just before the E-Ledges.

Folks, an important point is raised in posts, above. The North fork route is NOT A MAINTAINED TRAIL. It is referred to as the Mountaineer's ROUTE for a reason!

If you are looking for a obvious, marked, cleared trail, you will be very disappointed. This is intentionally a cross-country ROUTE, left in an unmaintained state as it was originally climbed by John Muir 100 years ago.