Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Cell phone service?

Which cell phone services work best at the Portal and on the Mt.? I'm intereted to hear your opinions... We are on the verge of buying new phones and dropping Sprint, as it drops out as soon as we leave the L.A. area..and has no service on 395, at least as far north as Bodie!

I've had AT&T for the last three years and the sole reason I went with them was because they said that they got coverage in the Owens Valley and up HWY 50 between Placerville and South Lake Tahoe. As it turns out coverage up HWY 50 is non-existent, although I did get coverage on 395 from whatever that little town of three people is(Red Mountain or something like that) around the Crystal Geyser bottling plant all the way through Bishop and to the top of the steep hill when leaving Bishop north bound. Basically with AT&T, coverage will pick up once you get around the inhabited areas like Mammoth, Lee Vining, and within a few miles of the Owens Valley. Supposedly Verizon and T-Mobile have good coverage in all the areas I just mentioned, maybe someone else can shed some light on the situation. I too am considering switching carriers, AT&T costs more than Verizon does while costing more for a family plan and giving you fewer minutes to share.
I don't think any carrier will get good coverage in the Bodie area, the canyon is too deep and since a lot of the area is Forest Service land I don't think any obtrusive towers will be going up soon. As for getting coverage at the Portal, I would think the surrounding mountains and trees would make it difficult to get a decent signal, I could be wrong though. I know that it is possible to get coverage on the summit of Whitney though, again, it all depends on your provider.

mrogue: you may want to check out these threads from last year:

http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000736

http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001246

Some information may be out of date, but it should give you an idea of what's out there.

Even with a national plan AT&T will get you for roaming in the Owens Valley but the phone will work at least as far as June Lake, they will be merged into Cingular by the end of the year. A friend of mine gets coverage and doesn't get wacked for roaming with his Verizon connection. Cingular, which I just switched to, shows service in the area and doesn't have a roaming charge.

Bill

mrogue - I just switched to Verizon and had coverage on 395 as far as Ridgecrest two weeks ago. I don't know after that because we were headed to Death Valley via Trona. I have been on the summit when some phones worked and some didn't. I believe the difference may be that Lone Pine has only analog service. So, digital-only phones failed. I made a point of getting tri-mode phones that will work with any kind of signal.

there's analog service throughout Owens Valley.
forget about digital there. thus only combinaton of carrier/phone accessing analog network will work.
Verizon is fine along 395, up in the mountains spotty
but usable from places visible from Owens Valley.

lukasz

I am using Verizon. In the last two years I have gotten cell phone service at the summit of Langley, the crest just below Upper Boy Scout Lake, and uphill from Donahue Pass.

How did we ever get along before cell phones?

hiiker

Verizon worked On top of Whitney for me.

I'll tell you what's really annoying, S. Stryder. It's when some chowderhead has to spark up th' cell phone on top of Whitney and let everyone and their brother know that he made it! Nothin' grinds my gears more than that. If I had my druthers, the USFS would confiscate your cell phone when you pick up your permit. They never work when you need them to anyway. How about leaving yer gizmos at home and just relying on yourself for a day or two--is that too much to ask?
Spike

Spike,

I agree with ya. The cell phone never leaves the car. The other annoyance I'd like to see detonated on off the Main Trail are the damn two way radio. If you can't find your way up the Main Trail with the usual hoards you just might be having problems finding the Huntington Beach Pier from Main and PCH.

Bill

Spike, webtravis:

When someone is injured on the trail, having a working cell phone may be a life saver.

Whit Walker,

Where can you guarantee they will work? You can't because the technology is unreliable in the backcountry. I was standing at the top of NAP Pass a few years ago with a full charge and a full signal and the phone wouldn't connect, same goes for Whitney the same trip. These two instances are on ridgelines with clear lines of sight to cells. How do you think they are going to work at Trail Camp or maybe Guitar Lake? How is that phone gone to perform after night in the pack at subfreezing temperature? Like not at all because the battery would have drained.

