Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Mt. Langley

I wasn't able to get a permit for the weekends I requested to take my wife on her first ascent of Whitney. So I'm thinking about hiking Langley with her instead. I would appreciate any info on the the trail. I was checking out a topo map today of the Whitney area; and it appears the trial starts out of Horshoe Meadows on toward New Army Pass. But the trail continued west, and I didn't see any trail shown going to Langley. Does anyone know of any good references that could give me good intel on the trail. Is there much water along the way, etc?

There's no official trail to Langley. Once you get to New Army Pass, just head north. You'll find some use trails, and as you get closer to the mountain you can decide if you want more class 3 (to the right) or less (to the left).

Here are a couple of picture from New Army Pass looking toward Mt Langley. As described, you walk across the plateau until you get close and then decide which one of the use trails you want to follow.

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/1391933432016150064rMZIoz

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/1096878179029582298EqpmvR

Army Pass is a more direct. Once you gain the pass there is a trail that goes to about 12,800'. Then it is pick one of about 100 to the mountain and its cut up on Langley's southwest flanks.

The most direct routes are also the steepest.

Depending on the time of year and the amount of snow that fell, you may have to cross some hard pack snow/ice on the Army Pass trail. A substantial amount of snow can make it a fairly dicey crossing, in my opinion. The New Army Pass trail will require you to drop down and then climb an additional 400 ft. in the saddle between the top of New Army Pass and Army Pass, which is closer to Langley.

Here's a picture looking north toward Mt. Langley from the summit of Cirque Peak. The yellow route that starts at the bottom of the picture goes over New Army Pass. The yellow route that joins it after 1/4 mile is coming from Army Pass. Then yellow divides a couple of times to show options that the others have talked about.

There are other possibilities, such as blue and red, although the latter is better as a descent route.

Once you leave the Cottonwoods Lake basin, there is no more water. There will be patches of snow, however, depending on when you go. There is also a little spring west of the plateau, before the blue line joins, but you will have to descend a little to get to it. Better to fill up at the highest of the Cottonwood Lakes you pass by.

(Sorry; I tried the usual trick to show a narrower version of the picture, but it didn't work. Maybe Steve can fix it for me.)

That Green line is at least a class IV climb down peak 12819 to the notch -- not a casual scramble. Might be more reasonable going in the opposite direction.

Bob,
Here is the image with the width parameter (640 pixels) shown below
<img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/194/487237715_a7ed7b0456_b.jpg" alt="" width=640/>
...And you need to change the option below the posting window so it reads "Using UBB and HTML". The default is UBB only, so the HTML and width does not work, and nobody can edit and turn HTML on.

We're planning to hike langley the second week of august. neither my wife or I want to do any technical climbing. some of the sites we've visited talk about a little class 3 at the top of army pass. we're used to some scrambling; but we're not climbers so can we do this hike w/o climbing gear?

Thanks, Fred. I didn't know about checking that option. (Still can't remember terminology.)

romanandrey is right, it is 4th class, and that is why I didn't mention green in my text above. Some call that feature The Fin. I did address it in a similar thread a year or two ago. I first discovered it when I wanted to do a circuit Woolyback-Langley-Army Pass. Turned around on that section, and went back the following weekend with a rope to rappel on, and made it. I have since gone from Langley to Woolyback on that route a couple of times, so the opposite direction. The 4th class is about 40', according to my notes. It really doesn't make sense to go the green route unless you want to climb Woolyback as well.

Blade, when the snow is gone, there is no class three on Army Pass. It is, after all, the original trail out of the Cottonwood basin. But that trail was abandoned when the New Army Pass trail was constructed, and it is in disrepair in places.

When I did it last fall, the "3rd class" section was really just a few yards of trail (it is unmaintained now that New Army Pass has become the official trail) that has been covered with some rock fall. You have to clamber over and around some boulders. No real exposure.

I hiked Langley back in December last year via Army Pass and experienced zero issues. I did not encounter any class 3. I thought the trail was extremely obvious as I've seen many, many worse "unmaintained" trails in So Cal. I didn't see any of the rock fall that Steve mentioned.

Edit: I think Steve is mentioning the rock fall on some of the last portion of the trail to the pass. Sorry, I forgot. You do have to clamper around some boulders. Totally do-able and like Steve said, no real exposure.

There is some class 3 moves in Army Pass but a section of class 3, not to my mind.

There is a cut up that has 20 yards or so of class 3 if want a steep more direct route to the summit than going all the way around to the west side of the mountain and 100% class 2 route to the top.

As I said in a previous post, once you get to about 12,800' and the trail ends and 100 start. At this point being up this mountain previously really helps.

Blade, here is a pix of the only rock scramble you would encounter via Army Pass.

does anyone know what the current conditions are in this area right now? i was thinking of heading up there this weekend?

thanks
kurt

Three of us were there yesterday. Am in the process of writing it up on mt-whitney.info. Link to New Army Pass and Army Pass Point. Unfortunately, I got temporarily detered from the picture loading.

thanks bob, looks pretty clear, should be a good time

kurt

My photos are all uploaded now. Well, except for a stitched one that I cah't find there. 2005-05-07 New Army Pass and Army Pass Point

Also, the order is a little messed up in a couple of spots. Sometimes I take a photo, then later decide it fits better if I move it forward or backward a few slots. Flickr arranges photos either oldest first or newest first. You can go in and move pictures around, but it isn't straightforward.

If you want to see the pictures in the order I want them in, pay attention to the captions, e.g., "13 Cirque Peak."

Here's one that may qualify as dumb: Is there a way to forward to the "Next" large image on Flickr? I can't seem to figure it out and don't like the idea of having to go back to the Main Album Page to see another large image. (I was able to see all the large images via the Slideshow feature.)

Richard:
You could always go into "slide show" mode, but that doesn't show you the witty commentary on each photo (unless you click on the photo while in the slide show, then it will shrink a bit and show you the caption). There's no "next" button to click on flickr, just on the next photo in line on the scroll on the right of the screen.
-L