Mount Whitney

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Mount Whitney is a very well-known peak due to its status as the highest point in the U.S. outside of Alsaka. It is located on the Sierra crest east of Lone Pine and has a multitude of well-established routes.

Contents 1 Access 2 Guidebooks 3 Routes 3.1 The Whitney Trail 3.2 The Mountaineer's Route 3.3 The East Face 3.4 The East Buttress 4 Trip Reports 5 See Also

Access

Mt. Whitney can be approached from Whitney Portal via Lone Pine from the East, or from the John Muir Trail to the West.

Guidebooks

See the Supertopo High Sierra guidebook, which club members can access online. It covers the East Face (5.7), the East Buttress (5.7) and Mountaineer's Route (3rd class).

Routes

The Whitney Trail

Mt. Whitney features an extremely well-maintained path from Whitney Portal to the summit. 11 miles each way, the trail meanders up the South Fork of Lone Pine Creek, makes 99 switchbacks to reach 'Trail Crest' and then makes a long traverse along the Western side of the summit ridge. Mount Muir is a class 3 scramble from this last section of the trail. This route is class 1 on a very nicely graded trail and is no harder than its statistics indicate (i.e 22 miles with 6000 feet of elevation gain/loss, starting at 8000 feet). It is a long dayhike, though, and most parties attempting it in one day (usually in the late summer) leave before daybreak to reach the summit before noon, thus avoiding any afternoon thunderstorms. This route can be used year-round, though, with the switchback section replaced by a long snow climb from trail camp to trail crest when appropriate.

The Mountaineer's Route

This is the route we use on our Winter Mountaineering Trips. It follows a couloir from Iceberg Lake to a notch from which one scrambles to the summit.

The East Face

The East Buttress

Trip Reports

• Winter Mountaineering Trip 2011
• Winter Mountaineering Trip 2010
• Winter Mountaineering Trip 2009
• Winter Mountaineering Trip 2008
• Winter Mountaineering Trip 2007
• Whitney Ski Trip 2005

See Also

• Mt. Whitney on SummitPost
• Gray-scale map of Whitney Basin, 500 KB PDF file, 8.5" x 11"
• Mt. Whitney Reports forum from whitneyportalstore.com. The user dmatt provides weather updates often (twice a day?).
• Whitney Weather links from whitneyportalstore.com
• mt-whitney.info is another forum, for the entire Sierras, and perhaps a bit less active than the whitneyportalstore forums.
• Mt. Whitney web cam and a higher res version