Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board MR Trip Report/8-27

Last Friday I completed a hike up the Mountaineers Route and down the main trail. It was an awesome experience and I want to thank Bob R, Snow Nymph and Doug Sr. for their advice and route photos. A couple of observations:

1. The E Ledges are absolutely no big deal. For some reason they are often over-hyped in my opinion. Easy to climb and very limited exposure.

2. It took me 8 hours to summit. An hour and a half of that easily was spent backtracking/route finding beacause I wasn't paying attention and just digging the scenery. I would suggest going with someone who knows the route your first time.

3. The chute worked me pretty good. The amount of time you spend there is directly related to the line you take. After a while, I found that climbing on the larger blocks on the side was better, although it felt more like class 3 stuff to me, rather than the class 2 as it is described.

4. The so called "easy traverse" walk off looked way more hazardous and a lot more work that just climbing up the blocks to the summit. There are huge shelfs to rest on and plenty of good hand holds.

I highly recommend this hike to anyone who is beginning to get bored with the main trail. It is a real treat!

Dave,

Did you require a permit to hike down the main trail? Today I called the Mt. Whitney ranger station, and the person I spoke with told me I'd need a permit to do this. However, I've also heard that a permit is NOT needed to head one way down the main trail. (I don't mind doing this--I just don't want to get busted.)

Thanks,
L

Law - Just out of an abundance of morbid curiosity, after reading your previous post, I called the Lone Pine ranger station yet again a couple of minutes ago (my most recent call about this same issue was to the Inyo FS permit office in Bishop a few days ago, and then before that, to the the Lone Pine ranger station a few months ago). I really would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I'm really pissed at them at the moment. As you know, despite very specific and repeated questioning to the folks in the Bishop Inyo FS office, the Bishop FS office categorically said that NO dayhike permit was required to descend the Main Trail if you ascend Whitney via the MR. It was a lot like the new Saturn car commercial where the guy keeps on asking "What's the catch?" even after being told just as many times by the salesperson that there isn't a catch.

Now, the lady in the Lone Pine ranger station just told me the exact opposite of what I was previously told. She said that going into the Whitney ZONE requires a day use permit, nevermind the fact that I pointed out to her that the upper half of the MR is also in the Whitney ZONE ("but we don't require day use permits for that trail"). I began the phone call by politely asking her: If I summit Whitney via the Mountaineer's Route and then want to descend via the Main Trail, all as a dayhike, would I need a permit to do that? Her reply: Not a simple "yes" or "no", but rather, "Why would you want to go back down the Main Trail?" Incredible!! I couldn't reason with her, and she wasn't going to budge. So I finally thanked her for her time and ended the conversation.

So, Richard and lawaneke, I'm going to sit down as soon as I get home from work (I'm here late doing this) and rethink our route strategy once I chill out a bit.

Apologies to all for venting here. It's not my style.

CaT

A few minutes later: See the related thread (link below) on this board for an apparent resolution of this issue:

http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=002418

Yeah, I can see where the conflicting information can be frustrating. One "official" answer is A, and the next "official" answer is B. Ah yes... our federal government at work....

If the boys (and girls) on the mountain say it's OK, that works for me!

Thanks,
L

L & CaT:
I too got conflicting answers to the permit question from the Forest Service. And, I never got the same answer twice in a row! So, just to play it safe I stopped in at the Lone Pine USFS and picked up a free walk-in day hike permit (I didn't tell them I was going up the MR, so as not to start any controversy). The "ranger girl" said that they haven't run out of these permits yet this year; they have been available every day. BTW, I never got checked for a permit on the mountain that day. If you don't have time to stop in, I would get someone at the FS to tell you that you don't need one, and then write down their name in case you are stopped.

I Summited on the Mountaineering Route solo on 9/25/2004; and came down the same way (6.8 versus 21.4 miles); it was not difficult (and it avoids permit issues). With no flashlight, I descended in the dark (from the summit at about 6:00 PM), elated, slowly, under an almost full moon. Nature at its best – incredible – awesome – serendipitous - there were four people (two in one tent, one in one tent, and one in the hut) spending the night on the summit. All seemed well, but a guy who bought oxygen at a medical supply store seemed in especially good spirits. What a wonderful peace I found today - all alone - saw a deer spooked by my footsteps near the beginning of the MR just before the first creek crossing, that ran through the sun-filtered ferns and river-birches out of the gully and into the dark red fir forest - widow-makers they call them from the old logging days because they snap off near the top and ... well ... made widows as they killed their men - I stopped walking and watched the deer bound, in graceful, effortless flight - I stood still and alone about nine or ten days into it - eyes fixed on the ferns and yellow-leafed, almost-octobered birches, I'd forgotten the deer – I’d become motionless, frozen, in one of those moments - then I noticed the deer retracing its steps - turning - and approaching - staring at me from about 50 feet away - another hopped from the gully to join it - they looked at me uninterested - alertly looked all around -then calmly walked back into the forest.
Tony B.