Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Mountaineers Route Conditions?

Sorry if this is not the correct place to post.

Has anyone been up the mountaineers route recently? I'm mostly interested in the conditions in the mountaineers route coulior, but any info on the north fork in general would be helpful! I have permits for 7/15 and 7/23 and am planning to tag Russel/Whitney one weekend and Carillion/Cleaver/Tunnabora the other, conditions permitting. As crazy as this year has been we'll try be prepared for anything, but a recent condition report would be helpful if anyone has been up there!

I started up the N Fork of Lone Pine Creek on 7/2 and I turned around at the creek crossing around 9,150' because I didn't want to get soaked. It was definitely passable, but pretty much impossible to avoid getting wet.

FYI - if you take Cleaver Col for Cleaver/Tunnabora/Carillon you really don't need a permit.

It's been a few years since I tried it, but there IS a route up the lower section of the MR where you bypass two crossings of north fork lone pine creek. At the first crossing, you stay on the north side, and follow the base of the cliff for a ways. At some point, you climb an easy crack up about 15 feet, and then follow the ledge, crossing what BobR called the "Elephant Ear". This route rejoins the the MR at the point where the south side path re-crosses the creek to the north.

The videos in this thread shows the route.

The last time I went up the via “Elephant Ear”, someone (The USFS, I assume), had spent a lot of effort making it as difficult and unpleasant as possible. Lots of branches has been cut and broken so they would stick and otherwise hinder anyone going that way. Why go directly up the right side, when you could do two creek crossings that might involve getting soaked, dealing with snow bridges, falling into the creek due to icy conditions, etc.?

Maybe somebody should check out the route and help it out.