Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Mt Whitney MR April 7th week...

Hi there,

Was hoping someone may have interest in joining me on the MR the April 7th week. I'll be in the area and would love to do a climb of some type. Solo would be nice but maybe not a good idea considering I've never been on the Mountain and the time of year.

Let me know if any interest, or any info/suggestions would be great as well,
Thanks!
Chris

HI Knighter,
I’m personally not a winter kind of guy, but several on this board are. In lieu of their advice I will point you to a couple of web sites that have pictures of the route from April of past years. (Also see this site: Trip Reports: http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/topics/35053/Mountaineer_s_Route_Jan_24_26t#Post35053 )
This year’s weather is different (much dryer), so April of 2014 may have less snow. On the other hand, we may get snow later this year, so could be similar.

First site is from Sierra Mountaineering International. They are a local guide service (Bishop) but do international guiding as well as Sierra Mountains. They are well respected, and do have trips on their calendar around your target date of April 7th. The link to their calendar is: http://sierramountaineering.com/mt-whitney/winterspring-mountaineers-route/

They also have a tab to photos of past trips, and did the mountaineers route on April 2nd, 2011. Link to these photos is: http://kurtwedberg.smugmug.com/Sierra-Trips/2011-Sierra-Trips/Mt-Whitney-April-2-5-2011/

Another source of pictures of the Mountaineers route during most any month of the year is Richard P’s smug mug site. See the following link for photo’s from April 16th, 2010:
http://piotrowski.smugmug.com/California...&k=B62Sf8X

As you can see in all of these photos crampons and Ice Axe are needed, so previous winter experience would be highly recommended. I noticed that you are from Winnipeg so guess you are OK with this.

Good luck hooking up with someone.