Route Climbed: Mountaineer's Route Date Climbed: August 31 2003
We packed in from the Portal and set up camp at Upper Boy Scout Lake the previous day (climbed Russell that day as well). The weather was good on the day of our summit. There were a few patches of snow to skirt in the gully. We reached the summit 3 hours and 10 minutes after leaving UBSL. We descended back to UBSL to break camp and then back to the Portal.
Route Climbed: Whitney Trail Date Climbed: August 16, 2005
My son and I left the portal at around 4:30 am. Halfway to Lone Pine Lake, we caught two deer in our headlamps. They took their time moving away from us so we had a relatively long encounter with them. At sunrise, it was awesome to see our destination in the distance with the adjoining needle peaks in the dawn's early light. We hiked at a moderate pace and got to the summit before noon. While the day had been clear, the clouds rolled in on us when we summited and obscured about 270 degrees of vista. We had taken crampons and ice axes because it had snowed near the summit two days previously. However, the trail was clear all the way and so we just ended up hefting extra metal. Don't mind admitting I was feeling pretty fatigued on the way back down. When we got back to Lone Pine Lake, my brain went on autopilot knowing the end was only a couple of miles away. Brains on autopilot keep the legs and arms moving methodically until the destination is reached.
Mountain Jim - Feb 2, 2006 12:00 am Date Climbed: Jun 19, 1989
Route Climbed: East Face Date Climbed: June 1989
Round trip from Whitney Portal in a day. Great Route !!!
Route Climbed: standard trail Date Climbed: July 2001
What a cool feeling to summit the highest in contiguous 48 states. Feels very high up there being almost 11,000 vertical feet above the town of Lone Pine. Camped at 12,000 feet where it froze overnight, and then back down in the valley it was 100 degrees F later that day. Crazy! Good view of Kaweah's and Williamson.
Route Climbed: Horshoe Meadows - PCT - JMT Date Climbed: August 1990
My first mountain at the age of 15 with my dad and brothers. Two previous attempts with the family ended in failure. We definitely didn't adhere to the Leave no Trace ethic. I pack other people's trash out on trails now to make up the karmic deficit.
Route Climbed: East Face Date Climbed: July 28, 2005
Brother's wife runs off with an opera star, so we go climbing to clear is head and distract him from the distress. Half way up the east face we get off route on the Fresh Air Traverse and head up this heinously loose 5.9 variation while it starts to hail hammers and nails followed by a lightening storm the likes of which I'd never like to see again. Still, we continued up between strikes, one of which came in sideways with such force it knocked a large boulder off the top of Keeler. The buzz would build up and we hunkered down until it released, then climbed through. Snow hid most of the holds, and dressed for a summer outing we started to shiver with abandon. At some point we had to make a choice between freezing and getting flashed with the cold winning out by a small margin. Eventually we made it to the hut and my brother finally had a chance to do what he had come here to do—throw his wedding ring off the summit, the emotional wounds already starting to heal.
Route Climbed: Whitney Main Trail Date Climbed: August 15, 2003
Terrible weather on the summit day. Blowing hail, snow and freezing rain. Not a fun hike to the summit. But definetly worth it even though there were no views. I would love to go back and hike it again.
hundy - Jan 1, 2006 5:05 pm Date Climbed: Aug 11, 2005
Route Climbed: Whitney Main Trail Date Climbed: Aug 10, 2005
Awsome, a dream come true I have always wanted to get to the top of Whitney, but something always came up or got in the way. It was cold, there was some pretty bad electrical storms. I hope to try a different route in 2006
Route Climbed: Whitney Trail Date Climbed: August 25, 2005
Bagged highpoint # 34 while doing "Ascent for Autism Research" (AFAR). Excellent conditions, and managed to exchange our dayhike permits for the 25th for overnight 24th-25th permits - plenty of walk-ins available.
Route Climbed: Whitney Portal Date Climbed: August 2005
Beautiful, beautiful couple of days in the mountains. We spent the first night at Outpost, then we continued up to Trail Camp, where we set up a tent and then left for the summit. We summited pretty late, but the experience was again unforgettable. It got really cold after the sunset, so we were happy to find our tent pitched when we got back to TC. We just crawled into our sleeping bags and the next day we woke up to a gorgeous morning in the Sierras. Very nice hike, great weather and Kodak perfect scenery.
