April 9th, 2010 Mountaineers route, Mt Whitney

Climber heading up the chute Summit ridge from Lower Boy Scout Lake

Me heading up to Iceberg Lake

View frok Lower Boy Scout towards the Crest

Warren and myself at start of climb

Took off on Thursday afternoon, meeting Warren in Lone Pine about 5 pm or so. We got our permit, checked into the Whitney Hostle, and then headed out for pizza. Got back to the hostle, and had cocktails out on the veranda, where we ended up meeting the owner, Doug. We sat and talked to him for almost an hour, picking his mind about what we could expect up the North Fork of LPC. Friday we took our time and got started about 1 PM or so. It took us about 4 and a half hours to get from the trail head up to Lower Boy Scout Lake, via the bottom of the canyon. That hike took longer than I thought it would, mainly because we were not that familiar with the route. Spent the night at LBSL,spending some time after dark star gazing, and took off the next morning for Upper BSL. We got there and found what we thought was the best tent site available, an already dug out platform. We melted some snow for water and got to bed at a reasonable time, the wind blowing the entire time. The next mornng it was blowing even worse , but we took off for Iceberg Lake, without helmets or climbing gear. We got up to Iceberg Lake, enjoying the bad weather as it was. After being at 13,000 feet for a while , we came back down and packed up camp> I will admit, I thought it was a mistake, as I figured it would take a lot longer to get down to the paved road than it did. After getting back to Whitney Portal, we hiked down the road to the cars, helping some guy get his truck past the snow plow spot. We made it down and had burgers , and then found out we missed the time cutoff for staying at the hostel. Warren took off for home and I drove 30 miles south of town and crashed for the night. The next morning was an incredible drive through the desert to get home. A great trip all in all, even though we did not make the top.