Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion HST - Crescent Meadow to Mt Whitney June 17 to 22 or 23

Zoe, what did you do, take off on this hike immediately after school was out for summer vacation? Way to go!!!

And thank you so much for passing along the really good information.

I am curious how many were in your group.

That's exactly what I did I was all packed before my last final exam. It was just my mom and I on this trip. Her first major trip. Most of the time I go solo, and with my dog where it's allowed.

Thanks for the info Zoe, that's all VERY helpful! How many days did you take for the hike? How long ago was the Precipice Lake photo taken?

I head up Whitney Portal tomorrow to drop off a vehicle, then we'll drive over to Visalia for the night. For those that are interested, you can follow our progress here:


Hike In Progress: High Sierra Trail, Summer 2015

Was this at Kaweah Gap?

We planned for 7 days, but ended up taking 8 because of weather and conditions. That photo at precipice lake was taken Tuesday last week. That photo of snow on the trail was taken on Kaweah gap, but that was the only patch of snow that we walked on, and as we saw looking back, it was totally avoidable.
Enjoy your trip

Hiking Geek is out of the gate! We can watch his SPOT here. On that page, be sure to click Map, then Terrain to see the topographic view.

Here is the equivalent web page for his DeLorme unit.

Both maps show up on his hike planning web page.

Update: data from DeLorme InReach:


Now at Bearpaw meadow:

6-18-15:   They started at 6 AM.

11 AM they are nearing upper Hamilton Lake.

What's with the mileages? Bearpaw is a lot more than 7.33 miles in.

Yesterday they climbed to Precipice Lake -- they were there by 2 PM! Text wrote about crazy heat. This morning, they have cleared Kaweah Gap, and are heading down Big Arroyo Creek.

It appears they had some experience with salt-starved marmots chewing on hiking pole handles: #MarmotsEatHikingPoles

I hope they got some good pictures at Precipice Lake.

Update: Today's DeLorme map shows a fire high on a ridge across Big Arroyo Creek from the trail. I hope it isn't too smoky for them. Appears they may make Kern Hot Springs by tonight.

Watching their progress this afternoon. They took my recommendation and tried the Whitney Creek shortcut. Progress from the HST up has been slow -- they must be carrying heavy packs.

Yesterday's message mentioned bad pain: sciatica and plantar fasciitis. Not good on a hike!

The SPOT unit has been sending some erratically inaccurate locations, but others show they are on the correct route.

Update: They managed to find the route, and reached the hidden packer camp about 7 PM. They had a looong day. I think they are trying for Whitney tomorrow.

They made it to Guitar Lake in 4 hours. Spending the night just above Guitar Lake. Weather predictions were for wind on the summit, so I think they decided to stay low tonight.

Started up at 2 AM; made the summit by 6 AM, Trail Camp by 10 AM. Looks like it is Exit Day. Could be burgers for lunch at the Portal Store.

...or pizza in Lone Pine. They finished about 2:15 PM today.

Looks as though a well planned/executed adventure. Gotta be enjoying a cold brew with that hamburger and fries.

Steve - thanks for the weather updates, checking on the status of the fire for us, and keeping everyone here updated.





I noticed the Delorme split up some days into multiple tracks. Not sure why this happened. I need to look over the data.



Very hot weather. I drank 7-8 liters of water some days.

The marmots did get to my hiking poles!

I put the waypoint showing the fire on the Delorme map, so that my wife could see our location in relation to the fire. We did run into some smoke near Morraine Lake, but it wasn't bad.



Packs were heavy to begin with and we left HST with about 8 liters of water between the two of us.

Packer Camp was a cool spot.


We actually left Guitar Lake thinking we'd stay at Trail Crest or the summit, but we ran into lots of hikers talking about how cold it was. Apparently 8 hikers spent Saturday in the summit hut.




Gil(GoHiker.com) missed sunrise by about 20 mins. Early on I knew we wouldn't make it for sunrise, so I slowed my pace and watched it from the last window.

The burgers smelled amazing, but we had been talking about pizza since hitting the summit.