Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Mt Whitney Main Trail in April for someone from the tropics

Hello,

I'm from Singapore - an island country in tropical South East Asia. I'll be visiting the US for 2 weeks in early to mid April 2016. One of the things I would really like to do is summit Mt Whitney during my trip.

I've spent a fair bit of time reading through the posts on this forum to understand what it'll take to attempt a summit in April.
1. It'll be a winter hike with plenty of snow.
2. It'll be highly weather dependent.
3. There may not be a lot of other climbers at this time of the year (especially on the Main Trail) and unless I get company, it'll be a solo climb.
4. It would require snowshoes / crampons + ice axe usage with good self-arrest skills.
5. Altitude acclimatization will be highly important.
6. It will be physically challenging to say the least.


Some details about my physical condition and training status:
1. Unfortunately, I live in a country where the highest point is 538 feet! So my daily training is limited to running, cycling and climbing staircases of skyscrapers (thankfully, there are plenty of these!)
2. I currently have a daily routine of climbing 4 x 47 floors (1880 feet) which I plan to scale up to 10 x 47 floors + running + cycling towards late March to build up my stamina and endurance.
3. I have done a few 12-13k feet mountains in the tropics (no snow, obviously) in the past couple of years. I've also done some 13k mountains in the Himalayas 6-7 years ago that had low amounts of snow.
4. My friends and I have scheduled a climb of Mount Kinabalu (13.5k feet) on 1st April which should help with asserting fitness and altitude tolerance. This will be my second time on this mountain and the first time was uneventful.
5. I've had basic training using crampons and an ice axe with fair bit of self-arrest practice while glacier climbing in Iceland. Not at any significant altitude unfortunately.
6. I probably don't have the level of fitness and experience required to do the Mountaineer's Route even with a guided group.


With the above points in mind, I've come up with the following plan:
1. If the weather is conducive, I'll look to drive to Whitney Portal by the morning of 18th April.
2. Begin the Main Trail trek to Trail Camp on the same day and camp there overnight for acclimatization.
3. Again, depending on weather, attempt to summit on 19th April and come back down to Trail Camp.
4. If I'm physically up for it, come back down to Whitney Portal on the same day. If not, camp for one more night at Trail Camp and come back down to Whitney Portal on 20th April.


Phew, that took a while to type! With the above in mind, I had a few questions I would really appreciate if you could answer:
1. Probably the most important question - with my level of experience / training and the usual Whitney conditions in April, am I being too ambitious to attempt Whitney?
2. What would be a better choice given usual conditions in April - snowshoes (no experience using them) or crampons (done a few hikes with them)?
3. Am I missing on anything important or anything else I can do to improve my chances of summiting / summiting easily?


Disclaimer: I understand that it's too early in the year to predict the April weather, snowpack and other conditions (especially since it's an El Nino year). I will continue monitoring the conditions as it gets closer to the date but my aim of this post is just to prepare myself in the best way possible.


Thanks in advance!

Welcome, Shri S,

It is clear you have done much research and are working on being in great physical shape. That is a big step toward succeeding in your climb.

Here is my first thought regarding your line:
6. I probably don't have the level of fitness and experience required to do the Mountaineer's Route even with a guided group.

With your fitness and experience, you are a prime candidate for a guided group. Guided groups are about the only ones ascending Mt Whitney in April. Nobody will be trying the Main Trail in April.

The snow will be deep and soft at that time, especially if this El Nino weather pattern we are having continues. Since you will be alone, you will be trying to break trail through miles of soft snow -- pretty much impossible for a lone hiker. If you were in a group where the front man could break trail for a while then rest and let someone else go, the group would have a more likely chance of succeeding.

That is why you should go with a guided group. Multiple people can help each other break trail. They do the Mountaineers Route because it is shorter and more direct, with fewer miles to break trail in soft snow.

Please check with guiding groups. SMI and SMC are two to start with.

Thanks Steve. I'll definitely take a look at the guided tours along the Mountaineer's Route. Although I must admit that it was one of your posts about MR that made me skeptical about my ability to do it!

http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/topics/2358

"I cannot say it more clearly than this: The MR in winter is a prime example of something that only experienced mountaineers, who are skilled in technical winter mountaineering, should undertake. You need both the background to know what to do and how to do it, and the breadth and depth of experience with ice ax, crampons, and snow and ice rope work, to be able to do it safely. You must have practiced self-arrests repetitively, and you need to have the maturity, wisdom, and foresight to back off or change your plan if the conditions or weather dictate. Most often the situation is not this severe, but you always need to be ready for it. Climbing the MR in summer will not prepare you, nor will winter hiking with the occasional use of crampons and ice ax under benign conditions."

