This is a brief description of the backpacking trip to Mt. Whitney in which I participated from September 16 to September 21, 1996. The participants of the trip were Adam Garrison, Mike Guadman, Sudipto Sur, Tricia Waniewski, and me, Mike Kaneshige. Adam and Mike originally organized the trip in consultation with Trish. Trish, Sudipto, and I went on a trip the previous summer that followed a similar plan, except for the addition of an excursion up Caltech Peak. That trip was cut short, however, so that this trip constitutes its completion.
We drove up to Lone Pine and set up a car shuttle on September 16, and found it to be quite a bit colder than we expected. We parked one car at Whitney Portal, where we met some backpackers who had been caught on the summit in snow. Another fellow had started out on a photographic expedition through the Sierras but turned back because it was too late in the day. When we went to camp at the Onion Valley campground, we found that it had closed for the winter. We stayed there anyway.
On the first morning, I saw my first wild bears. That's the baby on the right and the mother on the left. They were looking for food in the campground, and wandered by our tent. The cub was lagging behind and the mother almost put me between them, but I yelled at the cub and got it to run after its mother.
The first morning started at 6:45 am, but we didn't get moving until 9am. It was around 35 degrees Fahrenheit and nobody felt like moving. The hike up from Onion Valley is pleasant:
| Location: | Miles from start | Elevation (ft) |
| Onion Valley Campground | 0.0 | 9193 |
| Little Pothole Lake | 1.3 | 10,036 |
| Gilbert Lake | 1.8 | 10,417 |
| Flower Lake | 2.1 | 10,531 |
| Bench Lake | 2.6 | 10,885 |
| Heart Lake | 3.0 | 10,810 |
| Kearsarge Pass | 4.0 | 11,823 |
Hiking down from Kearsarge Pass, we passed Bullfrog
Lake, met the Muir Trail,
and descended into the Vidette Meadow / Bubbs Creek Valley. To the right is the
view of this valley coming down the trail.
| Kearsarge Lake | 5.1 | 10,896 |
| Bullfrog Lake | 5.7 | 10,610 |
| Muir Trail | 6.2 | 10,630 |
| Vidette Meadow | 7.8 | 9580 |
We got started on our second morning around 8:30 am.
On the second day we had our first serious challenge -
Forester's Pass. The hike up from Vidette Meadow is very pretty but also
very strenuous and reaches elevations where altitude sickness becomes a
factor. To the right is a picture of the other four participants, looking
back down the valley and at the tree line. Below is another picture
looking back down the valley, but from a much higher point.
Forester Pass was a bitch, as it was the year before. We did not
make good time, because of the altitude, and reached the pass at 3pm.
At least the trail was clear of snow this year.
We left a young guy below the pass, waiting for his father, and
wondered later if they made it.
To the left, below, looking up toward Forester Pass, is a
pack train that passed us just below the pass. This was the last time we
saw them, but we kept encountering the people they supplied until Whitney.
Below, right, three of us are lounging in the pass. Forester Pass offers
splendid views, especially down the Kern Canyon.
After Forester Pass, we decided to push on to the Tyndall Creek Trail
junction in order to maintain our schedule for reaching Whitney. Even
though the hardest part of the day was over, the downhill was brutal
on our legs. To the right is the East face of Caltech Peak, from about
the point where we camped
last year. It's not a very good picture because of the location of the
sun, but I wanted to record the difference between last year and this year.
Below, we are resting on the long, tedious, rapid descent from Forester Pass
to our second night camp. From here, we had a great view of the Kern
Canyon, Diamond Mesa, and Mt. Tyndall.
| First night camp | 10.4 | 10,499 |
| Forester Pass | 14.8 | 13,180 |
| Caltech Peak | 16.1 | 12,139 |
| Lake South America Trail | 18.7 | 11,089 |
| Tyndall Creek Trail | 19.2 | 10,892 |
We got started on the third morning around 8 am.
The third day was mild, with little elevation gain and loss, and we saw
a lot of different terrain. Here we were in the Bighorn
Plateau, where
we got our first glimpse of Mt. Whitney (supposedly somewhere behind us).
The loss of a roll of toilet paper nearly started a riot, but some friendly
older hikers (the ones with the pack animals) graciously resupplied us.
The trail finally turned uphill after Crabtree Ranger Station, and we
stopped at Guitar Lake around 4:15 pm. Timberline Lake was in our plans
as a possible stopping place, but it was off limits to camping. Guitar
Lake was already heavily occupied, and the lack of organic soil and the
proximity to water made disposal of human waste a serious problem. The
photographer from the stop at Whitney Portal made it over the ridge and
camped near us after offerring some herbal relief. This was our first
night without a bear box, and we made an enormous deal out of constructing
a marmot-proof food storage system. Our food was untouched in the morning.
The fourth day was the climax of our trip, because we did some of our most vicious climbing (up the back side of Mt. Whitney), made the summit of Mt. Whitney, and could look forward to nothing but downhill. Below, left, is a shot on the trail up from our camp at Guitar Lake. Guitar Lake is visible on the right (it barely looks like a guitar), and Lower Hitchcock Lake is visible on the left. At Trail Crest, we dropped our packs among many others and headed up the summit trail, lightly loaded. Below, right, is the trail to the top of Mt. Whitney. It's supposed to be an easy mile from the Trail Crest junction, but I found it to be longer, rougher, and in places more difficult to find than I expected. Part of the trouble is from the altitude, of course.
Eventually we made it to the top. Here's me standing on the highest point
I could find. Below, I'm standing next to the hut at the summit, with
the view to the West behind. Very faintly, several small forest fires
are visible.
Naturally, there were also splendid views to the
North, South, and
East.
We made the summit around noon, which felt almost too late, even
though others were heading up as we headed down. When we were near
the top (Mike Guadman was on the summit), an Air Force F-15 buzzed the
summit a few hundred feet above. The summit is equipped with a latrine
(which I didn't bother using), several markers, and a hut that is partially
locked. Amusingly, or perhaps sadly, of the two dozen or so people at
the top when we were there, at least 4 cellular phones were operating
at a time.
After retracing our steps to Trail Crest, we headed down the steep,
sometimes icy path to the base of the cliffs below Mt. Whitney. The
summit was in clear view (right, that's Mike Guadman hanging out on the
trail) almost the entire way down.
We reached Trail Camp around 5 pm and were directed to a secluded camp
site by a ranger. Bear boxes were generally unavailable, so we hung our
food bags from a cliff to ward off marmots. Mice were the biggest problem.
Solar latrines were available but stunk miserably.
Here's the last table of distances and elevations:
| Bighorn Plateau | 22.8 | 11,200 |
| Wright Creek | 25.8 | 10,800 |
| Wallace Creek | 26.8 | 10,500 |
| Crabtree Ranger Station | 30.8 | 10,600 |
| Timberline Lake | 33.3 | 10,700 |
| Guitar Lake | 34.5 | 11,482 |
| Trail Crest | 37.3 | 13,480 |
| Mt. Whitney | 39.8 | 14,494 |
| Trail Crest | 42.3 | 13,480 |
| Trail Camp | 43.5 | 12,000 |
| Consultation Lake | 43.9 | 11,680 |
| Outpost Camp | 45.5 | 10,367 |
| Whitney Portal | 48.7 | 8400 |
The last day was relatively leisurely, so we started at 8:45 am. The trail from Trail Camp to Whitney Portal passes several lakes and through a variety of forest types. Some of it is similar to San Gabriel chapparal, although Whitney Portal is cool and piney.
