Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Current Conditions: Mt Whitney Trail

This thread is designed to hold posts displaying pictures and describing the current conditions of the Main Mount Whitney Trail (MMWT).  I hope everyone will contribute.

Please feel free to post pictures of your own or from any source (please post a reference to the original location), so that everyone can come here and easily find/read/see the conditions.

Older posts will be moved as conditions change. (As a result, some posts may appear to answer comments that are no longer in the thread.)

Thanks for everyone's help. Your posting trip reports helps untold numbers of hikers following you.

Older posts moved here:   Out-of-date Mt Whitney Trail Conditions -- 2022


Note: Sometimes this thread spans a number of pages. You can click through all the pages, or click here to display all in one page.

"Elevatedtv" climbed Mt Whitney via the Main Trail on 4/12/22, spending one night at Outpost Camp.

His trip report is here: Mt Whitney Trail 4/12/2022

Here are some of the pictures:

Main trail half a mile above Whitney Portal



Outpost Camp



Mirror Lake



Looking down at Trail Camp



The Cables Section



The Cables



Approaching Trail Crest



The crest, past Trail Crest



The Summit Hut

As of this evening, April 26, 2022, the Inyo County Roads page shows the Whitney Portal ROAD IS OPEN!

A buddy and I are attempting the Whitney Trail this weekend. The weather has been kind of bad the last few days from the weather reports, but does anyone have any trail conditions from this week?

Take ice axe and crampons -- At some point you will need them. The only unknown is where.

This is awesome! I wish we could have a post dedicated to each CA 14ers like this showing current trail conditions.

Hi! Planning on hiking Mt Whitney next weekend and was wondering if there were any updates on trail conditions? Thank you!

Here is a picture posted on May 20 of the Cables. I read a report that the chute (west of the switchbacks) was too soft to climb. The person reported they downclimbed the trail, and thought people should at least have microspikes at two places -- at the cables, and I am assuming, the final switchback before Trail Crest.

Here's the picture at the Cables.




The spot farthest in the distance is the worst. same picture, zoomed in.

Will my group need micro/exo spikes for a mid-June summit? Any ice under there?

I was up there on the 17th and the chute was perfectly fine - arguably much safer than the switchbacks as long as you have crampons and an ice axe. You just have to ascend it early in the morning between 4:30 and 9am. I ran into some campers who said that a guy told them that the switchbacks took him the entire day to ascend/descend on the 16th and he started up at 7:30am.

It should be ice free by mid-June. But no guarantees.

Hello! Heading up this Thursday. Would like to take the chute vs. the switchbacks (will overnight at trail camp). Any update on the conditions?

I found this report from a May 27:

"Zero people took the chute. It was full of rocks and I would say it is done for the season without a large snowfall. On the main trail there is maybe 25 feet of total snow to walk thru. We brought microspikes and considered putting them on while descending but with poles and sticking to the rocks it's totally fine."

Here's a picture at the cables on the switchbacks, posted May 29, 2022, by "Fox Adventures" on Facebook:

I went up today (June 3) wearing minimalist trail running shoes with close to a thousand miles of tread wear (had beta from past 3 days so decision was with care).

Went up and down both sides (main trail and jmt to guitar lake, trip report coming). Can confirm that unless there’s a storm, this trail is fully passable without traction. Cables are no problem, a couple 15 foot sections of sun cup snow after trail crest and before the summit boulder field. Also no problem.

Filmed a bunch of the water and snow/ice sections for beta reference for anyone else. Uploading to YouTube now, I’ll edit this post with the link when it’s up (might be tomorrow, I’m on a horseshoe meadow road clinging to 2 bars ????).

See the trip and video report here.

Following up on my beta request, I can confirm that the trail is completely possible without traction as of June 3rd 2022. A few notes:

-- Left trail camp around 5am. The first few hundred vertical feet were sometimes icy from snowmelt the day prior. This was easily passable without traction.
-- The cables have a completely snow free path (about 8 inches wide on average). There is a snowbank to your right (ascending) that requires a good hand hold or pole hold to feel secure. No traction is needed as the foot path is snow free.
-- There is a small snowfield about 750 vertical feet below the summit. There is a very deep and very secure path trodden in, and requires no traction.
-- While at trailcamp, there were a few instances of what sounded like significant rockfall. I wasn't able to spot it, but sounded like it was coming from somewhere near the east face/mountaineers route.

This snowbank, is it on your right (ascending)?

Frank, watching his video, it's on the right, on a switchback or two above the cables section.

Anyone have any intel on the current trail conditions? I was up there last weekend, saw nothing much to report. Someone on here posted the cables had snow and some ice.