Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board The original western approach?

I'm researching the western approach before the construction of the switchbacks that now form the JMT, and have read first-hand accounts of a near-vertical climb, but I am not confident I'm looking at the right thing.

I've pulled together the mapping/satellite imagery that suggests the path and wondering if anyone can confirm if this is right, please?

https://imgur.com/a/dPklLly

- Google satellite imagery appears to show remnants of the upper part of the old trail that connects to the Mt. Whitney Trail
- In a photo that I took above Guitar Lake, I can see, at face value, a route that would seem appealing to early climbers (last photo in the series)

If this is correct, does anyone know of any photos or detailed accounts of someone taking this route, please?

One of the early accounts is MOUNTAINEERING IN THE SIERRA NEVADA by Clarence King. You can download it for free from Project Gutenburg.

https://www.gutenberg.org › ebooks › 54046

Then you might dig up a copy of S P Langley's Report of the Mount Whitney Expedition:

Researches on the Solar Heat, and Its Absorption by the Earth's Atmosphere. A Report on the Mount Whitney Expedition. By Prof. S. P. Langley. Washington, Government, 1884. (Prof. papers U. S. Signal Serv., xv.) 242 p., illustr., 21 pl., map. 4°.

And then more scientific expeditions, the early Sierra Club years and the stages of designing and building (and re-building)the JMT.

There are many more trail splits and joins than you have seen from the photos you have referenced. And don't put too much faith in the accuracy of the trails you see on maps, old or new.

Dale B. Dalrymple

Thank you! The Mt. Whitney Club Journals have also been valuable, too.

Do you happen to know where the area of "Devil's Slide" would be? It's the most referenced route I've found (with a name), and one report even mentioned "Kris Kringle's Cave," which is a breadcrumb I really need to ignore for what it's suggesting, but it sounded like it was mid-ascent on Devil's Slide.

On a rainy day I did a quick skim of the tables of contents of the first 10 volumes of the Sierra Clib Bulletin and noted:

Sierra Club Bulletin
V 1 1893-1896
pages 1-8
The Mount Whitney Trail
includes the route from Lone Pine to the western approach by way of the Hockett Trail (Lone Pine to Visalia)

V 3 1900-1901
p169
Cut-Offs Along The Hockett Trail

V 4 1902-1903
p207-215
Mt. Whitney, Whitney Creek, And ThePoison Meadow Trail
By Willis Linn Jepson
describes the Hockett Trail and an approach to Whitney with pack animals

V 5 1904-1905
p87-100
Mt Whitney as a site for a meteorological observatory
discusses accessibility-trails

V 7 1908-1909
p141-149
The Observatory on Mt Whitney

V 9 1912-1013
p16-24
The Kern River Outing of 1912
p23 Plate XVIII photo of W side of Mt Whitney from the 'trail'


Dale B. Dalrymple

Thanks you Dale for noting the Sierra Club Bulletin as a resource. The first 12 volumes (1893-1924 containing several thousand pages) have been digitalized by the Sierra Club and can be found at vault.sierraclub.org/history/bulletin.

For example, as suggested by Dale, I read the volume 4, pages 207-215 article by Willis Jepson, "Mt. Whitney, Whitney Creek, and the Poison Meadow Trail:

On August 1, 1900 Jepson, local Ralph Hopping, and their 4 mules depart from Three Rivers on the Hockett Trail. (The previous day they had met for the first time during a discussion of Sierra Trails in the "old days"!) On August 7 they reach the summit of Mt Whitney and start to head back to Three Rivers the following day.

On the return, Jepson, Hopping, and the mules decide to try a possible shortcut and descend Whitney Creek all the way directly down to the Kern. They all make it (by avoiding the worst of the Whitney Gorge)! Today only a few hardy and adventuresome scramblers will try this shortcut each season (eg, a High Sierra Trail hiker not wanting to cross a raging Whitney Creek early season in a big snow year, sometimes the Crabtree Ranger, occasionally the Trail Crew,...).

The rest of the story: Hopping later became a Ranger in Sequoia National Park and Jepson a Professor at the University of California. Today Mt Jepson is located on the Sierra Crest between Norman Clyde Peak and North Palisades.

Jim

I explored the entire origial JMT (McClure, 1916) two years ago, and in my research found the pre-JMT route as described by contemporaneous sources. It departs the present trail just above the Guitar Tarns, and follows that gully to the Crest a little north of MT Muir. This link, if it works is to the 1910 USGS Mt Whitney quad, from the 1907 survey.

As a side note, the official route by State Engineer McClure was never built. It went up to the Carbtree Lakes form Crabtree Meadow, and straight up the headwall at Upper Crabtree to Whitney Pass, then followed the old Mt WHitney Trail to the Summit.

This route was on paper only: McClure himself, with the Mather Mountain Party of 1915, used the then-established USGS route. Go to this ling click the + sign to zoom in, and scroll to Mt WHitney and the approach from Guitar Lake.

[img:center]https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ht-bin/tv_browse.pl?id=27427dc7494c16a24e413cd2cbb8f856[/img]

Cool map...

Off-topic, but it reminds me of a conversation that I has with Dr. Dirtbag after his FKT for the CA 14'ers...

I had recently spent a bunch of time on top of Barnard with a GPS and the final (stabilized) reading was 14,001...

This map shows 14,003...

I had asked Sean if he would re-do the record attempt if it turns out the Barnard is back on the 14'er list...

I don't recall what his response was...

Another interesting note on this map. The signature block at the lower left includes one R.B Marshall and G. R. Davis. Marshall was head of mapping at the time but the year following this survey became Chief Geographer for the USGS. A very important friend and supporter of John Muir throughout his career.

George R Davis, the year before this survey, was the first to cross Muir Pass, and thereby inspired Little Joe LeConte to include it in his historic 1907 trip on what is considered by many the first complete through trip on the High Mountain Route that became (most of) the JMT .

Both men were members of Steven Mather's 1915 Mountain Party, the deluxe pack train from Giant Forest to Mt Whitney to promote the establishment of the Park Service, and incidentally to scout, with State Engineer Wilbur McClure, the final southern section of the JMT, from Junction Pass to Whitney. The following year, Marshall arranged, but did not accompany Mather's Second Mountain Party, which became the first long trip not quite a through on the then official JMT, or at least a good part of it. Davis and McClure were also on the second trip, which terminated at Road's End.

So in 1906 and 1907, Davis had surveyed much of the eventual JMT route, and in 1915, with Marshall, actually traveled the route of the Western Mt Whitney approach long before the present JMT was built.