Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion What is the optimal time to leave Crabtree for Whitney Summit?

I am hiking the JMT tomorrow and plan to summit Whitney via Crabtree meadow. According to my research it appears many folks are waking up early to see the sunrise as well as to miss the afternoon storms. I am not a morning person and so the sunset does not entice me, what time do you all advise me to hit the trail in order to avoid potential storms near the summit? Thanks in advance.

That, of course, depends on how fast you can hike and climb.

Crabtree Meadow is considerably lower than Mt Whitney: 4,000 vertical feet! If you hike that in 5 hours, you should try to hit the summit by noon. ..so you're still going to need a fairly early start!

Of course, if you hit it during a time of clear weather, without and T-storm activity, then you could leave a few hours later.

I've been to the summit dozens of times. I determined that the best time to arrive on the summit is 10 a.m., plus or minus one hour. For me, that 10 a.m. meant leaving Crabtree at 4 a.m. so that I wouldn't have to rush it.

You don't want to arrive on the summit earlier than 9 a.m. because it will be cold. You don't want to arrive later than 11 a.m., because that is when the crowd arrives.

I did that route last August but stopped at the tarn above Guitar prior to going up. The time from Crabtree to Guitar was about pretty short, but I can't remember the exact time to get there. From Guitar it was 3 hours to Trailcrest with packs and almost 2 hours from there to the summit without packs. We dropped our packs at PC as we exited via the Portal. You should consider leaving the Guitar area with 3 or 4 liters of water. Everyone is different but I drank a lot during the trip. You could stash a liter at Trailcrest to pick up on the way down. But past TC you have no chances of getting anymore water. Also you may want to leave your tent open as the rodents have been known to crew through doors to get in. Even if in nothing is left in the tent. The hike from the PCT to Whitney is far easier then the 99 switchbacks. I think once you get up there and the switchback start, coming from Guitar, there's only about 9 or so before you hit TC.

Note that if you were going from Crabtree to the summit, you do not pass through Trail Crest. You did pass through the JMT junction twice, and then you ascended to Trail Crest on your way down to Whitney Portal. You don't realize how many hikers make this same navigational error.