Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Question About Whitney Hiking Conditons

I was happy to score 2 permits today for July 5th. I have never hiked the Mt. Whitney Trail before, and I have a couple of questions. First, is there a good sourcefor current trail conditions? I haven't seen many posts on the forum about that, but I may just be looking in the wrong place. The reason I would like to know is that we were thinking of doing a little exploratory hiking before May 1 when the lottery winners start hiking. We'd like to just hike out 2 or 3 miles then return to the Portal. However, I have no idea if that is even possible because of snow and ice. How would I be able to find out about trail conditions near the end of April?
Secondly, I assume I still would need to procure a permit for such a hike. Would I just show up at the Visitor's Center in Lone Pine the morning that we would like to do this? Is there anything else that we would need to do?
Thanks so much for your help!

keep coming here. I think you will find trip reports that will answer your questions.

Congrats! You can find current trail conditions for the Mt. Whitney Trail on the USDA website.

http://bit.ly/aJlBpC

Mountaingoat, between people posting trip reports here and the Whitney Portal Store Message Board , you should be able to find all the information you need about current conditions.

There aren't many conditions reports currently because most of the frequent posters here (myself included) haven't been up there recently!

Now, as for your April hike, you are able to hike to Lone Pine Lake on the main trail without a permit. It is just around 3 miles to the lake, starting elevation of 8400 feet at the Portal, and a breath under 10K at the lake. It's a lovely hike to take in the day, especially since you may start your hike in the dark and won't be able to see it. As for snow and ice, who knows what this April may hold. The storm yesterday brought about 5" of snow to Mammoth, but south of here it looks pretty minimal (see the Cottonwood Lakes snow depth here. Somehow I just don't trust that "spike" of 113"???). So, the trail may be melted out, may be holding a few patches in shaded, north-facing corners, or...

Good luck!

-L

MooseTracks wrote:
> Somehow I just don't trust that "spike" of 113"???

An April Fools glitch.

Mountain Goat, we try to keep the Current Conditions thread up-to-date. You can always find it at the top of the General Discussion forum list. During the off-season, few are hiking, and they don't need or use that information.

For some initial information on the road to Whitney Portal, see the latest thread in the Trip Reports forum.