Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Onion Valley to Whitney Portal trail run

I am planning a run from Onion valley to Whitney Portal and was looking for any input I could get from anyone who has done this.

Send me an email and I can give you some info. Better if we can hook up for a call rather than me typing.

message sent

Well we did it! And boy does it hurt! Thanks to everyone, especially Richard, Laura and Scott, for the beta. Don't think I could have done this without Scott's advice on food.

Not many pics because most of the run was in the dark, but here are a few from the beginning and the end. Oh, and I do not recommend this for anyone, unless of course you really like suffering.

Onion Valley to Whitney in a day.

Now that is a mega-marathon! Awesome

Congrats Ken! Takes some gumption to even consider this as a possibility.

Great job! I am doing the same route with the family next month, but we are going to take 6 days.

Happy Hiking or in your case running,

Scott

I met a gentleman at Onion Valley yesterday who recalled my TR from a few years ago. Nice work, Ken and company! Perfect conditions all the way through, looks like.

Gotta love Forester...

Yup, could not have asked for better weather. I had the heaviest load at 11 lbs, 8 lbs of which was food. 4 lbs for gear and clothes is pretty light and foul weather could have made this very miserable.

@Scott M, gumption is doing it alone. Now that would be something.

Caught a bit of beta for the rest of the JMT off of Richard's thread and now we are looking to finish up the JMT.

1 Whitney Portal (Onion Valley) (45) DONE
2 Onion Valley (Taboose) (40)
3 Taboose (South Lake) (44)
4 South Lake (Florence Lake) (42)
5 Florence Lake (Lake Edison) (28)
6 Lake Edison (Red Meadow) (31)
7 Red Meadow (Tuolumne Meadow) (37)
8 Tuolumne Meadow (Happy Isles) (26)

depending on the terrain maybe combining a couple of these.

Ken,
Happy Isles to Reds Meadow is easier than OV to WP. Done it twice now but north to south (once in a four person group and once solo). If I did it again I'd probably do Happy Isles to Agnew.Far more fun to braek it into two days, though, IMO.
Scott

Going to be finishing this project this weekend. Thought about pushing thru the last two segments as one, but the experiences I've had going beyond 30 miles has me back to doing it as originally planned.

Ranking what I've done so far in terms of difficulty:
3
4
1
2
6
5

I'm not good in warm conditions and it seemed to be really hot for large parts of 3, 4 and 6.

How long did it take?????

We are doing it the same trip on wednesday from the Whitney side to OV
this will be our 5th over 50 plus this summer with Whitney as one of the peaks along the way.... Good job for finishing...

it took me 23 hrs 34 min. It took my partner Dave an hour less but I think we could have been much faster. We spent 4 hours not moving according to the GPS. Things like getting water and fixing blisters. Oh yeah and taking pictures.

Always seems strange when you get back and see the stop times!
You think you you are only there for a second or two and it logs ten min.. Good job ..
We have gotten accustomed to moving while shooting photos and started limiting out #"s we will shoot , to avoid this down time we hope to finish in 18 -18.5 but we will see how the journey goes.. Now you are ready for another one this week yea????

Ken, forgot to say congratulations...

Davey, continue to be amazed at the times you and Tracy post...

BTW: after I finish this, the next time I do the JMT it will be 4-6... weeks. I'm happy with myself for only spending about an hour in the dark on the JMT so far (near Edison)... seeing it in daylight (at a very rushed pace) has me wanting much, much more.

We gotta do it this fast- scared of the dark , I heard there were bears and cougars out there, SCARY- I've heard moving quickly is safer...
Just playing! yes we move along, but Richard your times are amazingly fast , and I feel if you were not always solo you would be hot on our heals.. Like in the tour if you have a lead out person its easier to drift off and just focus on the feet in front of you... Lucky Tracy!!! I want the back seat this week as after all the hospital time last week, from the mystery bug bite that has put me down...
I will need all the help I can get....For the record she always offers to lead I am just stubborn...
And gentleman you guys did a great job on this tour its a challenging one! Congrats again.... Say, what was the total milage your Garmin spit out? Addition off the maps looks higher than 45?!?

the Garmin said 48 miles when we finished, but when I got home and uploaded the data it was 45.78.

Garmin connect OV - WP

Richard, I would have liked to seen more too. Next time we will do more in the light.

Thinking about the 63 mile section from Yosemite south next weekend.

Take it with a grain of salt - it also showed you topping out almost 100 feet above Whitney's summit.

45 or 48 - regardless, one helluva trek. Congrats!

Having finally finished...

Tuolumne to Reds and Tuolumne to the Valley were the 2 easiest sections.
About 20 hours combining my times from the two hikes.