Reading that I feel like I'm not ready for it yet given my limited technical experience.

In any case, I will continue training and monitor the weather situation as it goes.

Shri, your list of training, along with your experience climbing in Iceland puts you way ahead.

That paragraph you quoted was posted by me, but written by Bob R, a mountaineer and Search-And-Rescue team member. It was written years ago (before Facebook, etc), when the Whitney Message Board was visited by many novices who would post that they just wanted to hit Mt Whitney in winter -- I think maybe their primary reason was that there is no permit quota.

So it was written to forewarn such people that they needed some winter mountaineering experience. You have some experience already, and are planning to get more. Keep up with your research, and I think you will be prepared to have a good experience.

Hi everyone,

A bit late but just wanted to update that I made the solo summit via the Main Trail + chute on 19th April. The help and information received on the forums was very useful and would like to thank you guys for that!

I decided against doing the MR because of schedule mismatch and my lack of confidence in being able to handle the technical route.

Will recap the Main Trail climb below in detail in case anyone needs any information but if it’s too spoiler-y please skip or skim:

1. Drove from the Bay Area on 17th April. As it was a 6+ hour drive, I managed to reach in the night and could not pick-up the permit the same day. Stayed at Lone Pine and picked-up some last minute food supplies that night.

2. Picked-up the permit from the Visitor Centre at 8am on 18th April. I was told that the last summit report they had received was from 8th / 9th April and there had been a couple of reports of people turning back after that because of unfavourable conditions.

3. Drove to Whitney Portal. As was mentioned here, there were serious road construction activities being carried on and had to be guided by the pilot car and flaggers closer to Whitney Portal. The drive took more than an hour because of stoppages.

4. Once at Whitney Portal, I could park the car close to the trail starting point and get the backpack ready. A list of items that I considered / carried:
a. 45L + 10L backpack
b. 3 season two person tent (It’s advertised as a 4 season tent but pretty sure it was just 3. But it was the only one I had)
c. 5F sleeping bag
d. Inflatable camping pad
e. Heavy Inner Thermals – Just took one top and one bottom
f. Glove Liners, good winter gloves
g. Insulated snow pants with built in gaiters (decided to leave my separate pair of gaiters behind due to this)
h. Mountaineering plastic boots
i. 10 point fixed crampons
j. Snow shoes (carried them to Whitney Portal but left them in the car due to weight. More about this later)
k. Hiking poles
l. Woollen beanie, balaclava
m. 80cm ice axe
n. 2L camelback – full
o. 0.8L insulated Nalgene bottle – full
p. One set of my usual hiking pants / top
q. One heavy Fleece jacket, one soft shell, one windproof / waterproof outer jacket
r. Two pairs of merino wool socks
s. Food – 4 packs of dehydrated meals, cliff bars, trail mix, jerky, chocolates
t. Medication – pain killers, bandages, Diamox (didn’t end up using as I was well acclimatized), water purifying tabs
u. Helmet
v. Backpacking gas stove, propane mix, one utensil, waterproof matchsticks
w. Headlamp + back-up batteries
x. Smartphone with 10000mah battery bank. I used the Gaia GPS app
y. Wet / dry wipes
z. And of course, the wag bag

Including the food and water, the pack weighed 36-37 pounds so I made the decision to leave the snow shoes behind.

5. I was able to make slow progress from Whitney Portal. There was patchy snow 1 mile in and pretty much full-on 2 miles in. Although there were multiple people and cars at Whitney Portal, I met only one gentlemen the whole day and that too at around 8500ft. He was in casual hiking gear and warned about heavy snow and confusing trails some feet up.

6. Although I didn’t meet anyone else on the trail, there were clear footprints in the snow that I could follow and refer to my phone GPS app any time the trail got confusing. I could use the plastic shoes all the way to Outpost camp and only put on the crampons past it. There was liquid water at Outpost but beyond it, I could only hear the trickle of flowing water but could not see it.

7. Reached Trail camp at around 4pm. The whole place felt like it had a snowpack of at least 3-4 feet. So the only place to set camp was on snow. As far as I could see, there were no other tents or people at Trail camp that day. The snow began to firm at around 5pm and I could set up my tent between rocks with some firm snow base.

