Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board May 5 snow coverage overview

This image shows Whitney, Keeler Needle, and Day Needle, from the west, and the snow coverage as of May 6 <img src="http://bearbnz.net/homepage/homepage_images/whitney.jpg" width="640" height= "480">
Here is the snow coverage in the Mt. Muir area, with the trail clearly delineated by the snow, also taken from the west
<img src="http://bearbnz.net/homepage/homepage_images/snow_amount_muir.jpg" width="640" height= "480">

What great pictures! Thank you for sharing.

Bearbnz...those are awesome pictures! Quick question: you said, "with the trail clearly delineated by the snow." Just to make sure I am understanding you correctly. The trail from Trailcrest to the Whitney summit is the horizontal (or there about) line covered in snow.

I'll be on trail this weekend and am trying to get as good a picture of what's going on out there as I can.

Again, thanks SO MUCH for the pictures!

Bearbnz, how DID you get those photos? Were you in a helicopter or plane? I took the plane ride out of Lone Pine once. The pilot said he was not allowed to get lower than 1,000 over Whitney. Please let us know.

Iwannahike: That is correct, the horizontal band of snow in the middle to left of the image is the trail, and you can see a switchback on the right.

sherry: From an airplane, a Piper Arrow, we cruised the entire crest of the Sierra, from Tower Peak in the north to Mt. Langley in the south, for the express purpose of getting some photos of the Sierra draped in freshie. I'm not sure about your pilot's interpretation of the FARs, the requirement is to maintain a distance of 500 feet (horizontal or vertical) from any person. There were none up there, but we didn't get as close as we have at other times in the past. I don't know where he got the 1,000' idea.

Thanks so much for the photos! We are planning a trip up the main trail on 5/17 and this is really helpful! Will be watching this site for news and will post after we are up there.

BEAUTIFUL!

Above a national park the minimum is 2,000 above ground level (AGL), and this is notated on the aeronautical sectional map. Yosemite has this notation, clearly shown in a box over the park. The Whitney area (Kings Canyon Nat'l Park) does not have this notation, and in fact the airspace over Whitney is designated as a military operations area (MOA), so I don't think aircraft noise is an issue. I'll have to research this some more.