Hello everyone, I checked this forum multiple times a day before I went up and was so grateful for the updates. Because conditions were changing quickly I had no expections of summitimg I just planned on enjoying a beautiful day hiking. I have summitted twice before but conditions were clear. I had only used micro spikes once before this trip, but am a very prepared and sturdy hiker.
This is alittle breakdown of my hike, Friday night camped at Whitney portal Saturday picked up permit for Sunday, then hung around portal until 6:00 PM, Then hiked a bit passed Lone Pine lake before permit area where I slept until 3:00 a.m. I hit the trail by 3:15 a.m. Water was high at outpost camp so I decided to change to sandals which I'm grateful I did. I hiked in them through many water crossing that would have had my feet drenched.
I put boots back on right before snow to trail camp. The trail was not easy to follow in all sections and a few times me and a few others got a bit confused. I used micro spikes and poles and felt confident. By the time I had reached trail camp i had met a few people along the way. We all kind of passed off and on the trail, encouraging each other. I continued on past Trail Camp up towards the chute. I did not feel comfortable trying to get to cables on switchbacks so went up the chute. (Tough but so amazing) I want to add that climbing out of the snow up the rock to trail crest was NOT EASY. 1.9 miles to summit always is harsh but totally worth it.
Arrived on top at 11:20 a.m. And it's was snowing. Started down at 12:00 p.m. I chose to glissade down and just as climbing out of snow to rock was hard, getting back down to it was even worse. Glissading was scary at first but after I got the hang of how to do it I had a great time. I used micro spikes and my poles(shortened all the way). I chose to leave my boots on for water crossings the whole way down. I was back at portal around 5:30p.m. (I took old trail both up and down)I'm a strong believer in taking your time to look around and slow and steady wins the race. I had an amazing day and met some truly wonderful humans along the way.
