Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion june 18th - 1st time summiting

Hi everybody,

I was hoping I could get some insight as to what to expect heading up Whitney on June 18. My brother and I are going as 1st timers on Whitney and by the amount of snowfall we may have to bring some winter gear. If anyone has gone up in early to mid June, I would appreciate any info on what to expect heading up the mountain. I've read the weather should be great, but a good amount snow may be present. We are headed up the Mt. Whitney Trail.

Welcome to the board. Do read all the Feature Topics (Left-hand side under the webcams.) That's why we are all here.

You will definitely have to go up the "chute" from Trail Camp to Trail Crest because the switchbacks will still be covered in snow.

That means you will have to glissade down, but you have to do it before the snow on the chute ices up making glissading difficult and even fatal.

To expand a bit on + @ti2d's comments - it's likely that trail between Trail Camp (about 12.2K') and Trail Crest (13.6K') will be covered in deep snow/ice, so the route will be a broad snow slope for that 1,100'. If you've never done one before, it can be somewhat daunting, but just remember to take one step at a time, breathe, and you'll be at Trail Crest in an hour or so, maybe less. Most people use crampons in these conditions, and often glissade (slide on one's butt) down. Be sure to remove the crampons before glissading, and use an ice axe as a brake to check your speed. The tricky thing about this slope is that it "pulls to the left", and you can be drawn into some large boulders towards the bottom, and if you're traveling too fast ... not good. So, the trick on this slope is to walk straight out, following the contour, for a couple of hundred yards, before beginning the slide, and this will help keep you away from the rocks. Keep in mind glissading is not a race - go slowly, braking frequently, and use your heels with caution. And, perhaps most importantly - due to the exposure of this slope it ices up rather early in the afternoon, you DON'T want to glissade if the snow has refrozen as it can be very difficult/impossible to stop. If you're back by 2PM to Trail Crest you should be OK.

If the prospect of glissading totally freaks you out, there's no shame in downclimbing. Just keep in mind it becomes more difficult if the snow has refrozen. In most instances you'd wear crampons for the downclimb.

The route between Trail Crest and the summit is usually more open due to a different exposure, but there's nearly always a rather large snowfield just below the summit. It's not tricky, however.

Thanks for the great advice. We are excited about the climb and what a great way to break into mountaineering with snow conditions. I am an avid hiker in AZ but do not have much snow experience. I appreciate you taking the time to share you knowledge of the mountain.

I'm in a similar boat. This will be our first attempt at the summit of Whitney, but we're headed up early July. In our group of 5, only two of us have any winter hiking/climbing experience, and most of that is from winter time ascents of Baldy and other SoCal mountains. The other 3 will probably be using crampons and an axe for the first time.

Any guesstimates as to how steep of a climb the chute is?

I've done many early July day hikes up the main trail and never used the chute. June and July are often two completely different situations. This year could be different, so be prepared....................................DUG

July 2nd 2010: http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/topics/5698/Whitney_Main_Trail_2_July#Post5698

Well, steep is always relative to what you've done before - what is steep to one may be mild to another.

IIRC, Bob R. once posted the angle, and I believe it was 35%.

I've been wondering that myself, assessing the hazards of another glissade.

35% would put it under 20 degrees of slope. Can that be right? It would also stretch that 800 foot elevation gain over almost half a mile, and a rough map check puts it at more like a quarter.

It is steep.It is the bowl that borders the infamous 97 switchbacks often refered to as the Mother F'en ball busting *&%$#ing switchbacks that take a heavy toll om MWMT summiters.So it is the same elevation change from 12K to 13.6K except straight up instead of the switchbacks.

KevinR wrote:
IIRC, Bob R. once posted the angle, and I believe it was 35%.

Just for fun, I used this map and did some calculations:


Using a Meters to feet calculator, a GPS distance calculator, and a Right triangle calculator, I got these numbers, using the distance between the 3860 m and 4160 m contours:

 metric   
contour   feet  gps locations
 3860    12664  36.561545,-118.287505
 4160    13648  36.558788,-118.289887
   
vertical:     984 feet
horizontal:  1223 feet
slope angle:   38 degrees
slope:         80%  (vertical / horizontal)

According to Wikipedia, the angle of repose of dry sand is 34 degrees. So these measurements correspond pretty well to that slope consisting of talus.

So the 38 degree slope is doggone steep! Nice to see that it is fairly close to Bob R's measurements.

It's a bit steep but definitely doable. Make sure to learn and practice, practice, practice self-arrest before the trip and you should be fine. Be sure to get an "alpine start" (get up before first light and start in the dark or at first light) or you stand a good chance of coming back down when the chute is starting to get icy and hard. We made that mistake and fiddled around in the morning getting started which put us back to the top of the chute around 3:30ish(?) and it had gotten shady at the top which made downclimbing a real pain. We ended up glissading the bottom half where the snow got softer.

Let's see if I got this right, you just got your learner's permit and you want to get on the 405 at rush hour.

As people have pointed out...and the Inyo National Forest at one time with signs along the trail..."People Die Here!"

I have been up the chute and this in many ways is the least of your worries. The physical climbing is always the least of the worries. Its the ability to to make the right decision and ability to recognize there is a decision that has to be made.

I take a few of noobs out each winter and none are real quick on the switch when it comes to recognizing what is dangerous.

My altimeter consistently shows Trail Camp at 12,300' after being reset to 11,500' at Trailside Meadow. The climb up the chute is about 1,000'...or a little more, from where you actually start. With that said, it's that 1,000' is a heck of a lot of work. Personally, I found the westside more difficult because you have get in out of your fangs a bunch of times.

I found the closest thing to puck moment on the icy side slope on Mt. Whitney...a fall without a quick self arrest would result to a visit to The Tarns at 11,700'.

Here's a very good discussion from 2007, including the ice axe use video from the British Mountaineering Council that everyone should watch:

    Glissading from Trail Crest

Nice work on the calculation, Steve. To give Bob full credit, his calculation must have been 35 degrees, not 35%.

Here's another way to view the relative steepness of this slope -

if you're a skier (lift-served variety), then this slope would probably be rated about an Advanced Intermediate slope. I appreciate that ratings as to what constitutes Beginner, Intermediate and Expert vary by ski area, but in my experience as a skier, this is about where I'd peg it.

wbtravis, you and your altimeter are consistent, but you would get better results by resetting to 11,086 feet, instead of 11,500. 11,500 feet is about 500 feet above the lowest elevation of Trail Meadow.

If you click and drag the map above a little to the right, you can see the benchmark labeled 3669.5 right there at Trail Camp. That puts the elevation at 12039 feet.

I pulled up a Garmin GPS track from a hike I did up the snow chute, and had set a waypoint at Trail Camp (12,042'). You climb a bit to where the steeps begin on the chute (12,600') and at Trail Crest it read 13,591'.