Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board For Wayne... Switchback Photos...

From the summit of Mt. Muir.



From the "summit" of Aiguille Junior.

Richard, beautiful pics. Looks like you got 17 to 97.

I blew up your top photo and see that you captured Mt. Baldy at 161 miles away, but it only appears as a faint shadow. Pretty good, Richard! It's on the skyline, about half way between switchback #97 and Trail Crest. Too much moisture blocking what would have been a clear view.

Wayne, I'm curious. How did you figure out which peak is Baldy?

Brent N

That first photo is great. What a clear and picture perfect New Year's Day. Well I spent New Year's Day wandering aimlessly around Death Valley with friends who were as clueless as I was. Like the blind leading the blind. But it was a fun day and we ran into more friends there.

Brent,

I correlate pixels to my personal peak-sighting spreadsheet that shows exact compass directions. I do this by matching pixel counts to two known peaks in a photo. In Richard's, I used Owens Peak compared to Mt. LeConte, and then calculate using proportions. I calculate pixel readings for every summit in the photograph's view, then check known peaks to be sure the calculated pixels are the same as actual pixels. If they are the same, or are very close, I then am able to precisely identify peaks. (I use IrfanView to get the pixel counts.)

There are other peaks in Richard's far background, in shadow, which I also identified, but it could drive most viewers crazy without having them pin-pointed in an annotated photo.

I hope this is not too confusing. The formula I use for the calculations is fairly straight-forward, and if I've identified the precise view spot, the calculations are spot on.

Richard, are tire chains necessary to get to the Portal or can any old econobox get up there?

How is the snow and ice on Muir, and what would you rate S'Brutal as? Class 4/5? I've seen it before but never thought about heading up there until now.

Thanks!

There is hardly any ice on the road at this time and the sand that was laid down a few weeks ago is still there. The road is posted as Closed though, so you head up at your own risk.

You'd be hard-pressed to make any of the Needles any harder than Class 2 from the west. There are 2 pinnacles (that I think are unnamed) between S'brutal Tower and Muir that will provide a bit more challenge, but I can't tell you how hard they would be. (Until I looked at the maps at peakbagger.com, I thought one of those might be S'brutal. It's not. It is the first major needle on the crest north of Muir. A. Junior is such a minor bump on the crest that it's real easy to miss on the way A. du Paquoir. I walked right by it thinking that it couldn't be named feature.)(There is the potential that someone will chime in telling me I can't read a map.)

Tagging the Needles on the way to Whitney is a lot tougher than it looks. It's a heck of a LOT of extra work near/at/above 14k. I've had this on the list for a long time because in the past I've said I'll do it after Whitney only to say "forget it" on the way down. xSpeedy and I made it almost to Third Needle once before we said forget it too.

Impressive. I have been trying to figure out how to identify the San Gabriel peaks that I see from my viewpoint in mid-Orange County. I think I have them pegged correctly, but my guesses are just based on what I can see and figure out using topos.

bsmith posted a link to http://www.heywhatsthat.com/ a while back...

Peak.AR is a free app for smartphones...

Both help with peak ID'ing... one while you're at home, the other while you're out-and-about. There are probably a bunch of others.

Brent,

PM me about your exact viewing location, and I can email you a list of all USGS named peaks in your area with exact directions, distances and degrees above your eye-level. All you'll need is a sighting compass to pick out the peaks. If you have some other favorite view spot, I could do the same thing.

Thanks, Richard P. Based on your advice, I downloaded Peak.AR will play with it. Today, I can see the local San Gabriels from where I am and played with it, but apparently that app isn't calibrated to pick out peaks which are that far away. I'm experimenting with the website you sent as well. Many thanks.

Thanks again for Wayne's generosity. I'm playing with a spreadsheet that he sent me as well to see if I can pick out the peaks. I'm geeking out over the new tools.

Brent N

You are welcome.

If you haven't looked already, there are some settings for the Peak.AR app that allow you to adjust how "far out" it will show the peaks.

I found that feature, but the farthest it will let me adjust out to is 49.6 km, not quite enough to get me into a view of the San Gabriels. Of course, on most days, our visibility won't let us see that far either ;-)

Brent