[pct-l] Best route to climb Mt. Whitney from west side (Crabtree M.) in snow?

[Joel Fisler]

Hi there,
I plan to hike up to Mt. Whitney from Crabtree Meadows next week. From reading trail journals it looks like the switchbacks above Guitar Lake up to near Mt. Muir can be icy and tricky. I remember from reading Yurtmans and Edelweiss and other early hikers trail journals that they just took a direct route boulder hopping without bothering about the Switchbacks. Looking at satellite images (google maps: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&ll=36.572596,-118.294151&spn=0.010667,0.018775&t=h&z=16) it seems as there is a slope south close to the Mt. Whitney summit that goes directly to near Guitar Lake. I was wondering if with the current snow conditions it might be easier just climb up that slope (around 2000 feet) instead of going south from Guitar Lake, up the slopes and then 2 miles north again on the ridge to Mt. Whitney. It looks easier and less dangerous but again, thats only from the satellite image. 

I understand that in snow free conditions taking the path is usually the way to go but now that everything is still snow covered it might be different? Faster and probably even less dangerous? What about avalanches?

Any comments from recent Thru-Hikers or other people knowledgeable about Mt. Whitney?

Bye
Joël

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Joël Fisler - joel at fisler.ch - http://blog.fisler.ch

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