Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Upper Crabtree Lake to Portal in one day?

Having done variations of this hike (the #1st post) many times, I will add my 2 cents for what it's worth:

1. Exiting Whitney is easier than entering Whitney. I have never been turned down for a walk-in exit permit. No need to wait around, etc - just file your entry and they assign you the exit. Worst case scenario, you exit via Portal anyway - I've known groups that have done that due to physical issues, etc even though they had a different exit point on their permits.

2. Pay the $100 or less to shuttle your car between Portal and your start point eg Cottonwood, Horseshoe, Shepherd, Onion, etc. Trying to get a Whitney entry permit and then returning to Portal is (a) a hassle; and (b) a poor use of time backtracking rather than hiking thru.

3. Once you have your entry point figured out, try and balance your daily miles, while reserving the last 15-16 miles for the last day from Guitar-Whitney-Portal.

Going from upper Crabtree lake to Portal in one day unnecessarily backloads a lot of miles, while making the earlier days pretty short. Here are a couple of examples:

Cottonwood
D1 SBL 11.3 miles
D2 Guitar 9.5 miles
D3 Portal 15.5 miles

NAP
D1 High Lake 6 miles
D2 SBL via Mt Langley 8.4 miles (trying to drop down directly to SBL is above my pay grade - I simply backtracked to upper Soldier and then up Miter)
D3 Guitar 9.5 miles
D4 Portal 15.5 miles

If these look like the daily miles are too great, then attempting 23-24 miles the last day from upper Crabtree to Whitney & Portal sounds like a suicide mission.

Unless you're thinking of going over Discovery, which is also, in many people's minds, just another kind of suicide mission. Figure out a way to get another day, and take the long way around. If you're in a hurry, then consider the Cottonwood to SBL approach outlined above.