Summited 9/23. The pond at TC was frozen before sunrise on 9/23, but thawed during the day. The night of 9/22 was truly frigid - much colder than 9/23 - so I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t freeze again for a while. Water was plentiful at all spots below Trail Camp, but no water was flowing from the springs on the switchbacks, even in mid-afternoon on our return trip from the summit on 9/23. DUG’s pictures of the cables looked just like what we saw – very solid ice through the middle 50 feet of the cables. As Steve C notes, the ice is easily passable on higher rocks - currently in any type of footwear (just pay close attention not to step off the ice-free higher rocks. Snow on the trail is very sporadic between the cables and the summit, and so thin, it probably melted today due to much warmer temperatures on the mountain than the days before.
Road construction is now almost to the Portal. Delays were only about 30 minutes or so, but covered the area from a few miles out of Lone Pine, all the way to the Portal itself. We had to wait for the pilot car simply to exit the family campground at the Portal. We got caught by the last pilot car delay coming out of Lone Pine at nearly 8pm on 9/21, so they are working late.
Perhaps this is true at any time, but late September conditions can change dramatically from day to day as this week showed. 9/21 the mountain was shrouded in clouds and looked ugly from Lone Pine. 9/22, on the other hand, was cloud-free all day. All returnees we talked to while hiking up to Trail Camp on 9/22 reported harrowing conditions the previous night at Trail Camp. Multiple parties reported destroyed(!) tents during the night due to severe winds. “Hurricane-force” was the adjective reported by several. Most reported thunderstorms and several parties independently reported a helicopter blaring a siren warning people off the summit ridge during the day of 9/21 (I’d never seen that reported on the forum before – is that unusual?). Returnees from a night at Outpost also reported high winds. Conditions were much better on 9/22 - quite cold on the way up from the Portal, but few winds, so we braved Trail Camp. The night was nearly wind-free, but extremely cold - well below freezing and rather uncomfortable. 9/23 day was still chilly but much warmer at night than 9/22 (only freezingish, not frigid). A bit windy on the summit, but clear skies all day and not uncomfortable. Today (9/24) most were in shirt sleeves below Trail Camp once the sun was fully up. At 1pm when we got back to our car, the Portal was shorts weather.
