Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Mt.Whitney and White Mountain Peak

I'm planning to do Mt. Whitney and White Mountain Peak on consecutive days next summer. I've done them both separately. Has anyone done this and have any suggestions. Rick

I'm planning the same thing with the idea of doing White first and Whitney afterwards. I am hoping that by doing White first, it'll help with the altitude situation. So, for the second question on this thread, is this a reasonable approach? Thanks.

Do the peak that means more to you first. If you are then wiped out, then at least you will have done the more important peak.

If it's all or nothing, you can navigate in the dark better on WMP. This sounds like fun. I never thought of doing this!

This past summer I did White and then as far as Old Army Pass the next day and was feeling great. Didn't get Langley because of time restraints. So I think White / Whitney is quite doable.

Looks like a few of us were thinking the same thing. I just got my claim notice for my June 29th MR climb and on the way home I was thinking about attempting WM.I guess it's only about a 2,000ft elevation gain over seven miles from the trailhead. Doesn't seem too tough considering I will be acclimated from Whitney.

Anybody know what kind of snow conditions one could expect on the dirt road that leads to the trailhead in late June? I've heard that unless you have 4wd and a high ground clearance vehicle that the road is impassable when snow is present.
I wonder if the road was leveled, I seem to remember hearing that it was bumpy like a roller-coaster.

Has anyone thought about climbing or actually climbed all of CA's 14,000ers? With the exception of Polemonium and Middle Palisade it seems like a fairly straight forward venture.

Last I was there, a decade ago, the dirt road was fine for carefully driven passenger cars, by June in a normal snow year. This seems to be shaping up. The altitude may affect some cars' performances. It is washboarded, and dusty.

This really deserves a new thread.

SS, I've done all the main 14'ers except for T-Bolt. Most are far more difficult than Whitney. Some fairly serious climbing, and, more, route-finding, are required.

We were up there in the latter part of June last year. There was snow around but the only place where it blocked the trail was at the last switchback at ~14,100. It was no problem cutting up the talus to the trail.

Last year was a close to 100% of normal in the Southern Sierra.

Bill

i would do white mt. first because if you are planning on driving to either mountain at the end of the day after getting up whatever u choose first, the drive to whitney would be a lot easier than the drive to white which would probably be in the dark. i wouldn't want to drive the dirt road to white in the dark in my honda.

I drove down White Mtn road in the dark two years ago at 1:00am when my partner got sick and that was no fun. Its best to do it in the day light.

It'd be worse to be coming down the Whitney Trail and then running out of batteries for a flashlight. Once to your car, in the Whites, you can make some mistakes and simply drive back to where you turned wrong. On the Whitney Trail, you can break a leg tripping over some rock on the trail, or turn wrong, say, at the trail to LPL. There's more objective hazard on the Whitney Trail, so I'd think to be more "fresh" to tackle that. Use your pent-up energy to whiz up the Trail, then you can slow down and relax a bit on the summit road to White.

It should take only 5-8 hours to round trip White, so you can have plenty of time to whiz back home, if done on a weekend.

I'm thinking that the best thing to do is what 4X said. My MR permit is for June 29,30 and July 1st. We'll probably do it in two days which will leave the 1st for WM.
Talking about stumbling down the Main Trail in the dark, wouldn't stumbling down the North Fork be even worse?

Hey Sierra Stryder: I will be up on the MR from the 28th-30th of June. Sounds like I could run into you up there, probably around Iceberg lake. We hope to summit on the 29th and come out on the 30th. We shouldn't be hard to spot...40 year old parents with multiple children. You don't see too many teenagers on the MR.

If you see us say Hi...that would be cool. Email me and tell me about your group. Thanks

Great to hear, I'll email you.

Last Sept I completed both mountains in consecutive days. I drove 14 hours from Eugene Or to WM trailhead (12K) , arriving at 10 pm. Slept in car, woke up at 5 am , hiked car to car in 5 hours. Enjoyed the veiws of the Sierras on the way down with a nice lunch in Lone Pine. Slept at Horseshoe Meadow (10K) that night and woke up at 3 am, climbed up the MR and down Whitney main trail, just over 10 hours RT, ate Dougs famous Portal Cheeseburger. Drove to Carson City that night and hiked up Lassen the next day and drove straight home afterwards. Trick is to sleep high for the day hikes and drink lots of water.

Gonna bring my AT skis and try the MR in March, skiing from the notch down, cant wait !

Does anyone know how close to the Barcroft Gate you can drive for a prep hike to White Mtn. Peak, as of today? Last I called the WM Ranger Station it was 40 miles (about 6 weeks ago); Today, I got someone in the office, not a Ranger, who said that the road was closed at Sierra View but he didn't know how far from Barcroft that was; and I don’t know where Sierra View is. I’d like to do the 7+ mile hike on the road to the peak from the Barcroft Gate and not an additional 10 or 40 miles to get to the Barcroft Gate. I do have 4x4.

I'd like to do WMP between Arpril 28 and May 2 - I'd appreciate any company.

The Sierra View gate is about 17 or 18 miles from the Barcroft gate which would make the round trip to the peak about 50 miles.