Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Hearing reports of No Water on Whitney???

Trying to find out if the rumor is True, I have been hearing the last few weeks that there is No running streams up the Whitney trail, also I just called ther Ranger station and they said that you do not have to carry all of your water, you can get water at the Start of the trail head and Guitar Lake? I am hiking this trail next Wed. need to know if I need to bring lots of extra water?

Thx,
Trail Boss~

Rusty:
There is plenty of water along the trail. I was up there this past weekend, and even the spring along the switchbacks was running HUGE on Saturday morning. Above that on the switchers and across the traverse there is no water. But no reason for you to take 'lots' of extra water. Just take what you think you might need and refill along the way.
-L
PS: INteresing that they mentioned Guitar Lake. Unless you said you were coming over from the west side???

I second Laura's response..... water issues exist on the backside above Guitar. For example, when I climb Whitney from the back side, I always camp above Guitar near a small stream. That stream no longer flows this year so I had to slighly modify my campsite in early August.

So, in a nutshell, it's the backside that people refer to as having water problems, and only then above Guitar.

Paul

Take two quarts carrying capacity for water and just keep filling as you hit water. I have viewed other more recent posts that state the water on the switchbacks is still flowing but runs little or none early in the morning when the snow pack is still frozen from the night time temps. I did this hike six weeks ago (see my post about it if you like), we arrived at the switchback spring at about 10 am and there was water flowing. At 1:30 pm when we hit that spring on the way back, the flow was heavier.

Forget Guitar Lake if you are hiking from the portal to the peak and back. Guitar Lake is not on that way.

Rusty, I came up from the Bay Area and ran the trail on Aug-17 and found plenty of water. As usual, did not need to carry water from portal. Grabbed first water at Outpost Camp; then at Trailside Meadows; at the stream just under Trail Camp; from there, ran to summit and found water on the way down the switchbacks (was pretty thirsty by then and the snow-melt tasted REAL good); at the same spots on the way down. Also as usual, did not filter the water. BTW, the smog spoiled the first 3-4 miles after my ~7am start. Cleared mostly afterward.--Adam