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Main Trail June 27
#55586 06/29/19 11:03 AM
Joined: May 2019
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penny Offline OP
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Just the facts. 6 of us left portal at 11 pm on June 26. Average age close to 60. Not much experience on snow and ice. But there were 3 in our group who had been to summit before on day hike (no snow). 2 in the group at climbed Mt Kilimanjaro. 3 in the group at climbed Shasta. 1 in group had climbed Mt Rainer. 2 guys veterans of triathlons. Serious dudes.

We had some route finding issues but made it to the base of Shute. It took us 7 hours to get there. We were beat up at this point. Very difficult to get in a groove when walking across snow and ice and putting on and taking off crampons. We are from Central Valley which is flat but we went up a day early to acclimate.

It appears most of the successful people at this stage are hiking in to trail camp and making a summit push the following day.

I think if we pushed on we were looking at 20-24 hours round trip.

The switchbacks are not a viable option yet. The Shute would be a challenge under any conditions but perhaps too much for us after 7 hours of hiking.

This is not the conventional day hike that most people think of. Still lots of snow and ice and the going is difficult.

Perhaps back in our 30’s we would have forged on but a 24 hour day was not in cards for us and we turned back.

Good luck. I have a tremendous level of respect to anyone who can make it in one day. You are in a very special class.

Re: Main Trail June 27
penny #55587 06/29/19 02:14 PM
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Thanks for sharing your report, Penny. It's a good reminder that conditions can play a huge role in the difficulty of the hike. It was probably wise to turn around where you did, given the ice and level of fatigue. The mountain will be there waiting for you to summit another day.

Last edited by sumptimwong; 06/29/19 02:16 PM.
Re: Main Trail June 27
penny #55609 07/02/19 08:52 AM
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With age (I'm right there with you) comes some wisdom. I can't imagine doing that in one day. The acclimatization alone would be too much for me, even going a day early and hiking to maybe 11,000 the day before. And with snow and having to do the Chute. I'm going in from Kearsarge in three weeks and will take an easy four days to do the whole thing. And hopefully, most of the snow will be gone.


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