Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Flying over Whitney area

For those who have wondered how the area looks from 30,000 ft., we flew right over the Whitney area a few days ago on a flight from San Jose, CA to Las Vegas, NV. The flight path goes just slightly to the north of Whitney. For the best view, make sure you are seated on the right hand side in the fore of the plane (the wings will block the view). A major landmark is the Kern Canyon which appears as a very long and deep canyon and stands out from its surroundings. A few seconds later, Guitar Lake will come to view, then the summit and the needles -- the Smithsonian hut is very visible, then the steep descent into the portal and Lone Pine. The entire area was a very a large white blanket but the summit looked devoid of any significant snow depth as seen from 6 miles up in the sky.

I have summitted twice (Sep 2002 and Jun 2003), both from the west side. In both cases, I wondered where all the overflying aircraft were heading (other than the noisy low flying F-18s) -- now I have one answer. Flying over the summit gave me an expected rush of excitement and a flashback.

You might be interested in this. Board member, Veloman (member 449) posted this message a while back which gives you a satellite view of Whitney. The cool part is that placing the cursor on a particular point allows the user to focus in. Many thanks to Veloman.
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Hey all,
Here is an awesome satellite image from space of the Mt.Whitney area courtesy of the USGS website:

http://www.terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?t=1&s=12&x=482&y=5060&z=11&w=2

Iceberg lake is just left of upper center in the pic and Whitney is of course immediately left of that .The MR is the dark chute that goes straight up the mountain from Iceberg.If you look close enough you can see the rectangular shape of the hut in the lighted portion just below the top of the MR.
Trail crest is in the bottom left of the pic and you can follow the trail from TC past the Needles to the summit.The Boyscout lakes are quite visible in the upper right of the pic and the Ebersbacher Ledges are in the extreme upper right of the pic.
The website is totally interactive so, if you want a closer shot of something, say the hut, just place your curser over the area of the hut and left click.Use the arrows on the sides of the picture to go in different directions and use the advanced find to locate any other part of the Sierra or anywhere in the U.S.If for some reason the image doesn't show up as I have described it use the menu on the left and change the image size to large. Have fun.

This is neither here or there, but years ago a commercial plane slammed into Mt Whitney killing all. Sorry to be such a downer. I think on the east face somewhere.

According to Bob R. the plane was returning from a gambling expedition. It crashed on the north side of peak 12960, just North of Lower Boy Scout Lake. Locals now call it gamblers peak.

Thanks for the plug Paul, I think that link is pretty cool too. Unforunately, you can't print it up whole, it comes out in squares. Oh well.

Anyone know the date of the airplane crash? What about any other crashes in the area?

Thanks

Hiiker

The date of the Gamblers Special crash was Feb. 18, 1969. It was sighted Aug. 8 and reported in the LA Times two days later, and I still have a copy of the article. Summary is <a href="http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000205">here</a>.

I can't recall any others in the Whitney area, but there could be some. Certainly there were several small private planes that went in near Olancha Peak, one near Shepherd Pass, and one near Kearsarge Pass. And a Navy fighter jet near Cirque Peak. But nothing lately.

The only other "event" that might be of interest to this crowd is the China Lake helo that had a hard landing on top of Whitney, during a SAR operation about 15 years ago. I've forgotten the details, but it probably lost tail rotor control. They had to take the helo apart into large sections, then use a CH-47 to fly the pieces out.

Here's the NTSB report on the crash.

NTSB Identification: DCA69A0014
14 CFR Part 135 Scheduled operation of HAWTHORNE NEV*
Event occurred Tuesday, February 18, 1969 in LONE PINE, CA
Aircraft: DOUGLAS DC-3, registration: N15570

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FILE DATE LOCATION AIRCRAFT DATA INJURIES FLIGHT PILOT DATA F S M/N PURPOSE----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3-2594 69/2/18 NR.LONE PINE,CALIF DOUGLAS DC-3 CR- 3 0 0 COMMERCIAL AIRLINE TRANSPORT, AGE TIME - 0510 N15570 PX- 32 0 0 COMMUTER AIR CARRIER 43, 16348 TOTAL HOURS, DAMAGE-DESTROYED OT- 0 0 0 AIR TAXI-PASSG S-D 6000 IN TYPE, INSTRUMENT RATED. DEPARTURE POINT INTENDED DESTINATION HAWTHORNE,NEV BURBANK,CALIF TYPE OF ACCIDENT PHASE OF OPERATION COLLISION WITH GROUND/WATER: CONTROLLED IN FLIGHT: NORMAL CRUISE PROBABLE CAUSE(S) PILOT IN COMMAND - FAILED TO FOLLOW APPROVED PROCEDURES,DIRECTIVES,ETC. PILOT IN COMMAND - IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT DECISIONS OR PLANNING PILOT IN COMMAND - CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS WEATHER - LOW CEILING WEATHER - SNOW FACTOR(S) WEATHER - ICING CONDITIONS-INCLUDES SLEET,FREEZING RAIN,ETC. WEATHER - ADVERSE WINDS ALOFT PILOT IN COMMAND - INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PREPARATION AND/OR PLANNING WEATHER BRIEFING - PARTIAL BRIEFING BY FLIGHT SERVICE PERSONNEL, BY PHONE/RADIO, LIMITED BY PILOT ACTION WEATHER FORECAST - FORECAST SUBSTANTIALLY CORRECT MISSING AIRCRAFT - LATER RECOVERED SKY CONDITION CEILING AT ACCIDENT SITE OVERCAST UNKNOWN/NOT REPORTED VISIBILITY AT ACCIDENT SITE PRECIPITATION AT ACCIDENT SITE ZERO SNOW OBSTRUCTIONS TO VISION AT ACCIDENT SITE WIND DIRECTION-DEGREES UNKNOWN/NOT REPORTED 165 WIND VELOCITY-KNOTS TYPE OF WEATHER CONDITIONS 35 IFR TYPE OF FLIGHT PLAN VFR FIRE AFTER IMPACT REMARKS- RECOVERY DATE 8/8/69.OPN IN IFR WX CONDS IN MT TERRAIN LACKING RADIO NAV AIDS.WINDS ALOFT NOT CKD.

Here is a link to some additional informatoin on this "Gamblers' Special" crash into Whitney. Scroll down to the last entry for a description of the crash.

http://members.aol.com/jaydeebee1/crash60s.html

The front page of the LA Times, the day it was spotted: <a href="http://www.ridgenet.net/~rockwell/gamblersspecialLAT-1.jpg">here</a>

Pretty bizarre to open up the LA Times article and see the front-page report on the Sharon Tate murders. Was not expecting that!

In the spring of 1976, a small plane was intending to cross the Sierra at Kearsarge Pass, but crashed into the south side of Mt. Bradley. A woman passenger was the only survivor. She eventually hiked all the way down Symmes Creek to Independence. An awesome achievement considering that she descended extremely rough, steep (trailless, until you reach the Shepherd Pass Trail far below) terrain without camping supplies nor even proper foot-gear. Her story is portrayed in the movie, "And, I Alone Survived" starring Blair Brown. I highly recommend renting this movie. Not only is the story good, but there are many interesting (but, grainy) aerial views of that region of the High Sierra.