Hello everyone. Thanks for your input and postings. They have helped my trip planning. I got a permit for Aug 12-18th entering Onion Valley and exiting Whitney Portal. I have a permit for 5 but it looks like it will be me(50 yo dude) and my son 16.
Last Summer we did the 11 day ~100 mile hike at Philmont Scouting Ranch. We did not have any issues with AMS and did Pikes Peak and were over 12K feet twice on our Philmont hike. We are east coast folks (North Carolina) and will acclimate the best we can.
So I plan to fly into Vegas and rent a car(least expensive). Flight in ~ Aug 8 and out Aug 22nd (not booked yet). Most likely do a car service from the portal and drop us off at Onion Valley.
Few Questions/Recommendations:
- Coming from Vegas we will go straight through Death Valley. Other than car sight seeing this time of the year anything worth doing considering the heat? We will be leaving NC 90+ degree days with 90+ percent humidity so no thanks to sweating my @ss off.
- We will do Yosemite Valley and try to Climb Half Dome. Camp a couple of nights in the area. Any recommended sights, trails or campsites?
- We most definitely would like to see some giant Sequoia trees so any recommended hike/loop/etc?
- We would like to camp on top of Whitney if the weather is favorable. Will the ranger at Crabtree give us a weather forecast?
Of course any recommendations on where to eat or neat places to stay and get cleaned up would be appreciated. We plan to mostly camp for our trip. Our first trip to Sierras so its all new to us. Thanks in advance for any recommendations!
