Hey Bob, thanks for the reply,
I agree that poor conditions can get pretty treacherous. I have no interest in going if that's the case. I just said June because I assumed that would be around the time where the snow should be more or less firm while the rocky sections should be manageable. It's way too early to tell since the lottery hasn't even opened, but I will change plans accordingly on how the conditions turn out. We were just looking for a snow and rock climb, and this route seemed to offer both. As for the ratings, based off of what I can see in the video, it looks well within my capability. It's probably foolish of me to assume that just based off a few videos, but I don't really have that much of an issue with turning around if it really does that bad.
And no offense was taken. I am more than happy to admit that I am not too experienced in mountaineering. It's just that a ~45 deg snow climb along with a class 3 scrambled seems like a really, really fun way up Whitney. I actually read a review of the route on AllTrails and this lady said "this route is extremely dangerous, you're making class 5 moves on the Final 400, and if you're at the notch, just go to the summit and don't descend because it'll be too dangerous to descend via this route". I feel like she just wasn't prepared and this isn't good advice. But then again, AllTrails probably isn't the right place for info either.
I am concerned about the altitude. When I went up White Mountain Peak, I could really feel the thin air and doing a class 3 scramble at that altitude seems like a bad idea if I just came from sea level. I plan on arriving a few days before and acclimating by camping above 10k. We plan hiking out to the e-ledges the day before so I could set up electronic breadcrumbs on my phone to know where exactly to make the important turns. I'll be using caltopo on my phone for navigation and we'll have a total of 3 phones and a portable charger. I'm hoping that's sufficient as far as route finding is concerned, but we'll be really happy if we can just follow another group. As much as I want to prepare beforehand, I'm in northern Indiana for college so there aren't any mountains/boulders. The closest thing I can do probably is route finding up some engineering building.
