Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Management update from the Mt. Whitney Ranger District

At the Eastern Sierra Mountainfest in Bishop last weekend I chatted with some rangers at the Inyo NF booth. Two items from their Management Update handout, dtd Oct 23, 2003, interested me. Quoting in their entirety:

"Mt. Whitney: The Forest is preparing an Environmental Assessment for the toilets on Mt. Whitney. Alternatives include and analyze fixing the toilets, removing one or both of the toilets, and an expansion of the personal packing out of human waste. The EA will be out for comments this November and the contact is Mary Beth Hennessy at 760-873-2448 or mhennessy@fs.fed.us"

"Glacier Lodge: University of California, Berkeley is overseeing the design contest for the new Glacier Lodge facility. The design is to develop a mountain hut facility similar to those found in the European Alps for North America. Currently, there are over 100 architects and architectural firms in the competition. The design selection will take place in Berkeley, December 12-14, 2003 with an international panel of judges. The Lodge will begin construction in spring of 2004 for a 60 to 80 person overnight facility with a restaurant. Please contact Julie if you have questions." (Julie is Julie Molzahn at 760-873-2462 or jmolzahn@fs.fed.us)

Also, I inquired about the stories I had heard regarding possible changes to the policies pertaining to the Whitney Trail area for next summer. In particular, the implementation of guide permits they are considering is not to open up the permit reservation process to guides. It is rather to allow someone who wants to get a permit - and to reserve it through the current process - to be able to hire a guide and take him/her along. It is not the thing we fear most, where several guiding companies will each apply for the maximum 15-person group size and gobble up significant quota space.

Of course, this is only a proposal - perhaps it shouldn't even be called a proposal yet. The Whitney ranger is new, and new people often have ideas that make some sense to them initially. Then they back off when the information begins to flow in and they get "educated." I wouldn't get too excited yet.

Was there any discussion of banning trekking poles?

why would they even consider that?

It came up in another thread:

<a href="http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001410">http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=0014 10</a>

Apparently someone has a concern that the carbide tips on the poles are damaging the rocks. Sounds farfetched but I'm no expert.

I think that was meant as a cute joke.

As for me, they can have my trekking poles when they can pry them from my cold, dead fingers.

Adios, Rich

Bob R - Thanks for the update.

I was intrigued by Bob R's mention of the Glacier Lodge competition and did a little Internet research (see link below). Does anyone know the history of the old lodge and what happened to it or why there is now a competition to put more buildings into the wilderness? I'm not trying to start a wild debate on NFS policies, but there seems to be a bit of a contradiction between wanting to remove solar toilets because of the need to reduce buildings in the wilderness and the desire to build a lodge near the palisades.

The link below has information on the design competition.

http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/competitions/overview.htm

Bob,

Where are people going to trek from? Rossi's in Big Pine to the New Glacier Lodge and back?

Who said the INF had to make sense. Hmmm...I guess there is a first time for everything.

Bill

While banning trekking poles for causing damage to rocks I hope some attention is given to the problem of falling objects, rocks in particular. I have noticed that when this occurs, there is a wide variety of environmental impact (no pun intended) including airborne particulates (dust), shock waves (noise), and, last but not least, damage to the landing zone.

Perhaps some signage indicating that rocks intending to fall should select a soft and absorbtive landing area would be helpful.

My next rant will be on the incredible destruction wrought by snow melt and ice.

LOL...at this point I think I need to apologize to the forum community for the number of bad jokes my post has prompted. :-)

I think it's pretty certain the carbide tips cause damage to the rocks, but let's face it--the rocks for several feet on either side of the trail are irreparably damaged already!

Regarding the Glacier Lodge:

There is a Glacier Lodge listed with a Big Pine P.O. Box address in the INYO N.F. site under Recreation Activities -> Recreation and Resort Services -> Lodges and Resorts. In the competition mentioned in a previous post, there is mention that the client for the design of the lodge is the Forest Service.

I surmise that a wealthy family trust put up the money for this experiment by the Forest Service, and that the lodge is/will be located near a trailhead. This lodge may seem wierd, but controlled experiments can often lead to great discoveries. If it flops, it's only one lodge.

Hopefully success will be measured by the reaction and behavior of the guests rather than pronouncements of some "elites" somewhere in the bureaucracy. (My life experience is that the Forest Service does pretty well in giving consideration to the interests of the visitors.)

The original lodge was built in 1917. It has burned down at least twice and had extensive avalanche damage once. The most recent fire happened on May 5, 1998 and was caused in part by a faulty propane conection/repair.

From my understanding, these leases usually last for 100 years...so this one has 14 more to go before it can be re-evaluated.