Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Sunrise/Sunset

Good morning Fellow Whitneyites....

Can any of you give me a rough estimate of sunrise for this Saturday (the 29th)on the main trail? It is my intention to be sitting next to Lone Pine Lake and watch the sun rise over the mountains across the valley.

Thanks!!!!
Chris

I snapped some pics of the sunrise around 6:15 Sat morn. We were between Mirror Lake and Trailside Meadow I believe.

http://www.almanac.com/sun/rise/zipcode/93545/2012-09-29

Here are all the celestial rises and sets for the 29th at lone pine

AJF.... thanks... I've looked at that but once you head up the trail out of Lone Pine angle makes a difference as to what you see when....

63Chevylle... what position was the sun at? Had it broken the crest of the mountains across the valley or was it still behind the ridge but lighting up the sky?

Not sure if you'll be able to see this b/c it was posted on facebook, but here's a photo my friend posted. This was around 6:15 or so.

Hi Chris,

I used the U.S. Naval Observatory website, and plugged in the Latitude and Longitude for Lone Pine Lake (Lon 118.2 west, Lat 36.6 north), with GMT-7 hrs (for Pacific Daylight Time), and came up with 6:47 AM. The same site reports 6:46 for Lone Pine.

Since the sun is rising over distant mountains that are nearly the same elevation as Lone Pine Lake, the angle makes very little difference -- you will be watching the sunrise at a near horizontal angle. (Now sunset from Trail Camp would be a completely different matter.)

By the way, we used the USNO site to create tables of start/stop times for the webcams.

Here's a Whitney summit sunrise pic from Sept 8 at 6:27. USNO sunrise time for that location and date: 6:30

63Chevyll... that picture answers my question exactly!!!

Steve... thanks!! Thats the time I was finding when I was looking, but wasn't sure how accurate it would be!!!

This web site lists sun and moon phases.

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.php

Civil twilight in summer means, "it's getting light out better get up the trail before the sun hits me". In winter, "come on sun I'm freezing my tail off!".

Although higher up on the mountain might vary here are the stats for Lone Pine, CA for Sept. 29th.

SUN
Begin civil twilight 6:21 a.m.
Sunrise 6:46 a.m.
Sun transit 12:42 p.m.
Sunset 6:38 p.m.
End civil twilight 7:03 p.m.

MOON
Moonrise 5:44 p.m. on preceding day
Moon transit 11:59 p.m. on preceding day
Moonset 6:22 a.m.
Moonrise 6:14 p.m.
Moonset 7:21 a.m. on following day

Thanks guys... that really helps me decide how late I get to let my party sleep.. or how early I have to drag them out of bed, it all depends on who you're asking! ;-)

Can't wait!!!

Hi Chris. Looks as if you are doing a Birthday hike over the weekend. Hope you have a Happy Birthday!!

Ernie

Hi Ernie!!!

Yes we're hiking for my birthday! Thank you so much for the well wishes! The same back to you, I know I missed it earlier this month. Hope it was fabulous!!!

Chris