The plan was to ski the mountaineer's route on Mt Whitney, but sometimes the best plans can bring the worst weather. So we delayed our climb, checked the forecast, watched the storm from the Alabama Hills, and finally picked a day that looked promising. When we picked up our permits at the ranger station in Lone Pine, the ranger referred to the weather and said "good luck!" While new snow might make for some decent skiing, it also led to slipping and post-holing between snow covered rocks and a some route finding challenges. With ski gear, my pack weighed in at a respectable 60 lbs, so it's safe to say we were having solid type II fun by the time we made camp at upper boy scout lake.
After a cold and sleepless night of chasing mice out of the mid, day 2 brought out the sun. While our frozen feet rejoiced, the May sun went to work on all that fresh snow. We were pleasantly surprised to find several feet of cold new snow in the gully leading up from Iceberg Lake. Unfortunately things warmed up, and new snow + rapid warming tends to lead to problems. After witnessing a few small wet slides, we made a retreat from the notch below the summit, finding some nice turns and a few rocks on our way down. We climbed around 5600' for our 2500' of vert, but all made it safely down before the burger joint in Lone Pine closed for the night. Success. Although the summit will have to wait for another time, it was still a pretty incredible experience to ski in such a beautiful place.
