Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Question about Climbing the shute

What are the best times to climb up and down the shute, assuming good weather> I will appreciate the info.

When it's good and solid, if it's like climbing on just about any other snow covered mountain. Early mornings before the sun can get to it is going to be your best bet in this case. Wait too long and it gets soft and slushy, and you start sinking in. Time and energy lost. That's my opinion, anyway. That's how we are planning to tackle it.

Make that times 2. Your crampon bite in solid stuff much better than slop.

When we can back from the summit in mid-May 2007, once we were through glissading we postholed all the way back to the trail...talk about a pain in the rear end.

I was up there this past Sat and climbed the Chute.... starting at 7:10am. I would NOT have wanted to start climbing the Chute much later than that. We topped out at 8:45am and it was pretty soft. we glissaded down around 12:15pm and it was soft...

Keep in mind Summer has FINALLY hit the Sierra so I would plan on perhaps hiking the switchbacks. snow is melting fast!

truly the earlier the better.
I was on chute by 6:30 1 week ago.
It started slushing by 7:30.

My descent at noon was slush city.

slush can be climbed, its just a bit of a slower go...

Jeremy