Downhill to Whitney Portal

Mt. Whitney is the official southern terminus of the JMT, but obviously one needs to get down, and our pre-arranged pick-up was some 6000 feet below at the Whitney Portal trail-head. After retracing our footsteps to the spot where we dropped our gear, we continued on towards Trail Crest pass. After summiting Whitney, we thought that it was all downhill, but actually the trail drops below the pass, and we had to ascend again to get over Trail Crest. At 13,620 feet, this is technically the highest pass that we would cross, but since we were already very high, it seems trivial compared to say, Forester Pass.

After Trail Crest, it was indeed all downhill. The slope here is very steep, so the trail makes numerous switchbacks. We could see darkening skies moving over and soon we began to feel a bit of hail. We didn't want to get caught in a storm on an exposed slope, so we hurried, but in the end, precipitation was light. About half-way down the traverse, we noticed some water trickling over the trail. It was a little run-off trickle that got bigger as we descended. Interestingly, the flow disappeared under the rocks between the switches and only appeared when crossing the trail.

After descending the switchbacks, we arrived at Trail Camp (12,000 feet). This is the highest legal camping area in the Whitney Zone, and there was a small city of campers there. People with two-day Whitney permits, typically hike from the trail-head. to this camp, and then ascend Whitney the next day. We had lunch and then continued to descend. Finally, we got below tree-line and around 10,000 feet arrived at Outpost Camp. It was still fairly early in the day, but we were ahead of schedule, so we decided to camp there, clean up our gear and ourselves, and have an easy afternoon.

While we were engaged in camp chores, a summer Ranger came by and asked to see our permits. After checking them, she asked to see our bear canisters. These are required in this area, and it was very clear, we would have been fined, if we didn't have them!

Connections

At some point before reaching Whitney Portal, we needed to reconnect with our section hiking partners, Eric and Huimin. We knew they were behind us, but we had hoped they would catch up before we summited Whitney. When this didn't happen, I was a little concerned, and hoped that we would see them before evening at Outpost Camp.

As we looked around, this wasn't a very inviting camp. Like most established campgrounds, the tent sites were hard-packed, and it was noisier, and busier than we liked. There are a couple of solar toilets there, and the only available camp spots were about 50 yards away from them. All-in-all, this wasn't an ideal camp. I decided to take a nap, but Craig looked for a better spot further down the trail. A while later, he returned and said there was a much better spot at Lone Pine Lake. So we packed up, and went down there. Indeed, it was a nice scenic spot, and no one else was there. The only problem was that it was off on a side trail, and Eric would not know where to look. After setting up, Craig hiked back up trail for some distance and finally did run into Eric and Huimin. So by late afternoon, we had reconnected and had a nice camp at Lone Pine Lake. We even caught a few trout before dinner. It was a great way to spend our last evening on the trail.

Camps

 

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