Mt. Whitney claims a hiking lifestyle during the week during the snow season

Snow has claimed a life on the highest mountain in the continental United States before returning, according to the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office, with the death of a hiker in a slide on Mount Whitney.

Over the weekend, pedestrians fell on the infamous “99 Switchbacks” section of the main route, said Lindsay Stein, community outreach coordinator for the sheriff’s office. The switchbacks begin at approximately 12,000 feet above the trail camp, where most hikers spend the night before setting out in the morning for the 14,500-foot summit.

In the summer, when the trail is dry, the switchback section is a long slog, two miles round trip and nearly 2,000 vertical feet of wind.

When it snows heavily, as it did this month, the trail gets buried and the whole hill gets dangerously wet.

Wes Ostgard, who said he has climbed Mount Whitney four times, posted on Facebook that conditions were so treacherous Saturday that he and his climbing buddies decided to turn back.

“The winds were very strong, and with the last snow, the wind blew the snow in our faces,” wrote Östgaard. Snow covered the trail and made it “invisible” in many places.

As Östgaard and his friends descended the switchback, they encountered the body of another hiker who had apparently fallen onto a section of steel safety cables and then thrown another 70 feet or so.

“I believe it is highly unlikely that he will survive,” Östgaard wrote of Sindgar. “There was a fair amount of blood from her [colliding with] Cables, and a lot of blood around a rock he came into contact with.

Östgaard used Starlink to contact her father at around 12.30am, who then called emergency services. A helicopter arrived about four hours later, Östgaard wrote.

Another hiker that day, Kirill Nowitsky, encountered similar conditions on the switchback but made the “wrong decision” to continue climbing.

He’s only made it with micro-spikes — tiny metal cleats that attach to the bottom of the shoe and provide winter traction on flat ground — or on gentle slopes where falls aren’t a big deal.

But microspikes are notoriously inadequate for winter mountain climbing, when falls can be fatal.

As often happens in the mountains, when Nowitsky returned from the summit after hiking for several hours on relatively flat ground, he found that conditions had deteriorated to such an extent that he was in real danger and severely underequipped.

“I had a couple of dangerous spots where the trail became full of powder snow, and it was very easy to fall off,” Nowitzki wrote on Facebook. “The worst part on the way back was the switchbacks. Almost the whole way was covered in powdery snow brought with the wind, it was very difficult to walk with only micro spikes.”

Near the cables he saw a pair of walkers with no one around and then at the bottom of the switchback he encountered a group of five messengers who told him about the incident.

Anyone attempting to climb Mount Whitney from this point in the winter should bring crampons — very large spikes that attach firmly to mountaineering boots and dig deep into the snow and ice to prevent falls — and ice picks.

Experts also advise traveling in groups and bringing a satellite communication device to contact help if something goes wrong.

The Sheriff’s Office has not yet released the identity of the deceased passenger.

In January, a hiker from Texas died after attempting to climb Mount Whitney in bad weather. His body was found near the North Fork Lone Pine Creek Trail at an elevation of 12,000 feet.

In June, a 14-year-old hiker on Mount Whitney became disoriented and fell off a 12,000-foot cliff. He survived.