Mt Whitney Zone Forums Trip Reports High Sierra Trail, Day 4 – Kern Hot Spring to Packer Camp

Day 4 of 6 of our HST Hike last month. One of most physically and mentally demanding days on the trail. I'm glad I spent the last few gym sessions before my trip walking on a treadmill with my pack and hiking boots.

Leg 4 (as tracked): Kern Hot Springs to Packer Camp || 8 miles || +3563, -470 || +3093 net elevation gain || 13 hours

Details and full photo gallery (25 photos) are posted here:

High Sierra Trail, Day 4 – Kern Hot Springs to Hidden Packer Camp, June 20 2015

Some highlights:

Looking north


Kern River


Snow Plant


View from the Whitney Creek Shorcut, looking towards Red Spur


View from the Whitney Creek Shorcut, looking towards Kern Point


The Packer Camp


What's this? Some sort of stove/oven?

Lyndon, I feel responsible for the tough time you had with the shortcut. I am pretty sure you took a route farther to the left (north) on the steepest part of the climb. I am really sorry it was so much trouble.

Here's the picture I posted showing my route on the "Whitney Creek Shortcut"


And here's your picture ...I drew a red line showing the same route--it is clearly visible when you show the full-size view.


This is the picture I took (the top one above is just a zoomed-in crop from it). Note that you can see the same trees in your picture as in mine.

No worries Steve! I really should've spent more time researching the route and should've brought a detail mapped of the top section. It was a good wakeup-call for both of us (too much reliance on the GPS)!

After we finished, I think I saw a better route for us and we had debated whether or not to take that line while we were standing there. I thought your tracks went further to the right (I assumed we were following your tracks anyway), but once they disappeared, it wasn't sure where we needed to go. I guess I could've descended some, so that the GPS wasn't bouncing around to better idea of where the route was.

Your route is the green one. Our route is in red.

Hmmm.... except for the bouncing around, the tracks practically look the same!

These are the only two pics I have of that part. Do they look similar to what you climbed?

At the start of the "ramp":


At the steepest part:


I was following your progress on your SPOT, and one signal showed you quite a bit too far north, but that could have been due to the signal bouncing.

BTW, what gps were you using?

Gil was carrying a Garmin GPS unit (can't remember the model). I was using the Delorme paired with my iPhone.



This is a picture I took right before it got really steep. I think we should've stayed to the left and got as close to the overhang as possible. We climb up about a 1/3 of the way, across to the right and tried to go up off screen I think.

Any idea what this thing is?

> This is a picture I took right before it got really steep...
I set your picture side-by-side with mine with the Juniper (two above yours), and the right half of mine shows the same rocks as yours. You were just a dozen steps farther forward.

It was the steepest part of the climb. I think I did stay close to the wall, climbing blocky steps, in the left side of your pic.

> Any idea what this thing is?
To this day, that structure baffles me!

The gravelly sand on top had some charcoal remnants, so I guessed maybe it was an elevated stove area. But that log platform on the ground just did not make sense. I am totally puzzled.