Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board How's the air quality?

From the webcam photos,the air is looking pretty murky. What's it's actually like, from people who are there currently? Thanks!

Very smoky. I could barely see Cirque Peak and Mt. Langley from Horseshoe Peak today.

It's an hour by hour thing almost clear and the breeze will stop and back to dense smoke at the lower elevations.

This happens every year and will continue till snow or rain puts out the fires this fall. Many of if not all the fires are on the west side and the prevailing air movement carries the smoke easterly.
If you can reach the upper elevation the air is clearer but then you will need to deal with the smoke up.

I should have mentioned that the smokiness I observed was between 4 and 6 p.m.

Thanks for the updates. Headed to Cottonwood Pass on Sat and then round the west side to Whitney, then back.

I was on Whitney earlier this week. It was pretty smokey on Monday and Tuesday. It got more clear on Wednesday and today it looked like the wind shifted a bit and more smoke rolled in. Here are a couple pix:


Whitney from the Whitney Portal Road on Monday


From the middle of the East Face route looking down towards Lone Pine Peak. The town of Lone Pine is somewhere down there obscured by the smoke.


From the summit looking north towards Mt. Russell, Mt. Williamson, and the Owens Valley

I summited Mt. Whitney on Wednesday. The sky was clear, no smoke just a thousand stars. Clear, cool and windy up top. Most of the smoke seems to have headed north.

The Silent Hiker

No offense to those in the north, but I hope that pattern holds for the next week or so.

HJ