Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Mt. Whitney: Attempts, Successes, and First-Timers

Just before noon on Saturday August 9, my fiancé, her friend (celebrating her 30th birthday), and I reached the summit of Mt. Whitney. We stayed overnight at the Portal Thursday night, Trail Camp Friday, and again at Trail Camp after summiting Saturday. It was both my fiancé and her friend's first attempts and successful summits. It was my second attempt and second successful summit - first trip was in early June 2006 (overnight at Trail Camp before and after summiting).

Driving home we had several questions for one another, none of which we could answer. I did some searching (including the message board here) and was not able to find answers about attempts, successes, and first timers.

1. How many Mt. Whitney summit attempts are made in each calendar year? Is this figure possible to track? (somewhere I heard 20,000 people tackle Mt. Whitney each year)

2. How many attempts are made on the Mountaineer’s Route vs. Main Mt. Whitney Trail? Is this statistic kept?

3. How many people actually reach the summit of Mt. Whitney in any given year? And if there is a hard number, how is this number collected: the register at the summit? (someone once said it was somewhere around 6,000 people summit successfully)

4. Of those who successfully summit, for how many is it his or her first time?

5. Of those who successfully summit, how many day hike vs. overnight hike?

6. Of those who successfully summit, how many reach the summit by the MR or MMWT?

I am just trying to get a handle on some basic numbers about attempts and successes and thought a regular on this Board might know some of these answers or point me in the right direction.

Thank you,
Jeff

Jeff -- I don't really have a lot of answers for you, but I wanted to say congrats on your successful summit, birthday celeb and pending nuptuals. I too was at the summit, around noon on Saturday, so I'm sure we passed each other along the trail -- I was the turtle in the green hat. I was really impressed by the camaraderie and encouragement from all the hikers that day.

Anyway, this was my first attempt and a success. I owe alot to this message board.

Information + Preparation = Success

You can get a feel for the main trail usage by looking at the Unused quota space page for last year. The quota is 60 overnight hikers and 100 day hikers per day, so if you subtract off the unused space you will get the actual number of people with permits. In addition, there are backpackers who hike the John Muir Trail and up to 25 hikers per day who enter via alternate Inyo NF trailheads.

I heard somewhere that about 30% of those who attempt Whitney actually made it to the top. Unfortunatly, I don't know how accurate this figure is.