tl; dr; bring deet and sunblock and cover up near lakes over 10k.

It's been two weeks since I was on the main Whitbey trail, but I was in the area Thurs 11 -Sat 13: The snow melt is amazing, even from the 395 there is a vast difference. All creeks are running fast, cold, and full and the daytime temps are over 80F at 9k feet! It's been hot with clear skies for over 3 weeks, so the valley is reaching 110F. Out of Big Pine, we didn't even make it to even First Lake because of a mosquito bloom: we didn't really get bit as we spent a mile nearing and past the falls shooing them off, but then it got so much worse (2 annoyed backpackers said it was going to be even worse later). There would be no sitting around relaxing by a lake, so we said "forget it" - there were only some flies in camp, nothing on the valley, nothing near White Mountain (bristlecone was out backup trip), and nothing in Whitney Portal (burger trip).


@terraelise anything (fb, ig, etc.)