Hey everyone, I just got back from Whitney today 6/18/18 (same day as Andrew W, pretty sure his date was a typo but I totally understand he’s probably exhausted because Whitney was no joke)
First of all, I notice there are lots of people here with different experiences such as altra-ben who is Superman, people who hike long distance/high elevation a lot, and there are people like me (37 y.o) who hike 3-6 mile trails and work out everyday thinking that I’m fit enough for Whitney.
I’ll skip the hike to Trail Camp since that’s pretty straight forward but the elevation on that hike was like level 6/10, and since we were camping on Sunday the 17th, we did take our time, took us 7.5hrs
As for the switchbacks, we started at 4:30am and got to trail crest 9am. Parts of the trail were very icy that early in the morning so be very careful. We found that there were 3 “death obstacles” and about 4 “oh shit” parts. Some “oh shit” parts were scrambling rocks but on a steep hill with lots of sliding rocks and some snow. Scary yes, difficult no. Going up was way easier than going down
Death obstacle 1: by the cables, that picture that Andrew W posted is accurate. It’s a steep drop off and icy because ice melts coming down on it and the sun doesn’t hit it as much but it’s a short stretch. The 4 of us were very scared for our lives since we have no experience with ice axe or microspikes. It literally scared the shit out of one girl in our group and she took a shit right after that snowed in cable
Death obstacle 2: after the cable there’s a long stretch of thick snow that covered the trail but there were deep obvious foot print and the snow was hard enough so we didn’t use spikes but it’s kinda long but half as scary as the first one
Death obstacle 3: right before trail crest, this one is a little sketchy, not enough snow to feel safe because on the mountain side it was down to rocks in some parts so I couldn’t stab the axe in. Couple foot path spot were wet dirt, and not enough foot print to follow so I would say scariness level close to the first but this part will probably clear next week since there’s not much snow left
Trail crest: like veryone said, longest 1.9 miles ever! We took 2-3 breaths per step because elevation. Level 9/10 for sure. Took us 2.5hrs to summit
The switchbacks on the way back was not as scary because we’ve done them before but they were more difficult because it’s hard to stablelize your axe in slushy snow and steps were a little more icy but we took our time and made it back
The hike back to portal same day was as brutal. Elevation wise no problem but I was hurting everywhere and it seems like I’ve been walking for days. Took us 4hrs down from trail camp
I know our pace may seem really slow but I just wanted to put some perspectives for novice hikers on here so they know what to expect. We did see a lot of people blazing that trail fast like elevation was no big deal (although they did have only a day pack and we had 35lbs each). We did see some people going thru those death obstacles with ice axe and no spikes so it depends on how confident you are with ur footing and whether you want to take that risk
Anyway, have a good day everyone. I think those snow patches will completely clear in a couple of weeks but not before that unless another big group will trek through and clear it.
Please be careful and be safe out there. Remember to wear sunscreen or better yet one of those neck uv protection thing and cover your face. My face is completely sunburn, windburn, chillburn and it’s kinda dusty out there so it helps protect your throat and nostrils since you’re breathing pretty hard