8. The night was beautifully clear, very cold and not too windy. But I still had to sleep with all my gear. The mistake I had made here was not refill the water at Outpost thinking that I could still find a flowing source at Trail camp. I was left with only 0.8L bottle of water.

9. This delayed my start the next morning (19th April). Melting snow for water took a long time on the backpacking stove and moderately sized utensil. By the time I managed to get 2L of total water, it was already close to 8am. I staked the tent down with all the nails. Couldn’t find any stray rocks to put in the tent as everything was snow covered. As advised by the Visitor Center ranger, I kept one flap of the tent open and took all the food supply with me in the backpack just in case of marmots (didn’t see any though).

10. The snow was still firm on the chute but not for long. Once again, I could follow the footprints left behind and traverse across the chute. There were a few glissade marks as well. I saw just one set of footprints headed to the switchbacks so chose not to go that way. It took around 2 hours to reach the top of the chute. While I was close to the top of the chute, I could see another moving speck way below. Finally a human contact after 24+ hours of unnerving solitude!

11. He (Rick) made very fast progress and managed to catch up at Trail Crest. He had started from Outpost camp early in the morning and mentioned that there were two other gentlemen who were headed this way from there. The ridge was uneventful but had a lot of snow. Crampons and ice axe seemed absolutely necessary for the chute and beyond. Once more, there were clear footprints we could follow although we couldn’t see anyone else on the trail. Rick summited earlier as he had to return to Outpost by nightfall.

12. I believe Rick met a group at the summit that had come up the MR. I could only summit by around 1pm but by that time everyone had left the summit. Spent more than an hour at the summit as the weather was perfect. On the way back down, I met the two gentlemen that Rick had mentioned. It was around 2:30pm about 500 feet below the summit then. They were headed up.

13. Reached the chute by 4pm. I could tell that the snow had already firmed up a fair bit by then. So I tried playing it safe and glissading on existing marks and for short distances. But in spite of being cautious, I kept gathering a lot of speed and self-arresting was becoming more and more difficult. So I ended up walking down the rest of the way to Trail camp. My initial plan was to reach Trail camp, pack everything and then head down to Outpost for the fresh water supply on the same day but by the time I reached my camp, the wind had really picked up. There were regular gusts that made it difficult to pack the tent. In fact, I found the tent in a collapsed stage after the chute downward climb despite all the stakes. So I spent another night at Trail camp and had to melt more snow. This night was colder and windier. At some instances in the night, the gusts felt so strong that I thought the only thing holding the tent down was the fact that I was sleeping in it.

14. There was a gorgeous sunrise the next day (20th April). I could pack all my stuff in by 8am and make good downhill progress. The snow was a lot more patchy while going down (probably due to 3 days of clear skies). The trail felt a lot more active. I came across 2-3 people who were attempting to summit and a few others who were looking to head to Outpost and the lakes. Mirror lake was also partially thawed. I met the two gentlemen from the previous day. Apparently, they had summitted as well and managed to get to Outpost by 8pm the same day.


All in all a very memorable trip! I took a lot of photos and will post selected ones by this week. Thanks once again!

Excellent report, Shri! Excellent trip, too. Congratulations!

I am curious what type of stove you had. Was it a canister or one you have to pump to pressurize?

Looking forward to pictures.

I bought this one as it was the lightest one I could find:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B4FY8YO/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza

It doesn't work too well with the wind and not very stable with a snow filled utensil on top which is why I ended up baby-sitting the melting of snow into water for a long time.

@ShriS Awesome! I'm climbing with a friend on May 7th. What time did you leave your car in the AM and what time did you get to trail camp?

What time do you suggest we leave trail camp to summit?

Thanks!

I started the Whitney Portal trail at 11am. Had to pick up the permit from the Lone Pine Visitor Centre (which opens at 8am), grab a heavy breakfast, get to Whitney Portal through the construction zone and rearrange the backpack. So 11am was the earliest I could manage to start. Reached Trail camp slightly after 4pm with a 20 min break at Outpost for food and water.

The next day, as I mentioned in my post, left Trail camp for the chute at around 815am. Ideally, I would have started earlier if I had stocked up enough water. Was at Trail Crest by 1030am but I was slow on the ridge and only managed to summit by 1pm.

