I didn’t get to the trailhead until about 10:00, and the road was washed out, so I had to add half an hour for the hike up to true trailhead. I considered taking the Neiderbrum trail, since it was an easier start, but I didn’t know what it would be like up above, so I decided to take another shot at the snow gulch route.
The first part was the worst. Eventually I found the flagged trail, and it got easier after that. Still, it took an hour and a half to get out of the brush. Some of that was really unpleasant, and a good worker would have brought the roll of survey tape to mark the trail better for future climbers.
After I got out of the brush, I had to cut between the rock outcroppings on the way up the face of the mountain. I wasn’t in the shade, unfortunately, I was in the sun the whole time. It was kind of a long, slow slog up the mountain, and I used all but one of my wands, as well as sticking every branch I could find upright in the snow, to help me find my way out.
The time went more quickly than it felt like it should; I made good time, but the summit kept receeding. I thought I didn’t need to turn around at 2:00, since I got such a late start, I’d turn around at 2:30. Then 3:00 came, and I was still going, much further up the mountain, crossing over increasing large and deep glide cracks. At around 4:15, I came up over what I thought was the last rise, only to find myself actually on the summit plateau, another twenty minutes or so from the base of the rocky summit itself. At this point, I saw two guys heading away from the summit, heading towards what looked to me to be the Neiderbrum trail. I was pretty worried about getting down okay, so I invited myself down with them. They were Matt and Mike, who had come separately but teamed up. Matt had brought some friends (some people from South Africa) up the day before, but they weren’t interested in summiting, and Mike came along, solo, so the two of them teamed up. Which was a good thing, since the ice ramp up to the summit was pretty dicy, apparently.
The summit of Whitehorse is different from most other summits I’ve been on. It’s really a world apart from the rest of the climb, kind of spooky and other-worldly. I came away from this climb feeling like I would like to do it again. Since I didn't make the true summit, I guess I need to ultimately. The problem is that the lower mountain is so problematical: you need a good snow cover to get over the bushwhacking, but if it's powder snow, it's not feasible at all. I should have done it a week earlier; there would have been much more snow on the climb.