Ski mountaineering Climbing

The main trailheads are around Whitney Portal which is W up from the town of Lone Pine. The road up to it gets lots of sun, and the upper section faces SE, so it tends to melt out early, but need to watch out for fallen rocks on the road. Often can drive up to within a mile from the summer trailheads in springtime even before the road is plowed to the end.

North Fork Lone Pine Creek tours: First ski or walk on the road to the summer parking at Whitney Portal - GPS latitude longitude approx (N36.5863 W118.2411). If there's good snow cover down to near the parking, can just ski W up into the North Fork drainage (N36.5868 W118.2474), and roughly just follow that up toward your desired ski peak or descent. If the creek is well-covered, no need to use the Escherbacher ledges up high along the N side, just ski the creek. Later season when the creek is not snow-covered, flow might be so deep and strong that accessing ski objectives is impossible (so consider skiing in South Fork instead).

South Fork Lone Pine Creek tours: First ski or walk on the road to the summer parking at Whitney Portal - GPS latitude longitude approx (N36.5863 W118.2411). Most of the lower sections of the summer hiking trail face SE and get lots of sun so they lose much of their snow cover early, and in late spring or low snow years the hiking trail could be the easiest way to approach. But if there's good snow cover down to somewhere in range of the parking, the strategy for big skiing vertical is to exploit low sheltered snow on the NW-facing slopes of the lower valley. Key to connecting to those slopes is a footbridge over the creek at (N36.5861 W118.2405) between S side of parking and summer picnic area.
It's nice to check those slopes out first on ascent, and they're sustained steep (like 30-35 degrees) up to Lone Pine Lake (N36.5764 W118.2474), so consider bringing ski crampons / harscheisen / cutters / couteaux, or even boot crampons. If not much snow down low, likely better to avoid some difficult dense vegetation by first hike directly steep S from the footbridge up the slope about 500 feet to say around (N36.5850 W118.2400), before traversing SW.

Meysan Lakes basin tours: Trailhead - roughly around (N36.5880 W118.2252) - is S from the access road before its end, through a summer campground. Disadvantage of skiing in this basin is that the lower trail sections are on SE slope so lose snow quickly, and there's not much alternative, so plan on some hiking carrying skis.