Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Mt Muir Scramble

I've got permits for Whitney arranged for May 15th. We'll be ascending the MR and descending via the portal route. On the way down, I would like to tag Mt. Muir. I see that it's considered a class 3 scramble with exposure. I've seen videos of it, and it doesn't look terribly bad since the rock seems pretty solid. What I'm more concerned about are the conditions...can the main line up to the summit be icy? I know the only definitive answer is if I inspect it myself, but I don't really know what to expect during May. If there's any real mixed climbing involved, then I don't think I'm gonna bother with the detour. The final 400 should already be somewhat approaching my limits (I'm hoping that it's mostly dry rock at the top), and the scramble up Muir looks really fun. I don't want to be too bold though, so if anyone has any insight into Muir during May, I'd love to know!

You really won't know whether you can do Muir until the time you get to its base. It depends on how good you feel, if you have time, if the weather looks decent, AND if the snow is melted out enough for you to feel comfortable climbing. I'd guess there won't be any significant snow or ice to bother you. So it all depends on the other conditions.

The last time I did the MR and Muir was April 2019. The Final 400 has some interesting mixed climbing. Muir was a piece of cake. I’ve never seen ice on the class 3 part of Muir. You should be fine.

Muir is so sun exposed that you won't have any snow or ice to worry about. I was up there last summer. The cairns at the MWT are obvious but the cairns sort of disappear as you climb toward the peak. As you get to the inflection point where it steepens, you want to be somewhere on the right, but not all the way on the right.