Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Sierra High Trail

A buddy and I are looking at doing the SHT next month. Ive read a couple of trip reports, and Ive seen the 72mile trail map, but even google doesnt have a ton of info on this. Does anyone have any recent experience with this trek? Any info appreciated...thanks

One problem may be your terminology, which seems to combine common terminology for two different trips:

There is the High Sierra Trail (HST), from Sequoia west to east and Whitney,

There is the Sierra High Route (SHR), a nearly 200 mile cross country route from Sequoia NP to Yosemite NP.

Ahh, thanks for correcting me. It seems to make a small difference in the number of hits google present me but interestingly every trip report and maps seems to show different distances. Ive seen everything from 50 to 72 miles. While I appreciate that folks can shorten the trip if they wanted to, I was hoping to get a better perspective on the entire 72 mile route. Thanks in advance for any additional info

I got 319,000 hits at this page: http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=high+sierra+trail

The first page, nps.gov, gives 49 miles from the western end of the HST to the junction with the JMT and another 13 to the top of Whitney. If you add 11 more to Whitney Portal you get 73 miles total.

About ten years ago, a friend and I did a variation on the High Sierra Trail that I highly recommend. After crossing Kaweah Gap, we walked to Big Arroyo. At that point we left the High Sierra Trail and walked to the first of the Little Five Lakes. Here we turned and used Black Rock Pass to descend to Pinto Lake and looped back to Bearpaw Meadow (On the way we were rewarded with an amazing grove of Sequoias). I've never done the trail to Whitney because I was never too keen on the prospect of descending to the Kern River and regaining all of that elevation, but I met people on the trail who had done just that and they thought that this was both the most dramatic and rewarding way to approach Whitney. The trail report below is from someone who did the trail in an above average snow year, so perhaps it will be informative (it also lists the trail at over 70 miles). I only looked through the photos:

http://www.gentleye.com/camping/trips/trHST_3.html

By the way, you should pick up Steve Roeper's book and investigate the Sierra High Route (which goes nowhere near Whitney). Your stumbling across it was no accident; it deserves it's reputation as the premiere hike in America. If you love lakes, granite ramps and meadows, this is your hike. I've only done the first stretch and I will one day be headed back. You can get lot's of information and a virtual transcription of the text if you look online.

Another long Sierra route worth investigating is the Theodore Solomons Trail, for which there is a guidebook.

Its virtue is that it is below timberline, meaning that one can have fires every night, and the hiking is on trails through wooded forests.

There is yet another, called the Sierra Crest Route.

All are described here, including a review by one B. Rockwell!!:

http://www.sierracrestroute.org/the%20road.htm

Lee, Ken, thanks for the info. Thats the kind of G2 I was looking for

Ken,
the Sierra Crest Route sounds amazing. Have you attempted it?

Lee, I'd never heard of it, until I saw that link. Sounds amazing, though.

I wrote this guide for Everytrail and used the actual GPS track I took while hiking the HST last year:

http://www.everytrail.com/guide/the-high-sierra-trail

The track came out to 64.7 miles. I used the alternate Wolverton trailhead and used the trail fork that goes by Moraine Lake, but the distance differences between the two are negligible.

I actually read this TR before you posted it below. Thats quite a disparity between the 'advertised' 72 miles vr the 65 you noted below. Any idea why such a large difference? thanks for posted the TR

I would guess part of it is the different trailhead. I did the HST last August, and mileage according to the maps (and how we felt) seemed right about the 72 miles.

Also on that guide entry's last day, it lists the mileage from guitar lake to whitney portal as 14.3 miles. I know it's 11 from the summit to the portal, and i know that it's more than 3.3 from guitar lake to the summit (it's nearly 2 from trailcrest to the summit alone) so there are a couple miles missing there as well.

=) tif