Does anyone here know the current conditions at Whitney Portal, whether it is passable? Also, is there a reliable weather site for monitoring the portal conditions?

Does anyone here know the current conditions at Whitney Portal, whether it is passable? Also, is there a reliable weather site for monitoring the portal conditions?


Edit: moved from Chat Room forum

Here is the weather report for the portal
http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?site=vef&smap=1&textField1=36.56&textField2=-118.19

This is the live shot from the whitney webcam. Can't get any better than that.

you can see the road leading into the portal at the bottom right of the photo and doesn't have any snow, so it should be pretty clear

Many thanks. -Carl

Edit: my post before I saw this thread in this forum... (Thanks for answering first, Tom!).

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Hi Carl, welcome to WhitneyZone.

The road to Whitney Portal is open -- click on the webcam:
Just watch for icy spots, especially after any recent storms.


The most reliable site for Whitney Portal weather that we can find is the NOAA computer-generated reports. There is a link on the Mt Whitney Weather page (look to the left).

I was at Horseshoe Meadows today, and that's about 1,400' higher than Whitney Portal. The road was in good shape - just a few icy spots where it's constantly in shade, and I think they were all above the 8,500' mark. Doesn't mean the Portal Road will be identical, but they're only a few miles apart.

On a tangent - about 1/2 down we stopped and talked with an Inyo County transportation fellow who had pulled his truck over on the shoulder. Turns out he was headed up but his plow was giving him problems, and he was curious about rocks in the road (they were nearly non-existent). I was impressed to see they're still monitoring the road this late in the season.

They are responsible for the road until they put a closed sign up. They seem to take that seriously.

Dale B. Dalrymple