My group (me, the wife and our 75lb dog) started our climb at 0800HRS from Whitney portal after a breakfast of their humongous pancakes. My pack was 50Lbs, hers was 30lbs. I have to admit, the dog had to pull me up over some switchbacks. The dog enjoyed it more than we did, being allowed to swim in the different water obstacles we came across. We took our time since our goal was only to Trail camp. We got to Outpost camp at 1:50pm and to Trail Camp at 7pm. We used the wag bag for the dog's poop. We started down the next day (july 5) at 10am arriving at the portal, 3pm. The dog was okay but exhausted.
There were only 2 snow covered parts of the trail after Mirror lake but these were minimal. A lot of friendly people were on the trail going up and coming down. There were numerous water sources along the way. I regretted bringing about a gallon and a half when I could just as easily filter there. People at trail camp coming back from the summit stated that they were using the switchbacks with some snow left but not needing to use their crampons or axes. The varmints never bothered us maybe because of the dog, but you could hear them all around. I should have gotten my wife better prepared for her first backpacking trip than a Whitney hike. But she was a trooper and made it up with a lot of grumbling and cursing. We will do the trip to the summit on another day.
Lone Pine was HOT yesterday. By the time we got to town at 4pm, the temperature registered almost a 100F.
