Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion WAG Bag Spotters

Summited on July 9th, saw at least 6 different wag bags on the trail. Some folks seems to think that there is wag bag pick up service and as long as you leave it on the trail, somebody will pick it up. Makes me mad.

Thx123

Camping at Trail Camp Saturday night restored my knowledge of why I hate to camp at Trail Camp.

Found a great pad up on the rocks, away from the trail. It was past sundown, just light enough to set up without my head lamp. I pounded in the front stake, then went around to a back corner of the tent.

Almost lost my dinner when I got a nose-full of stale piss in the corner of the tent platform.

Congratulations to the hordes for perhaps driving me out of the Whitney Zone once and for all.

-L

Let's hope there is NONE for Spot.

Yeessss. Now you know why I haven't been back to Whitney in 25 years. Whitney: the Sewer Zone.

Seems a little harsh, Bob. It ain't no "wilderness" but it's not a "sewer" either.

It makes me wonder if some people who insist that modern solar toilets won't work (despite the fact they work on Long's Pk at 12,000 ft) are just waiting for the impacts to get bad enough, and then argue the quotas will need to be greatly reduced. That change might take place in a larger framework like the Wilderness Stewardship Plan, or elsewhere. Keep an eye out for that.

Can someone describe the WAG bag/disposal conditions on the other side of the crest, from the JMT/MMWT junction on down to Crabtree? What do hikers do headed in that direction with a full bag? Are people retrieving bags left on the trail? Thanks.

Poor baby. And what do you do with your urine?

Urine is separated in the toilet and then evaporated using solar collectors and battery powered fans. Oops, that's what they do at 12,700ft in Colorado. Never mind. At 12,000 ft on Mt Whitney urine goes mostly on the ground. Tons each year. Hopefully a lot of it evaporates, but I think Laura's experience is not uncommon. She knows the mountains, Joe.

Back on topic, does anyone have a report on the WAG bag situation from the JMT junction down the other side of the mountain?

NoBo JMT hikers and EtW HST hikers, etc are told they are not required to bag. I doubt that affects many, however. I wonder how many through hikers start at Whitney these days, compared with the total permits issued?

On 8/8 I met a ranger coming down from collecting water samples for coliform. He stated that even Trail Camp Lake is pretty clean, and that even the LA aqueduct itself sometimes tests positive while it sucks the Owens Valley dry.

Trail Camp did smell a bit, though. I collected my water up at the faster flowing inlet, and used chlorine dioxide

WHUT??!! How dare you violate the sanctity of Dip 'n' Sip!!!!

Hope you are having fun, Harvey! BTW, the webcam is showing some sort of cloud white out -- what is the weather like??

Cheers!

Bee

With the large volume of snowmelt available to flush the area each year, it's pretty unlikely that surface water quality will be impacted. It may be accumulating at depth in rock cracks and the tons of urine are quite "noticeable", but I doubt it will ever show up as a problem in typical surface water testing. By the way, he should have been in a hurry to get the samples to the lab for testing that day, which could be challenging.

HOLD TIMES
Fecal coliforms must be run within 6 hours of sample collection.

Total coliforms, E. coli, Fecal streptococcus, Sewage Screen, Legionella sp., and Heterotrophic Plate Count samples need to be run within 24 hours of sample collection.

If hold times are exceeded results are invalid and this will be noted on reports.

All samples must be shipped cold, not frozen and should remain up right, use ice packs, not soda bottles filled with frozen water, bags of ice or just loose ice. Samples that are not shipped properly could end up getting contaminated or rejected.

RE: sample preservation
Ranger had samples in cooler, I assume ice pack was in there.

also, it took me 3.5 hrs to descend from TrailCamp to Whitney Portal even with my gimpy 8 month old swollen total knee. titanium did fine but soft parts hurt a bit. Ranger could get down quicker.

Bee - RE: clouds . Monsoonal south flow has been going on for 10 days. We had temps 40-50 at night on JMT, even camping at 11k. Was ugly 83F heatwave climbing Mather. Ugh.

On Whitney we had 2 hrs of rain hail lightning on 8/8, lesser storm on my summit day 8/9. Descended to Lone Pine and drove north..... after Bishop at around 8pm saw strange white cloud hugely billowing up toward the north plus lightning off to its right - it was a lightning strike brush fire in the Mono Lake area. My cousin in Lee Vining has some pics - maybe later, I am now at McCarren with flight delay. Harvey

As Wagga says, no pix, it didn't happen. Where did you start your JMT hike?

huh? pics of what? the ranger carrying a cooler?

Did South Lake/Bishop to Kearsarge/Onion first, then one night off before skipping to do Whitney from east. Had done Onion to Whitney or MR multiple times before, so skipped west side JMT approach this time

No Harvey, not pictures of an ice cooler. Seems like you had some exciting Eastern Sierra monsoon weather and an awesome JMT hike, or did you? Like Wagga says, no pix, it never happened. I'd say you need to post a more complete trip report to back this up...

patience,

just got back to VA and slept 12 hrs. TR later for the 5 of us on Bishop to Kearsarge, and TR for my son Seth and I on Whitney.

fire on the mountain run boy run

this was the recent Mono Lake area sage brush fire started by lightning - my cousin took this picture in Lee Vining area, we could see the billowing up from 395 as far away as the stretch between Bishop and Mammoth and commented that we had never seen such an odd cloud at sunset over the Owens Valley.

Some of the cloud is cloud, some is smoke cloud, both lit up from below by the fire, and above by the setting sun. There were lightning flashes within the purely smoke areas over to the right, presumably from all the stirred-up charged particulate matter.

That IS an odd picture, Harvey. Thanks for posting it.

The sky and clouds look very much like an Ovanes Berberian painting. Artists and people in Idaho will know what I mean.