Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion July-ish in the backcountry

Hello all... let me blow the dust off my hiking boots... ok... now let me recover from the sneezing fit... Ok... all better...

I have a question that I am just positive some of you can help me with.

I am planning a late July/early August trip from Horseshoe to Whitney and out the portal. In trying to plan my mileage per day I'd like a rough idea of sunlight hours per day. I know in certain places, depending on what your horizon consists of, you loose light alot earlier then in other places.

Can any of you tell me what "sunset" generally is, mid-summer, in the area behind the "front range" ridge of the Sierra in that area?

Thanks!

There is a calculator here. You will need to find the lat/long of the area of interest. Set the time zone to -7 (will be in DST in July) and the month to whatever you want.

If you came from the Wikipedia GEO-Tool page or if you are following any comparable links, you don't need to customize coordinates in this calendar.

The legend is wrong. R=Sunrise, U=Sunset, S=Daylight hours.

West of the escarpment, if you have a western horizon view, sunset will be later (you can see further because of your altitude). Same thing if you are on the escarpment, sunrise will be earlier.

It does generate a CSV file which you can use with a spread-sheet.

Have fun.

Thanks Wagga!!! Thats what I was looking for... have you used this tool before to judge accuracy?

I use www.timeanddate.com to calcuate daylight and especially moonlight hours - set it to Fresno and get pretty accurate values for the central Sierra

Below my last search to see if I can cheat daylight in October and hike on each day under a rising bright moon, and as it turns out, I could pull that off in the first 2 weeks of October 2011:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/as...l=-11&day=1

I had no clue there were so many different, precise definitions for "dusk" and "dawn" . . .

The webcam software uses data from here:

Rise/Set/Transit/Twilight Data:  Naval Oceanography Portal

My concern is this.... while the charts may say that sunset is at ...say... 1800 on a specific day.... is that the time that the sun is going to physically set or is that the time that we're going to lose light?

For instance... I know, in my local mountains, that sunset is generally around 5:30ish this time of year... but there are certain areas because of the ridgeline that you lose truly usable daylight at about 4:15 or 4:30.... and if you're going to be out after 4:30 or so you darned well better have a headlamp with you...

That's the kind of information that I'm looking for concerning the area I'm taking the boys to this summer...

July-ish, it's about as much light as you're gonna get. Only a few minutes less than in late June.

beyond that everything else is speculation, as what you're looking for primarily depends on exact location and cloud cover.

West exposure without a tall ridgeline nearby helps with light in the evening, but you will probably have the opposite effect in the morning. Bottom line - days are shorter in mountain valleys than they are on top of ridges and peaks, but not by much.

Even in the valleys, the usuable light usually doesn't really fade before the official sunset hour unless it's a cloudy sky and you're in a forest. Usable light is relative, too - if you're hiking off trail, it may be quitting time much sooner than walking to the creek to rinse a pan near camp where you know your route. I've done the latter in July almost at 9pm and never needed lights to find my way.

In fact, now that I think if it, anywhere above tree line, the days feel a lot longer than in a forest. Open sky around you has a bigger impact than the angle of that ridge that may be blocking direct sunlight - because there's usually another ridge behind you that will get hit by that light and reflect it into the valley.

Not sure how much anecdotal information is worth here, but...

When I was descending Whitney on the MMWT on Sept 8th, I turned my headlamp on at 7:45pm. The official sunset on that day was 7:17pm. That implies that if you are on the east side of a ridge, you probably have about 30min after official sunset.

I was in the Mirror Lake area when I turned on my headlamp. So you might have a little bit more time above the treeline.

Worst case, it looks like you would have until about 8:30pm on August 1st.

Thanks guys... I'm just trying to figure out how many days we're going to need to cover the ground with a bunch of Scouts and a slow leader or two ;-)

The trip from Horseshoe Meadow can be neatly divide into 5 or 6 easy to moderate days days utilizing either pass. I prefer New Army Pass because I detest the ups and down of once you gain Cottonwood Pass.

NAP/CL Trailhead to Long Lake...about 7 miles
Long Lake to Lower Rock Creek Crossing...<9 miles
LRCC to Upper Crabtree Meadow...about 8 miles
UCM to Guitar Lake...<2.5 miles, this is what we call a moving rest day or a day to explore Mts. Young and Hale.
GL to either Trail Camp or Outpost Camp...let how you feel determine where you end your day.

Doing this schedule we were done hiking by 2 PM every. This was when I was a slow out not in real good shape backpacker.

WB.... beautiful!! Thats exactly the kind of information I'm looking for!!! thank you so much!!

Yeah don't bother taking Cottonwood Pass. No water, limited views, sandy. I can't say I enjoyed it much.

I've been over Cottonwood Pass a bunch in the few years and agree with your views. The only reason I use these days is that clears very earlier in the 3-season hiking year. I don't even use NAP. I've come to like Army Pass but I don't take it until August or September because of snow issues.

My favorite place to start a Whitney trip is Onion Valley. This route has more spectacular views than either of the Horseshoe Meadows trail walks. But you have to add an extra day to your trip using this route. We did it in 4 days in '09 but it was a push.

WB... can you give me a rough breakdown of your Onion Valley day/mileage? That is definately another option for us....

walking on the beach at 10,000 feet. I did it once. Never again.

My sentiments exactly, but someone posted here not long ago that there was a firmer-soil bypass around the beach at Horseshoe Meadow. Unfortunately, I can't find the thread. It may have been wbtravis or KevinR?

Yeah I remember at one point I thought I was walking through sand dunes.

It didn't help that I had 12 days worth of supplies on me.

Onion Valley to Whitney is a far more beautiful way to go.

the beach - mid July 1990

Mom and I used Horseshoe Meadow to do some hiking and acclimate on our first trip to Whitney... I remember that area....