Hiking the Mt Whitney Trail in 30 Photos
The Eastern Sierra Nevada. North America’s mountain range of geothermal intensity, gold-encrusted foothills and doomed Donner family-fame boasts the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States: Mt Whitney. It’s one of the most popular trails in the country and extremely difficult to get passes. Even with the much-coveted July slot, it was a bit of a risk for my first backpacking venture. To best prepare, I packed in an extra overnight to help acclimate to the altitude, plenty of NSAIDs, and a brief crampon lesson for the unseasonable snows.
The Itinerary
Day 1: Drive to Lone Pine, California with an overnight at Cottonwood Pass Campground (10,000 ft)
Day 2: Whitney Portal Trailhead (8,010 ft) to camp at Consultation Lake (11,680 ft)
Day 3: Consultation Lake to summit (14,505 ft) and return
Day 4: Consultation Lake to Whitney Portal Trailhead & drive to SF Bay Area
The paradox of backpacking is that it’s so much greater than the sum of its parts. You begin to look around, actually connecting to your surroundings, admiring the light and sky and reflections and rivers. I left exhilarated, even considering three nights of fitful sleep on a gradually deflating sleeping pad. The experience was so awe-inspiring that I’m already planning the next one. Fingers crossed for a snow-covered Grand Canyon!
Looking west towards Bakersfield, an important thoroughfare in the central valley, which straddles the Sierra Nevada in the north and the Mojave Desert in the south. The Sierra Nevada mountains bisect a large part of California, making east-west travel particularly difficult.
Driving up to the Whitney Portal Trailhead after a hot breakfast at Lone Pine’s Alabama Hills Cafe, named for the cartoonish geological formations flanking the bottom of the mountains (seen on the left). Arguably stranger than rocks with drawn-on human faces, the Alabama Hills were named by confederate sympathizers prospecting for gold. Since the 1930s, more than 400 movies were shot in this hallucinogenic, Arizona-esque backdrop at the base of the mountain. This trail sign directed us towards the permit-only Whitney zone. Unfortunately, a mild case of food poisoning and a (small) hangover kind of wiped out my enjoyment of the first 2 miles. I can’t say I remember too much of this part.
Looking down on Lone Pine Lake, one of the many gorgeous scenes to stop and rest. (It was still a little too hot for the mosquitos.) One of the many water crossings we encountered, made all the more extreme by the melting snow. We had already forded around five streams, rushing rivers, and waterfall edges by this point.
The friend affected most from the food poisoning looked worryingly wobbly on the last river crossing so we decided to take a half hour break to let him sleep off his nausea. We settled on this spot at Outpost Camp, in between a beautiful river-flooded meadow and waterfall. A series of deer calmly interrupted us force-feeding him a protein cookie.
Three backpackers on their way down from a summit attempt. Most people we passed told us they decided to turn around, unprepared for the snows.
Mirror lake from an off-trail vantage point. This was one of the many places where the path was completely snowed-over, leaving us to find our own way.
We stopped for the night just before trail camp (the usual backpackers’ camp site) opting for an area off-trail at Consultation Lake, still partly frozen in a basin encircled by snow-capped mountain ridges. After pitching camp, it was dehydrated Pad Thai (surprisingly delicious) with black raspberry tea. Dawn in the mountains was not as subdued as the pink dusk skies seen here. I’ve never seen a brighter, more intense 4:00am sun.
A snow-fed lake at trail camp, perfect for a morning pit stop to refill our water provisions.
Choosing remote, wild beauty over protection in numbers from Whitney’s food-raiding residents did have consequences. Some of these industrious marmots managed to pilfer food from our rock cairns, strewing trash everywhere. The whiskey survived untouched, however.
Backpackers creating their own path down the mountain. There were many times we lost the trail and had to stop and consult our GPS. I was wary of these crossings. Many were thinly-frozen sheets of increasingly slushier snow with hidden rivers beneath.
A wide view of trail camp, pausing for a long drink of our freshly-filtered water before the grueling summit push.
Looking up from trail camp towards the infamous switchbacks. From the photo, it is hard to appreciate the scale. Even there I felt like my perception was skewed, tripped up by odd angles and extreme perspective. Climbing the switchbacks took us around an hour-and-a-half.
Overlook towards trail camp, about an hour’s climb from the switchbacks. I had a hard time estimating how far we had climbed using only my eyes. The melting snow created these spectacular, impressionistic brush strokes of mountain water along depressions in the mountain face. Definitely the most beautiful part of the monotonous switchback climb.
The last stretch before trail crest. Unlike our peers ahead, we decided the snow was too slushy for crampons. With just some careful heel-toe boot steps we made it to the other side.
A close-up view through one of the windows along the back side of the mountain. The trail to the summit was completely snowed-over, which turned a grueling climb into a more technical one. I ended up tucking my poles away to take full advantage of my hands and feet, careful to not fall down into the snow bridges that form over some of the larger rocks.
The summit at a dizzying 14,505 ft! We brought a camp stove to make hot green tea to accompany our lunch (day-old cookies from a bakery in town and bison jerky).
The famous summit house, looking like something out of a Robert Frost poem. A quick peak inside revealed snow piled up to the windows and Inyo National Forest rangers camped inside.
The view southeast from the summit. Remarkably, the tallest point in the contiguous US is just 90 miles away from the lowest point. Badwater Basin in Death Valley is 279 ft below sea level, pointed out at top right by one of the rangers.
Looking west across the Sierra Nevada from the summit before heading back down, a different way. The boot trail from Trail Crest down what hikers refer to as “the Chute,” a 1200 vertical foot snow gully shortcut down the mountain.
No more switchbacks! Glissading to Trail Camp with the help of my ice axe cut two hours off the descent. The only trade-off? Wet boots. Next time I’m packing gaiters.
