[pct-l] Trail Crest to Whitney Portal/ Lone Pine

[Brian Lewis]

To Will's comment of "Hopefully the trail down from Whitney will be
relatively ice/ snow free by the time I arrive around June 19th",
Brick Robbins replied: "Not likely        Bring an Ice Axe".

FWIW, I started in the Sierras on June 7th last year, and after some fairly
easy snow down near Guitar Lake, the trail up to and at the top of Whitney
were essentially snow free on June 11th.  If anywhere I might have used the
axe at Forester Pass the next day, but in fact really did not, and mailed it
home later on, before finishing the Sierras.

I'm not saying that my experience is necessarily typical or that my choices
of equipment to use (or not use) in snow are inherently correct for everyone
(!), but in a low snow year I would at least suggest looking at trail
journals of early hikers to see what they have to say about actual
conditions.


Brian Lewis / Gadget '08
http://postholer.com/brianle