Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Lost Whitney hiker

Bulldog, you are exactly right on the cost effectiveness of a sign VS SARS.

I have gone over this again and again and really can't figure out how someone goes "down" the trail. I know the trail is going down after Trail Crest, but picking the down trail over the up trail seems a bit odd. At this part of the trail, in clear weather you can see the hut can't you??? And that is up. I am sure if it's snowing, icy or bad weather, you could go down, but wouldn't you notice after 10 to 15 minutes that you've really been going down for a long, long time?
I know Doug's book tells you to practice, "you have to go up to go down" on the return to the Portal. Seems pretty common sense. I have certainly been confused hiking a trail, but Whitney is one of the more self explanitory trails around. It really is a case of never going alone, at least in bad weather.

Back to the sign.....spend $200.00 and get one for the trail and save tens of thousands of dollars on rescues. Another idea could be to replace the granite rocks on the trail with "yellow bricks". Oh well, I gotta go....come on Toto.