Route Climbed: main trail Date Climbed: 26 November 2005
First time ascend on a beautiful sunny day after heavy winds and some snow fall the afternoon and night before. Trail was easily managable with crampons.
Route Climbed: Main Trail Date Climbed: November 12th 2005
Did the trip to Whitney together with Deb and Red. After a freezing cold night at trail camp we started out at 7:15. The switchbacks were covered with lots of fresh windpacked snow. There were several points with exposure and steep snow. With ice axe and crampons quite manageable. The whole trail from the cables up to the summit was covered with fresh snow between a few inches and up to 2 feet. Breaking a trail under these conditions was very hard. After about 4:30 h I reached the summit and enjoyed the great view for a while. I was back at Trail Camp at about 14:30.
A trip report in German with many great fotos can be found on my webpage http://www.thomasbahr.de
Augie Medina - Feb 10, 2006 1:22 pm
Route Climbed: Mountaineer's Route Date Climbed: August 31 2003We packed in from the Portal and set up camp at Upper Boy Scout Lake the previous day (climbed Russell that day as well). The weather was good on the day of our summit. There were a few patches of snow to skirt in the gully. We reached the summit 3 hours and 10 minutes after leaving UBSL. We descended back to UBSL to break camp and then back to the Portal.
Augie Medina - Feb 7, 2006 8:26 pm
Route Climbed: Whitney Trail Date Climbed: August 16, 2005My son and I left the portal at around 4:30 am. Halfway to Lone Pine Lake, we caught two deer in our headlamps. They took their time moving away from us so we had a relatively long encounter with them. At sunrise, it was awesome to see our destination in the distance with the adjoining needle peaks in the dawn's early light. We hiked at a moderate pace and got to the summit before noon. While the day had been clear, the clouds rolled in on us when we summited and obscured about 270 degrees of vista. We had taken crampons and ice axes because it had snowed near the summit two days previously. However, the trail was clear all the way and so we just ended up hefting extra metal. Don't mind admitting I was feeling pretty fatigued on the way back down. When we got back to Lone Pine Lake, my brain went on autopilot knowing the end was only a couple of miles away. Brains on autopilot keep the legs and arms moving methodically until the destination is reached.
Mountain Jim - Feb 2, 2006 12:00 am Date Climbed: Jun 19, 1989
Route Climbed: East Face Date Climbed: June 1989Round trip from Whitney Portal in a day. Great Route !!!
Traipser - Feb 1, 2006 4:49 am
Route Climbed: Whitney Trail Date Climbed: July 2003A lovely stroll.
mkeselak - Jan 27, 2006 7:00 pm
Date Climbed: 3 Oct 2005long, hard but very good
mkeselak - Jan 27, 2006 7:00 pm
Date Climbed: 3 Oct 2005long, hard but very good
sprosseda - Jan 25, 2006 5:42 pm
Route Climbed: standard trail Date Climbed: July 2001What a cool feeling to summit the highest in contiguous 48 states. Feels very high up there being almost 11,000 vertical feet above the town of Lone Pine. Camped at 12,000 feet where it froze overnight, and then back down in the valley it was 100 degrees F later that day. Crazy! Good view of Kaweah's and Williamson.
Joseph Claghorn - Jan 24, 2006 11:09 pm
Route Climbed: Horshoe Meadows - PCT - JMT Date Climbed: August 1990My first mountain at the age of 15 with my dad and brothers. Two previous attempts with the family ended in failure. We definitely didn't adhere to the Leave no Trace ethic. I pack other people's trash out on trails now to make up the karmic deficit.
plume - Jan 3, 2006 5:40 pm
Route Climbed: East Face Date Climbed: July 28, 2005Brother's wife runs off with an opera star, so we go climbing to clear is head and distract him from the distress. Half way up the east face we get off route on the Fresh Air Traverse and head up this heinously loose 5.9 variation while it starts to hail hammers and nails followed by a lightening storm the likes of which I'd never like to see again. Still, we continued up between strikes, one of which came in sideways with such force it knocked a large boulder off the top of Keeler. The buzz would build up and we hunkered down until it released, then climbed through. Snow hid most of the holds, and dressed for a summer outing we started to shiver with abandon. At some point we had to make a choice between freezing and getting flashed with the cold winning out by a small margin. Eventually we made it to the hut and my brother finally had a chance to do what he had come here to do—throw his wedding ring off the summit, the emotional wounds already starting to heal.
