Myself and a climbing bud headed out this last weekend (15-17 February) to climb Mt Whitney's Mountaineer's Route. I haven't really done any Trip Reports, but thought I'd put one together since there's very limited route info on the MR thus far this year. Hopefully new snow fall doesn't render this out of date too quickly.

On Friday, we drove up to within a mile of the Portal before the snow was too much for 4WD. It was a very short walk to the trailhead and we quickly set up camp, ate, and went to sleep. On Saturday, we broke camp and headed out around 0800. Sadly, I was too zealous in my packing as my backpack weighed in at 67 pounds. It didn't take long to reach the canyon leading up to Lower Boy Scout Lake, and the trail was mostly packed snow. We put on crampons just before the rise leading up to the Foxtail Pine offshoot marking the start of the ledges. As there was enough snow to cover the willows and an established trail leading up the canyon, we bypassed the ledges and followed the trail up to Lower Boy Scout Lake. To generalize the climb from here to Iceberg Lake, the snow conditions for the most part were very good. We chose to keep our crampons on the entire way and this worked well except for a few scattered areas of loose snow and associated postholing/cursing. We brought snowshoes, but didn't feel like fiddling with having to keep putting them on and taking them off, and there just wasn't enough postholing to really warrant using them. There's an established trail leading up to the 2 chutes before Iceberg Lake. The 1st chute didn't look all that great with glaze-ice covered rock, and the 2nd chute was marginally better. The snow conditions weren't ideal here as the last section of the chute was a short section of awkward 3rd class rock/ice which made for some fun mixed climbing in crampons. I was exhausted by this point and beyond happy when we reached Iceberg Lake and could set up camp for the night. The temp dropped pretty low at night, and I was glad for my -20F degree sleeping bag which let me get some sleep.

We woke at sunrise on Sunday and watched a couple groups who had also set up camp departing, having decided to forgo the summit. We set up the Mountaineer's Gully around 0820, leaving most of our gear at camp. The snow up the gully was about perfect, much more consolidated than I expected at this time of year. There were a couple spots of deeper soft snow, but for the most part is was either kick-stepping or front-pointing to get to the last bit before the Notch. The last 200' or so before the Notch was scree, bleh. It had been getting colder and colder as we made our way up the gully, and when we reached the Notch is was downright freezing. The wind was screaming and my face/hands quickly went numb (around -20F degrees wind chill). We threw on most of our remaining cold weather gear and tried to get warm before starting up the last bit. While my friend had brought a rope up, we decided against using it as the 'Final 400' 1st chute looked to be in good condition and didn't necessitate roping together. We left our packs at the notch and started up the 1st chute with our crampons. There's enough snow at the base to avoid the acrobatic first step usually required, and the route is almost entirely rock if you stick to the left (meandering diagonally right the last third or so). Again, perfect conditions for mixed climbing with crampons; I enjoyed it quite a bit and it didn't take us long to pop up onto the summit plateau. We took the obligatory photos, and both of us agreed that down climbing the chute was less than ideal. While neither of us had done the traverse route before, it seemed notionally straightforward and indeed proved fairly easy to find the correct route by heading further down the summit plateau.

The traverse was very enjoyable as it had some decent exposure and plenty of undesirable runouts--an inherently mountaineering-esque route. The snow was in perfect condition, with no real icy stints where the crampons couldn't easily bite. We quickly reached The Notch and descended to Iceberg Lake, glissading the last few hundred feet. We passed a group on the way down who had decided to turn around before The Notch. After breaking down camp, melting snow to refill water, and eating we headed down the mountain around 1520. The short bit of 3rd class rock at the top of the chute leading down from Iceberg Lake proved to be a real hassle. It was apparent that most of the folks had roped down this section, which in hindsight would have been a good idea. After clearing that and with no remaining tricky spots on the descent, the rest of the day was a mind-numbing slog back down to the truck, arriving around 1900. Shower, feast, and sleep in Lone Pine. Great trip with a rewarding summit.
-Chad