I had the luck of trying this climb, Mt Whitney, summit of the lower 48. I took my skis (they were a pain in the butt for the 10 days of roadtrip with full packed cars).
The climb was not hard nor very long, but Mark and I were tired by the previous days (35km run in Grand Canyon, sleepless nights ... etc), only I made it to the couloir and the summit. It was not a very challenging approach because we had a slow pace, then I started speeding up when hitting the couloir on my own, but I still felt good that day and the following ones.
The snow was not good as you may have guessed. The most impressive thing is probably that a buddy in our group climbed the route in the afternoon, from the Whitney Portal to the summit in less than 3 hours (while potholing), and down by the 99 switchbacks route, in about 6 hours if I recall correctly. We left at 1am and returned around 9pm, he left around 4 and returned at 10!
The summit had no snow, everything in the couloir seems to be mostly windloaded. This type of landscape is too dry for me, I'm happy to be back in the Northern Rockies and I'm looking forward to heading back to the Arctic/the Alps!
Song : Joe Bel - Ivory (Please)
(Thank you Mark!)
