Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion are the cables left up year round?

hi all. been lurking since day one. thank you for all of the info you have shared. it is appreciated.

i've recently heard that the cables between trail camp and trail crest used to be removed in the fall and reinstalled in the spring.

can anyone confirm or deny this?

if confirmed, any rough idea when the practice was discontinued?

thanks for your time!

There are lots of people here who are far more of an authority than I am. Especially since I'm pretty much a newbie...

however....

looking at this video...it's pretty clear that the cables were still up when there was still a fair bit of snow. And the second video is from 2008 and the top of the cables are in a bit of disarray. The broken part of the cables from 2008 were in the same broken configuration a month ago. So, I am pretty sure that they don't get removed and replaced every season.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmdw40izjcg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnUoolapBrc

If you are talking about the Mt Whitney Main trail cables on the switchbacks,yes they are left up year round.When the snow gets to a certain point the cables are buried and are by passed in favor of the bowl to the North.I have never heard of the cables being taken down like at Yosemite which maybe where you have heard about cables being removed.
The Whitney cables appear to be sunk into concrete and are fairly permanent now. I am not sure about the history though. There are several who can answer that question.

relying on three eyewitnesses, i've discovered that the cables between trail camp and trail crest were in fact removed in the fall and then reinstalled the following spring. it seems the practice was abandoned - the cables are now left up year round - sometime after 2000.

Bob R explained the same to me as we hiked past the cables recently. Apparently it was quite expensive to send a crew up twice a year to do the work, and the Forest Service has been dealing with continuing budget cuts for years.

If you look at the posts, you can see the taller pipes fit over smaller ones that are anchored into the rock.

If an avalanche hits them, everything will be bent over, and it will be a big mess!

Once there is enough snow, the best route up and down will be the slope to the right of the switchbacks. The cables will be irrelevant and buried in snow until at least May.

talking about cables - this is a different view:

Interesting app, Fishmonger.

I am curious... is that a view from this past summer, with the new permit quota in place? Any idea what day and time you were there?

It would be cool if you had a zoom-in on the pile of gloves.

i think the pile of gloves can be seen by finding the rectangular "be careful" plaque on the right-hand side of the cables near the bottom of the cables. then go almost due "south" where there appears to be a young lady wearing a cap and blue shorts. at / near her feet, i think that's the pile of gloves. at least that's about where i remember seeing the pile last year.

it's not my "synth" as these things are called - the data on the site states "Date Created 9/6/2009" so the images are 2009 or prior.

not sure your point.

i was only stating that when i was there in october 2009 there was a pile of gloves in the approximate location of where there appears to be a pile of gloves on the "synth" - very cool by the way - you posted. obviously, the pile of gloves can wander, grow larger and smaller, and perhaps even disappear and then reappear as time goes by.

Another synth: Midnight lightning.