In all, a great trip and a long day of climbing.
Smith93 - Jan 2, 2006 3:32 am
Route Climbed: Whitney Main Trail Date Climbed: August 15, 2003Terrible weather on the summit day. Blowing hail, snow and freezing rain. Not a fun hike to the summit. But definetly worth it even though there were no views. I would love to go back and hike it again.
hundy - Jan 1, 2006 5:05 pm Date Climbed: Aug 11, 2005
Route Climbed: Whitney Main Trail Date Climbed: Aug 10, 2005Awsome, a dream come true I have always wanted to get to the top of Whitney, but something always came up or got in the way. It was cold, there was some pretty bad electrical storms. I hope to try a different route in 2006
SawtoothSean - Dec 31, 2005 12:24 am
Route Climbed: John Muir Trail Date Climbed: September 27, 1995Not much to add- was a long day with great views of the Sequoia backcountry and made a nice friend on the trail
koz - Dec 30, 2005 8:46 pm
Route Climbed: Whitney Trail Date Climbed: August 25, 2005Bagged highpoint # 34 while doing "Ascent for Autism Research" (AFAR). Excellent conditions, and managed to exchange our dayhike permits for the 25th for overnight 24th-25th permits - plenty of walk-ins available.
BaurMichael - Dec 27, 2005 4:39 pm
Route Climbed: Up Mt. Whitney Trail, Down the John Muir Trail, Out Onion Valley Date Climbed: September 2 2005Michael Baur,
Kristin Long
Rileywyna - Dec 18, 2005 8:45 am
Route Climbed: walk up Date Climbed: june 199911 hours car to car
chris615 - Dec 9, 2005 5:42 pm
Route Climbed: MR Date Climbed: May 17th? 2005SOLO, couldn't find E-Ledges so it go interesting...
usarock69 - Dec 6, 2005 6:07 pm
Route Climbed: Whitney Portal Date Climbed: August 2005Beautiful, beautiful couple of days in the mountains. We spent the first night at Outpost, then we continued up to Trail Camp, where we set up a tent and then left for the summit. We summited pretty late, but the experience was again unforgettable. It got really cold after the sunset, so we were happy to find our tent pitched when we got back to TC. We just crawled into our sleeping bags and the next day we woke up to a gorgeous morning in the Sierras. Very nice hike, great weather and Kodak perfect scenery.
ptitzler - Nov 28, 2005 3:25 pm
Route Climbed: main trail Date Climbed: 26 November 2005First time ascend on a beautiful sunny day after heavy winds and some snow fall the afternoon and night before. Trail was easily managable with crampons.
graham - Nov 25, 2005 3:43 pm
Route Climbed: Main Trail Date Climbed: Oct-2-05Hiked the main trail the Mountaineer's Route a bunch of times.
Climbed the East Buttress twice (Sept-07) and (May-09)
aurora - Nov 21, 2005 7:16 pm
Route Climbed: Main Trail Date Climbed: November 12th 2005Did the trip to Whitney together with Deb and Red. After a freezing cold night at trail camp we started out at 7:15. The switchbacks were covered with lots of fresh windpacked snow. There were several points with exposure and steep snow. With ice axe and crampons quite manageable. The whole trail from the cables up to the summit was covered with fresh snow between a few inches and up to 2 feet. Breaking a trail under these conditions was very hard. After about 4:30 h I reached the summit and enjoyed the great view for a while. I was back at Trail Camp at about 14:30.
A trip report in German with many great fotos can be found on my webpage http://www.thomasbahr.de