Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Car security at Whitney portal

Hi all,
I am planing a 2 day ascent ( which may become a 3 day ascent) via the Mt Whitney trail in early October. As I am visiting from OZ as an itinerant I will be forced to leave a number of valuable items in my hire car at Whitney Portal. Do I need to be concerned about theft from the car while I am on the mountain?
Thanks

Firstly, hire a car with an enclosed boot (trunk), and lock all your valuables in the boot.

Second, do not leave any food items in the car, not even in the boot, or the bears will do whatever is necessary to break into the car; smashing windows, etc. Bears are fully capable of doing precisely that. Even something as small as a piece of candy inside a car can be smelled by a bear.

Bears have been known to smash the wind-screen or widows, crawl in, and then rip up the back seat to get at food stored in the boot of a car.

There have been no reports break-ins at Whitney Portal recently. In fact, I don't recall hearing of any at all.

Whitney Portal is far safer than most cities.

There was another trail head where one individual stole gasoline from a number of cars, but that was years ago, and the thief has been in jail for several years, for some other crimes.

Thanks guys, I will hike with confidence, looking fwd to it!!

I thought there were several bears doing 5-to-life in Lakes Basin for some Whitney Portal smash n' grabs over the years.

They might have occurred. I just haven't heard or read any reports.

Yosemite had all the major car damage, if I recall correctly.

I'm posting this in the interest of accuracy and completeness.

I vaguely remembered a theft at WP reported on the WPS forum.
It took a while, and I had to look back almost 5 years, but I found this report.

If anything, it shows that this kind of thing is rare, and even then the crooks tend to be caught.

Eastern Sierra locals (myself included)can tell you that, over the years, there have in car break-ins at nearly all our trailheads. Many of these break-ins were done by locals, but sometimes by other hikers. I hope our visitors don't trust to luck or chance to protect their valuables.

Here is a good briefing on Whitney Portal. The section on bear break-ins is especially important:

http://timberlinetrails.net/WhitneyTrailhead.html

IIRC, this situation was an extreme outlier as the individual was a paranoid schizophrenic who went off his meds. I believe he also damaged some equipment on White Mtn summit. Again, IIRC the local prosecuting attorney decided that medical treatment should be emphasized rather than incarceration. Very sad situation, for both the victims and the perpetrator. Trying to anticipate situations like this in the backcountry is nearly impossible, but they're also rare. Personally, I'd worry more about being hit by a meteor than being victimized in this manner.

I was just there last week (8/10-8/14) for my first time up Mt. Whitney. I didn't get the impression that theft was much of any concern there. Everyone I encountered there were just other hikers doing the same thing as me, and everyone seemed nice. Of course, anything is possible, but I wouldn't worry too much about people stealing things. Just use common sense and don't leave valuables laying out in plain sight - put them in the trunk or hide them underneath boring, uninteresting stuff in your car, like papers/mail, a cheap jacket, etc. You should be more concerned about curious bears than people. There are many bear-proof boxes around the parking lots, which you can use to stash any food and scented items (such as lip balm, hand lotion, etc) that you don't take with you on your hike, so that the local critters will leave your car alone.

Hope this helps. Good luck on your hike!