Day hiked Whitney yesterday with my buddy Pat Smith. We left the Portal at 3:15 am and arrived in Trail Camp about 6:45am. There are only a few small patches of snow left covering the trail just below Trail Camp...lots of running water in places though. We used running shoes for this first section. Your feet will get wet just before Outpost Camp! Climbed the first set of switchbacks, which were icy, put on our boots and crampons and started the traverse of the first snowfield at 7:15 am. Traversed to the chute and then climbed up to Trail Crest on perfect snow, arriving at 8:15 am. That included helping a climber to put back on his left crampon which had completely detached from his boot!
We took off our crampons at the top and stowed our axes. From there it was a pretty straightforward hike to the summit traversing a few small snowfields on the way. We reached the summit about 11:00 am. Beautiful conditions to be on the mountain I must say.
We made a quick descent to Trail Crest and put our waterproof pants on for the glissade. One word of caution here, do not take the obvious chute entry point. It is very steep, full of rocks at the top and can still be icy "inside" the chute. Climb onto the left or right sides of this chute and start your glissade. At the time we did it the snow was soft, perfect in fact for a fun glissade.
Once we got back to Trail Camp we changed back into running shoes and descended back to the Portal. We got back about 4:00 pm but missed the classic burger and fries due to an early closing for graduation night, drats!!!
Oh well, it was a fun trip and I hope this info helps people climbing in the next week