Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Onion Valley to Mt Whitney

Well another option comes up if you want to skip the two/three days on Whitney. Continue on the PCT from Crabtree to Rock Creek crossing nice camping (albeit tromped down) and bear boxes there just after crossing the creek. Depending upon your time/energy you can continue up hill toward Soldier Lake - bear boxes there as well - (heading for Army Pass) near timberline. You can spend a day in and around the Miter area. Also spectacular.

Then you have a choice of going south around the much lower Cottonwood Pass (to Horseshoe Meadows is two days from Rock Creek with last night overlooking Big Whitney Meadows to the South) or up over Army Pass and an option for going up Mt Langley for your 14'r. Then down via either OLD or NEW Army Pass. If you go down OLD army (I can send you pictures from the top looking at now abandoned trail - its a help) you save a 500' (or so) uphill to NEW Army Pass and you get to visit most of the Cottonwood Lakes below you. Spectacular view from Old Army Pass. There is camping between Lake 4/5 just as you exit the pass area.

If you go over NEW Army Pass you get to see the edge of first two Cottonwood Lakes plus Long Lake on the way out. Camping at Muir Lake just north of Lake 1 is nice if you want to extend your trip. There is a 'use' trace trail between Lake 1/2 to get to Muir.

Both trails over the passes end up in Horseshoe Meadows.

The trip from Onion Valley to Horseshoe Meadows is about 5 days total - not counting Whitney. And you get to see some of the finest high altitude Sierra.

You end up about the same place as Whitney Portal (about) just south of it. You can probably get a quick ride down the hill or you can pre-plant your car there.

OR!

Stay near Tyndall Creek as your base camp and wander down the Kern River visiting some of the most unvisited high country -- the west side of the drainage. I am going to guess that not more than a hand full of people see it. Most are on the way to or from Whitney and don't want to 'waste' their time there. You can go all the way to (Kern) Junction way down at the bottom. Also get into Wallace drainage and other lakes and high cross country walking on EAST side of the drainage.

OR!

You could day hike Whitney from the west side (longish day 4AM to 7/8PM) retrace your steps to Tyndall Creek, and then skip out over Shepherd perhaps the next or following day down to a hitch back up to your car at Onion. There is good camping near top of Shepherd on the west side - no bear box. It would be a fairly easy day from Crabtree to Tyndal and back out over S. Pass the following day.

Would probably add an extra day to your trip. Up Whitney, back to Tyndal (could stash some food -- cannister -- and weight from prior crossing) then added day over pass down. A beautiful place to have to retrace your steps - Bighorn Flats.

If you do that, then one of you might want to leave your car at Shepherd Pass trail head after dropping your heavy packs off at Onion. Then catch a hitch up to start your hike from Onion. Lots of early morning traffic going up hill to Onion.

OR..

Camilla,

There no Trail Crest/Exit Permits available for reservation. However, there a 10 per day for walk-ins. Don't worry, be happy and show up around 11 AM the day before you want to enter the forest at Onion Valley.

See Note 3 in Wilderness Permit Options. The exit quota is a second "wicket" (using a croquet metaphor) that you have to pass before you get a permit. When you request a permit you have to specify both an entry point and an exit point, and if the return route is via the main trail, the Trail Crest exit quota applies.

The exit quota was instituted because too many people used other trailheads to bypass the quota for the main trail. Now a legal limit is imposed before people get permits for other trailheads.

I just checked the Yosemite NP homepage and (of course) there are no permits either for Lyell Canyon, Happy Isles or Cathedral Lakes, which would be my favorites in the park.

So I guess it's off to Onion Valley. I'll get entry permits at Onion and then try for Whitney. If we cannot get Whitney, we have four days and will hike over to Rae Lakes. We cannot spend more than the 4-5 days backpacking, unless we want to skip something later in the trip, and we're not really interested in that.

Another alternative is to go back to my very first idea and backpack Rae Lakes from the west side. The original plan was doing that and then dayhiking Whitney. I still have a dayhiking permit for Whitney on July 11th and a permit for the Whitney Portal campground the night before. I guess that would still be an option. Reason I abandoned this plan was, that I started having problems with my neck and thought that I could not be able to summit Whitney on a dayhike and would do it as a backpack over multiple days instead. But I guess even if we don't summit it would still be a pretty nice hike?

Any other suggestions or alternatives are welcomed. I have that there are so many possibilities, and yet they are so limited by permits etc.

Yosemite does thing similar to the Inyo in regards to holding back permits for walk-ins.

If you are going to be in Yosemite neck of the woods, I'd would suggest a trip into the Mono Recesses and Pioneer Basin starting at Mosquitos Flats. The Fourth Recess is a great place to base camp for a trip in the Pioneer Basin. Mt. Hopkins is a easy to moderate Class 2 scree slog that will give you a great view of area.

OK we made a decision tonight and now have permits for Onion Valley for 10 July. If we can get permits for exiting on Whitney, we'll go for that! If not, we at least can do a 4-5 day hike from Onion to Baxter or Sawmill or similar things.

Hope to see some of you on the trails up there!

And thanks for all the great input :-)

You will still need to arrive at the Visitors Center (or call) by 2 pm on July 10 to claim your day hike. Why not show up there by 11 am and see if you cannot exchange your day hike permit for an overnight permit from a cancellation or a no-show. If you get a no-show for that day, you could cancel your Whitney Portal reservation and stay the first night near Lone Pine Lake. If you get a cancellation for the following day, you could still stay your night at Whitney Portal. Otherwise, you should be able to do at least a day hike up to Trail Camp.

Yes.



Yes. The permit now I have is for Kearsarge Pass entry. I can - for sure - now do an out and back backpack to Rae Lakes with what I have now. First priority is to try and snag an exit permit for Whitney trail. But at least I have something now. I'm not used to all this permit related stress, so that is good. Now I can start looking forward to my vacation :-)



Yes, that is also an option. My first would be Onion to Whitney, because it is more days on the trail. Three days from Whitney Portal would be OK. Two days I think would be harder than just dayhiking, so in that case we'll skip Whitney and do something else around Onion Valley.

If we can't get Whitney, I might try and do a loop via Kearsarge Pass and Baxter or Sawmill. They seem in the 4-5 day range. I have a rental car and the contract does not allow me to drive it off paved roads. So I will probably try and change the permit so that I start at Baxter or Sawmill and then finish at Onion, where I could park my car. Then I would have to arrange a shuttle from Onion to the trailhead at either Baxter or Sawmill, but that shouldn't be a problem. (I think the road to Onion is paved whereas the roads to Baxter and Sawmill are not). Looking at the Inyo Natl. Forest reservation list, neither Baxter or Sawmill seem to be in high demand, so I am hoping I could get one of them, if Whitney doesn't come through.

I guess we'll have to be flexible and keep our fingers crossed! And make a decision tree to bring, because I admit that it is getting rather complicated (Yes, I am an engineer :-) )