Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board article in LA Times

There was an article about Mount Whitney in the travel section of the LA Times (Dec 6).

http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-whitney6-2009dec06

"..and reputedly the highest walk-up summit on the planet.."

That can't be true can it?

Isn't Kilimanjaro a walk-up? It's over 19K, if I recall correctly. Maybe he meant the highest non-glaciated walk-up.

Aconcagua is the tallest mountain outside Asia & is considered a scramble at 22,841 feet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aconcagua

I just did Kilimanjaro in March and I'd file it under walk-up for sure. Maybe he meant class 1. People might call some parts of the easiest route on Kili class 2 but its a stretch.

kswitzer, thanks for posting the LA Times link to Jordan Rane's article, "Mt. Whitney in their sights". For me and my climbing partners last August, Mt. W is the highest walk up summit that we will ever see. That mountain has just enough terror to make it really satisfying. I loved what he said when he personified the mountain. "It's high. It's stark. It's aloof. If mountains could talk, this one wouldn't. Yet it beckons with a force that will push regular folks to do irregular things."

I believe the lay public would consider a "walk up" as being a summit with a trail leading to the top. You guys are thinking too much like climbers. Reminds me of the teachers I had who couldn't understand why we had trouble grasping concepts that were so simple to them....

I would just say Mount Whitney is AMONG the highest walk-up summits in the world. Walk-up assumes CLASS 1 and ZERO TECHNICAL mountaineering skills (no rope, helmet, ice axe, crampons, etc.).

Even with Aconcagua, on the normal route, if there's years where there's snow you'd need ice axe and crampons to scale the last thousand feet or so.

I would classify Kilimanjaro as the tallest walk-up in the world.

Lets look at the complete paragraph:

"It's not K2 or Kanchenjunga. It's not McKinley or even Kilimanjaro. It's mighty Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in America's Lower 48 states and reputedly the highest walk-up summit on the planet open to just about any local bucket-lister with a healthy pulse, reliable footwear, the right attitude and enough foresight to apply in February for a summer climbing permit."

Kilimanjaro is not open to everyone...you are required to hire a guide company in order to ascend the mountain, so the statement that Kilimanjaro is the tallest walk up in the world is incorrect in the context of what was written. And assumes for whom? A climber? A person sitting in his easy chair who has never hiked a peak in his life and is reading the morning paper? Ed Viesturs? One of the multiple ascenders of Whitney on this board? Please remember that many people are directed to this board that have very little background in hiking in the mountains...when you refer to something as "easy" or a "walk up" based on your experience and without qualifying your statement, you are discounting that fact and giving the wrong impression to these people. The article was not published in the American Alpine Institutes magazine, but in the L.A. Times. This is not meant to be a diatribe, merely a cautionary tale....