I was lucky enough to get a permit for Mt. Whitney this August...it's been on the bucket list for a while (and not just because my name is Whitney!). Anyway, while doing research on Whitney a couple years ago, I discovered that Mt. Young is right in the same area, and, that is my last name!! Feels like I need to hike them both! I haven't had much luck finding a lot of info on Mt. Young on Google.
Does anyone know if there is a route up Mt. Young that doesn't start at Whitney Portal, and thus doesn't require a permit? Any info is much appreciated!
Thanks!
There's info about Mt Young on summit post.org.
I looked up Mt. Young in my climbing log. I climbed Discovery Pinnacle, Mt. Hitchcock, Mt. Hale, and Mt. Young on 5-31-93. I probably camped at Trail Camp, but I didn’t record that. It’s about 8½ miles and 4,500’ of gain from Trail Crest to Mt. Young and back. It’s just a walkup from the south. I don’t see why you couldn’t climb both of your namesakes on the same trip.
BTW, I thought it would be cool to leave my business card in the register for my namesake, Mt. Pickering. In my hurry to get off the summit as a May snowstorm blew in, I left my wallet on the summit. I had to come back a week later to retrieve it. Pickering doesn’t get climbed very often, and the wallet was still there.
Wow! I can't believe your wallet was still there, that's awesome.
When you say "it's just a walkup from the south" what exactly do you mean? There is a trail up Mt. Young from the south? If so, do you know what it's called or where the trailhead is? All I have been able to find online is "for most of the approaches, the obvious trailhead is the Whitney Portal" which isn't too helpful for what I am trying to do!
Thanks!
It’s amazing how some peaks get all the attention, while lesser peaks get ignored. In 1992, I climbed peak 13,927, which is 0.5 miles W of Mt. Russell. That’s about a mile NNW from Mt. Whitney. The peak is now unofficially known as Mt. Morgenson, in honor of Ranger Randy Morgenson. The register (a tiny notepad inside a rusty Band-Aid can) had been lost for decades and then rediscovered. The second signature in the register was Norman Clyde in the early 1930’s. My signature was only the sixth one. While I was marveling at how rare it was for anyone to climb this almost 14,000 foot peak, I could see what looked like dozens of people milling around on the summit of Mt. Whitney. Mt Pickering and Mt. Young don’t see many ascents. You might be able to leave a wallet on either summit and find it a year later.
When I climbed Mt. Young, there was still a lot of snow. I went up the chute, not the switchbacks, to Trail Crest. The trails were pretty well covered in snow on the west side, so I just hiked cross-country. You might find a faint use trail on Young in the summer, but there is no official trail. You could follow the JMT to somewhere between Guitar Lake and Timberline Lake, and then head up sand and easy talus slopes to the summit of Mt. Young. Hiking from Trail Camp to Mt. Young and back would be a lot of work, but it wouldn’t require any special skills.
It might be the need on the part of many people, to complete their "bucket list". So Mt. Whitney is the highest in the lower 48; so what! There are lots of peaks near the altitude of MW, but without the "fame" that goes with Whitney. Perhaps ego boosting is involved.