Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion MT Whitney on March 4th

I am planning a early spring ascent of the MR March 4th and have a few questions.
1. I was told to expect the road open to the portal if there has not been any major snowfall in the last few days.
2. How much snow to expect on the lower part of the trail - the upper part. Will we be breaking trail the whole way.
3. Some sort of description of the last 400 ft, I hear it is very hard to down climb after making the summit.

Any advice would be a great help.
Bernie

What's your winter mountaineering experience? Have you done Whitney before?

Bernie - a couple of friends snowshoed up to the Portal and a bit beyond last weekend. They reported that few boulders had fallen on the road as of yet. From personal experience I know the road is currently snowy/ice well below the 6K' point where it's formally closed, and another storm is forecast this weekend. I'd plan on adding about 2,500' of elevation gain to your trip and some extra miles just to get to the Portal in early March.

As to how much snow to expect - hard to say with another month of winter between now and your trip. Obviously you'll need snowshoes much of the way.

We have done several cold winter trips in PA where snow is not hugh issue many nights at 0 degrees.

summits Aconcagua, Kautz route on Rainier, Grand Teton (warm) couple other smaller peaks

We are using this a trainer for Denali in 2011. We are looking for some deep snow experence.

Thanks Kevin:

A dumb question is do you just park your SUV on the side of the raod as far as you can go or do you stop at a road closed sign and hike. Is there places to leave SUV and such.

Whats the general accepted procedure up there for this kind of trip.

1. The Road...Ah, the road. Usually, you will be able to make it to Meysan Lake Trailhead parking area...but there are no guarantees. I've driven to the Portal in March and parked back at the Switchback. There is always the "how lucky do you feel" factor. If snows,the slope above road collapses or there is an avalanche you will see your car again in May.

2. The Trail...It's in the sun most of the way to the N. Fork so, alot of the time it is completely melted out but not always.

3. Breaking Trail...It depends. We broken trail all the way to Trail Camp a couple times. The one time I was up to Lower Boy Scout Lake, it was solid.

4. The Notch...That's above my pay grade.

Welcome to the WhitneyZone, Bernie.

1. Road to the Portal: Unless February is warm, you will have several miles of road to hike just to get up to the trailhead.

2. Lower part of the trail depends on storm activity. It can be dry, or it can be a soft snow trailbreaking grind. Hopefully, people will report conditions on the forums in the week or two before your trip. There are guided winter trips up the Mountaineers Route, so if one or more of those groups have preceded you since the last storm activity, you will have a trail to follow.

3. I have been up the final 400 once in snow conditions. There was about 12 inches of fresh snow there, and we broke trail all the way up. The very top was some third class rock climbing. The toughest part coming down is finding the exact point where you start down. The top is a wide open slope, with a sudden break over the edge. Be sure to mark/note the spot when you go up. Guided groups rope up in that section, but many people just take care and make it just fine using ice axe and crampons.

When I did the climb, it took 9 hours from the trail head to Iceberg Lake where we camped. We had to break trail above LBSL. From Iceberg Lk to the notch it can be a posthole nightmare. Too steep for snowshoes, crampons worked fine. It's about a 1500 ft climb. Took us over 4 hours from Iceberg to the summit, but we were carrying all our gear, since we spent the night on top.

Thanks for info. This is a great site. Our plan is to make it to LBSL first night depending on how far we can drive back to the portal we may go higher. Then Iceberg Lake second night. Summit and back to Iceberg then out. That is up to change as the trip goes but that is the plan right now.