Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Thor Peak

Is Thor Peak a day hike from Whitney Portal? If not, do you have to have a permit to camp. Is there water available. How many miles is the round trip? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Most people day hike Thor Peak. At about 4000 feet gain, you can summit and return to the car easily in one day.....even faster in the summer when there is no snow (say 6-8 hours). It is possible to camp at either Lower Boy Scout Lake or Lone Pine lake, but that requires a permit.
Above these two lakes there is no water, unless you plan on using snow.

Recently there were 2 posts about Thor peak...Mt Whitney next weekend and Thor peak Introspective.

Miles? Hard to say. Going up the Southeast chute you will be on the Mt Whitney trail about 3-4 miles to 10000 feet and then do 2300 feet above the trail. Doing Thor from LBSL you leave the trail earlier and go up the North Fork. Hard to calculate miles when half of the elevation is off trail. As the bird flies you will climb up over 2000 feet in less then 1/2 mile, once you are above either lake.

It may be easier to think about 1000 feet per hour, although off trail things can slow you down, if you pick a route you have to climb over boulders.

Tiffany and Jessica have recommended the SE chute to Thor, leaving the main trail just short of Lone Pine Lake. I thought, I have to do that some time.

Well, I was going through some old logbooks today and see I did it in May 1977, with Carl Heller. We started in that chute and ended up on a ridge. Called it class 2 - 3.

I also noted today that on my first ascent of Mt. Muir (Oct. 1973), the original register with Norman Clyde's signature--along with other famous names of the day--was still there. But a year later it was gone.

Norman Clyde was undoubtedly the Sierra's most prolific mountaineer, with 117 first ascents. In the Whitney area alone, the following mountains were first climbed by him: McAdie, Lone Pine, Carillon, Irvine, LeConte, Mallory, Candlelight, Russell, Thor, Wotan's Throne, in that order between 1922 and 1936.

Note that the only mountain name that is missing, in the three drainages out of Whitney Portal, is Mt. Muir--first climbed in 1919. Some people claim that Muir is just another needle between Whitney and Trail Crest, and question why the powers did not pick a more prominent peak to honor this great man. So Clyde was the first ascensionist on all the "significant" mountains in these drainages.

I know of two Sierra mountains that still have the original registers, with Clyde's and others' signatures in them. They are on my list again, for next summer, and I am curious as to whether I will still find them.

I do not know anything about Clyde's sexual activities in the mountains, except to say that he climbed solo much of the time. And I am sure that you are not interested in mine, nor me in yours.

Bob R - just curious - what prompted your comments on sexual activities in the mountains?

Glad to hear Bob R. has been up the SE route to Thor peak. We should have known he had done that also. It was my first route up Thor, prompted by the route description in Roper's Sierra Club totebook. Secor doesn't actually mention it. I like the route enough I did it once in late sping in the snow. It is exhilerating, coming out of the SE chute into the main bowl and looking up to the top...a little of everything.

Cool thing about Thor peak. It can almost be climbed from every direction, which means you can go up many diferent ways and come down another. Reading the posts about Thor Peak have given me two or three new routes to "get to."