Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Cottonwood Pass Trailhead Snowshoe - 02.10.2025

Bizarre...
I did another e-bike ride up Horseshoe Meadows Road.
Loads of rock, snow and ice up past the second switchback...
But LOTS of exposed pavement up high...
This one beat the crap out of me...worst Recovery Score I've ever seen this morning...
About 10 miles of walking/snowshoeing...
Very beautiful day, but a bit cold and breezy...
Controller refused to connect to the drone, but I had thrown in the baby, so I have a little bit of Panorama and Follow Me footage to post after editing...

Here are some photos:


Olancha Peak.



iPhone 360 Panorama from Lubken Canyon Road...next time I'll see if I can zoom it...



I did some Hike-A-Bike up to Not Walt's Point...



The view "west" from The Crossover.



The Trailhead.



The Cottonwood Pass Trailhead intersection.

Very nice, but I heard they're changing the name...

We're getting ready for a couple days of snow here. Funny how everything shuts down for a dusting...

Looking at the videos reminded me...

Coyotes howling...
I got it to respond once, but wasn't fast enough on the start video button...
I saw a documentary on Coyotes a few weeks ago...they talked about how smart/adaptive they are...one learned how to open a gate...in my case, I watched their tracks move onto the curb where it was exposed...amazing!

Lots of animal tracks all over the place...


Horseshoe Meadows Panorama (~2 minutes)


Snowshoeing down (~7 minutes)

I said II was leaving Cottonweed Pass as I headed down...there's got to be a better replacement name...let's start naming everythibg after the Thompson Family...they deserve it!

If you haven't heard of the YouTube handle "Foresty Forest", you're missing out. It's a fella that has a bit of a journey, 7+ years and still going but he makes a habit of summiting peaks day-hike style for the most part and whenever possible he gets drone footage (drones are forbidden in some areas of the Canadian winderness). Most of it is in the Canadian Rockies and B.C. but he visits the arctic, Yukon, Alberta, Utah and Alaska. One of the commenters called his channel the best documentary of the Canadian wilderness that exists. These days he's doing a lot of back country skiing and spending a night or two in a tent with a stove and a small Jack Russel companion, but his video production is really something else.

Your drone fancy is what made me think of FF.

YouTube is about my only form of "TV Entertainement" these days...far more fantastic channels than I can "afford" to watch...

Favorites these days is a Swedish Woman who's in the Nepal Himalaya right now...she rode from home...a German dude riding an e-bike all over...focused on watching his Ladakh videos right now...heading there in late-August...and of course, there's Itchy Boots...who's been in the Saudi Desert recently...the only reason I'd want to go there would be to ride Dakar...and I'm way too old for that...

I wish the Chinese weren't so strict on Foreigners...I'd love to figure out how to ride from Ladakh to Nepal via China/Tibet...

I'm calling this my Old-Life Crisis...went through essectially the same thing in Mid-Life...some of the best times of my life exploring places outside of the US...