Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Final 400 conditions

I’m at lone pine and I’m going up the MR for Whitney tomorrow. I see there’s been intermittent snow showers, so I’m going to assume the final 400 isn’t completely dry rock. Does anyone have any idea of what conditions are like on that section?

Also, I see there’s a bunch of clouds near the summit around 3 pm yesterday too. Is it safe to say that these clouds won’t be a trip killer, and we’d be able to avoid storms by summiting early? We plan on leaving by 2 am

NOAA's forecast is for less than 1" of snow. So what snow there is should be light.

Assuming you will be using axe and crampons up to the Notch, you should be able to decide what's best to do once you get up there.

It looks like the predicted showers are all afternoon storms, so going early should be the best way. NOAA forecast is for snow showers after 4 pm until 11 pm. Here's hoping you will be well below the summit by 4 pm tomorrow.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

How were things up there?

Hey,

We summited and it was pretty much all dry. No snow up to Iceberg lake, and that's when we had to put on our crampons to go up the chute. The final 400 did have a bunch of ice, but you could easily avoid it by sticking to climber's left then traversing over at the very end.