Let me know if you have any other questions. Good luck for your climb!

Shri, can we help with any pictures? Would sure like to see them!

Steve, here you go!
http://imgur.com/a/NQVNf

Please note that not all photos are in chronological order. I took some on the way down but changed the order of some to give a Start to Summit story feel.

Also, if any of the places are marked wrongly in the description, please let me know so I can correct them.

Thanks for the pictures Shri! I've linked a few here...

Your picture of dawn from Trail Camp is beautiful:




Nice picture from Trail Camp toward the 99 switchbacks and the "chute."



Looking down the chute toward Trail Camp.



The 1.9 mile ridge path along the needles leading to Whitney



Seconding morning at Trail Camp.
"Watching this, I was almost sad that I had to leave the camp behind and descend back to the normalcy."



Really nice pics Shri. Thank you! I'll post some in the Current Conditions thread, too.

Several comments: The "Sequoia" trees are actually Foxtail Pines, related to the Bristlecone Pines of the White Mtns, just east of Bishop.
If you do any more winter mountaineering, be sure to get a stove that burns liquid fuel, and has a pump to pressurize it. (MSR whisperlite or dragonfly) Those canister stoves don't work very well in the extreme cold.

Great report! I'm thinking of climbing in two weeks, would you still recommend snow shoes? Or the crampons will be good enough?

Also, did you bring a helmet with you?

thank you for the input!

Hi Shri!

That's a very good report on your experience.
You had mentioned that you had to take the chute as you didn't find enough marks on the switch back route? I was wondering if you even saw anyone coming by that route?
I come from a similar background as you are, in the sense, I live in Austin, Texas and there aren't too many peaks to train and I am doing something similar to what you had mentioned in one of your earlier posts. I am going to try and summit with a few of my buddies on May 13th.

@Steve C - I have been following the current conditions thread for a while now and noticed that no one took the switch backs and used the chute instead. Is there a very good reason to do that? I have no training with ice axe and was planning on taking the actual trail to summit. Is this a bad idea given I am trying this hike on 13th May ( in about two weeks from now).

Thanks in advance for your answers!

The chute is the most direct route up to Trail Crest. There were two inexperienced hikers who followed the switchbacks up -- picture in Current Conditions thread. But I think it just takes a lot longer in the snow and ice conditions.

There are videos linked on ice axe use in the Reference forum, first post. Watch them and decide. You should NOT glissade down the chute without an ice axe (ice axe is your braking device) OR while wearing crampons (broken leg can be the result.)

Thanks Steve, I'll keep that in mind for the next winter hike!

Iceclimber - I don't think you'll need snow shoes given the current trail conditions. Just the crampons with waterproof / snowproof shoes should suffice. The trail does not have deep snow anymore and is broken in quite well so unless there is a recent moderate / heavy snowfall or snow shifting wind, the conditions would remain the same.

Personally I didn't use snow shoes because I had no prior experience with them and because of the backpack weight.

Also, I used a helmet. But it's one of those things that you think was unnecessary until one rare day when it saves you from a serious head injury. So I cannot not recommend carrying it!

Good luck for your climb!

IdEaMaNi - I didn't see anyone taking the switchbacks route. The people I encountered on the trail (Rick and the two other gentlemen) took the chute. There were a set of footprints headed towards the switchbacks from Trail Camp though but I'm not sure of its condition this time of the year. My policy in general was to take the more heavily treaded path and there were more marks along the chute for sure.

If you are not experienced with ice axe usage, as Steve suggested, you can look up videos online beforehand. Then once you get to Outpost or Trail camp in the evening, you can practice self-arrest on a nearby slope several times. That should give you the confidence for the chute.

@Steve- Thanks a lot for the explanation. I will look up on Ice Axe usage. One of the friends in my group is practicing to summit Mt. Rainier and has a fair idea on Ice Axe usage. Regardless of that, I wanted to ask you experts on your opinion.

@Shri - Thanks for the reply! I agree with your policy. Following that gives a more confident approach as opposed to trying something else ( given we are all first time 14k hikers).


Thanks guys! I am excited but nervous!

You cannot learn by looking it up, or talking to a friend.

If you fall on snow and especially on ice, you have O.3 seconds to reflexively respond. Bad things happen fast. The only way to do that is with supervised practice on similar terrain. This must be done on the same steepness of slope and character, but with safe runout before you put your life on the line for real.