Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Kearsarge Pass Trail / Onion Valley - 03.25.206

The most interesting thing today was the Casino Gas Station north of Indy...
RC $5.46/gal...LP $6.20/gal...Casino $5.10...$5.46 for Premium, which my KTM uses...

Here are a few photo:


Onion Valley Trailhead parking lot.



Kearsarge Pass Trailhead.



Up at the Wilderness boundary...first snowfield was about a half-mile up the trail.



A mix of trail and snowfields all the way up to my highpoint...



This is the snowfield that always seem to linger the longest on the trail to the pass...


https://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New-1/Onion-Valley-03252026/i-Z8c9WBJ/A
It isn't very long as there were people down at the trailhead...


After talking to a couple of Teachers heading down, I decided I'd try for Gilber Lake but stopped a few hundred feet lower due to late-start, soft-snow...had a pleasant lunch on a dry, comfortable, rock before heading down...
Prep for Baldy With Shin..........

Richard,

Thanks for the Conditions Update.

With this long period of warm weather and snowmelt, did you see any evidence of bears emerging from their Winter "torpor." Your recent post of the CDFW article on bears was enjoyed.

Jim

No signs of bear tracks at either HM or OV.
If HM Rd melts out before I see tracks, it will be the first time in years that I don't see any.
Maybe they are already up higher because of the heat?
No deer or coyote tracks either. Only human.

I think of Doug as the Bear Whisperer, so whenever CDFW publishes something on bears, I post it.

Almost 40 years in the Portal so you get to know the "locals "

It seems that developing good relationships/mutual understandings with the "locals" over 40 years has been beneficial for all the stakeholders at Whitney Portal.

As an example, page 70 of the Third Edition notes:

"People ask us why bears don't come into the Store at night. The answer is simple: we put up the 'Closed' sign!."

Jim

Once the grill is closed, there's nothing else they'd want in there, except maybe the hats.

Yes, especially since they already took the signed portrait of Irene Kritz...

They did WHAT???????