What they are is a false sense of security. When I got my phone I thought it was a great idea to carry it in my pack. Now, I realize it's complete waste of effort, you'd be better off carrying a Clif Bar or two, and having the skills to deal with an injury.

Bill

While I agree that cell phone coverage can be spotty in the backcountry, a safety net with some holes in it is still better than no safety net. When I'm really going out there, I often bring a satellite phone. Even that is not bullet-proof. A few years ago on Kilimanjaro, my parner had better reception on his cell phone than I had on my sat phone.

That said, I find most people take their cell phones on Whitney just to chat or call home to say that they made the summit. Given the amount of traffic and number of phones on the mountain, it is easy to find someone and borrow a phone in a true emergency.

Spike and Bill:

While I would, in general, agree that cell phone usage on the summit is annoying, I can think of counterarguments. Far more annoying to me at least is listening to someone hold forth loudly standing next to me in a line, literally two feet from my ears, or while sitting right next to me in an airport, all as though I didn't exist. In other words, with cell phones becoming virtually ubiquitous (I heard a guy calling someone while in the stall of a public restroom the other day!), I can think of much more offensive places to use them than the top of Whitney. Making it to the summit is, after all, quite an accomplishment, and sharing it with someone the moment it occurs is arguably one of the enjoyable benefits of this otherwise annoying technology. Frankly, one of my most disturbing experiences on the trail had nothing to do with technology. In August 2001 I hiked to Lone Pine Lake for practice the day before my summit. My goal was to sit by the lake, soak in the splendor of the surroundings, and listen to the quiet sounds of the water flowing down the gorge in the distance. Instead, a group of teenagers from some inner city area of LA had hiked up there and were yelling four-letter words at the tops of their lungs across the echo chamber formed by the high cliffs around the lake. I'll take a cell phone on the summit any day before that. It seems that every year on this message board we must endure lengthy "purist vs. technologist" threads, one side touting the virtues of cell phones and diamox (how many thousands of words have been spilled on the tired topic of diamox!), the other side excoriating against anything "non-natural." My view is, do what you can to get to the top in the least offensive way possible, but you shouldn't let the hypersensitivities of the purists ruin your fun.

I have Sprint, and got a fairly strong signal from the summit of Whitney last year. I had to stand relatively close to the edge to get the signal from Lone Pine, so don't stand back but the hut or you won't pick it up. Several people with other service providers asked to use my phone because they couldn't get a signal at all. Most just wanted to let their significant other know that they were ok, which is not a given at that altitude. I could have made big money if I was that kind of guy. Anyway, I'd keep Sprint, stand where you can see Lone Pine, and share your accomplishment with whomever you want.

As previously said, digital telephones don't work as well as analog phones.

The purist vs. techno debate does not need to be an issue. If you want to talk on your cell phone, simply head a few yards off from the summit plaque and hut and talk to your hearts content. Why would you want everyone else up there hearing my conversation, anyway?

For emergencies a 2 meter radio instead. The license isn't hard to get.

Sierra Stryder - You were thinking of switching to Verizon. I have Verizon, and I have the same problem with autodials without area codes being non-functional in an area with a different area code, which means I have to manually dial the entire number if I want to use it.

CaT

Karl,

I'm anything but a purist and I don't consider the Main Trail of Mt. Whitney a wilderness experience.

Yes, these phones are annoying and in most cases on this mountain useless but the biggest problem is the false sense of security they provide on a mountain where people think it is perfectly ok to glissade down from Trail Crest without an ice axe on an early evening in June, one dead; one injured in 2003.

If I'm not mistaken cell phone technology didn't help getting aid to these folks in a timely manner.

Bill

Cell Phone Service... you must have "line of site" to Lone Pine for your cell phone to complete a transmission off of the mountain. I have seen people happily talking on their cell phone from the Whitney Summitt. You will have no connection on the trail until you get too the top of the switchbacks plus or minus a five minuet walk.