Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Three-Six-Nine Was Mighty Fine - Thor Peak

Ken, Rick Kent's site doesn't offer-up direct access to photos, like Flickr or Smugmug do, where you can post any image and the link ends in .jpg

So you have to use the old html tags:

<img src= .... >

And to do that, you have to set the Markup option below the text window to using HTML and UBBCode. Unfortunately if you forget to do that on your initial post, the software won't let you go back and change it. I can change it, but only using a database command.

my head just exploded!

Thank God Steve is here to keep all this stuff straight!

Thanks Ken.

While searching thru hundreds (thousands?) of photos looking for a clearer view of what we're talking about, I ran across this one. I still haven't found one of my own that shows that slope above Trail Camp. It seems I ignore that section of the crest and either get McAdie and Arc Pass, or The Switchbacks and Trail Crest.

Mike is correct in stating that the maps are wrong in their placement of Whitney Pass. (At least the ones I've looked at.)

Like I said earlier, I'm going back to get a better sense of where thing are up there. The Rick Kent photo does give me the impression that the terrain on the West Side is pretty tame.

Now, if I could just find a link to BobR's photo site, I could spend some more time searching for useful photos. (Well, I found his Flickr site, but alas, I could not find his Mt. Marsh photos. Bummer.)

Adding more to the confusion:





Bob Burd's TR photos for Hitchcock and Marsh show The Couloir as Whitney Pass.

OMG! That's scary!

Here is a copy of the 1907 15 minute topo. It clearly shows Whitney Pass on that slope above Trail Camp (note the X, not the words). The contemporary 7.5 minute topos, with the words shifted to the right, are wrong.

Sorry for the scribbling on the map; my friend* obviously didn't know I'd be using it these many years later. Next is the same map, but with the trail to Whitney Pass and the old main trail to Trail Crest before the 97 switchback were constructed, delineated.



See also a picture of Whitney Pass from the summit of Wotans Throne. And here is a shot of the slopes lower down, with the 97 switchbacks on the right. This is the same picture with pieces of the old trail marked in.

My 1937 15 minute topo shows the same info, but the trails are not drawn in.

A few years ago, I climbed to the top of Whitney Pass, and followed it a few hundred feet south of the crest. It is still in good shape, as it follows the terrain over toward Discovery Pinnacle.

*Chester Versteeg

Thanks Bob.