Road's End to Mt. Whitney 2016

July is usually very safe.   But who knows with this el nino thing…

Mosquitoes will probably be heavy.  Forester pass has a notorious ice chute on the south side that some say requires traction + ice axe…others say it’s no big deal.  I crossed it several times with no issue….just depends on how much snow is still there.  Again you should have no trouble in July.  Plenty of JMT’ers will be stomping out steps for you to follow there.

I suspect the Whitney area should be fine as well.  Maybe some light snowfields here and there…and on the west face of Whitney…but nothing scary.

Great country there!  You’ll have lots of fun.

Heads up:  Apparently Whitney Portal is going to be going through some reconstruction in 2016…I assume you’re going to leave a car there so this may impact your plans.

If you’re not leaving a car at Whitney Portal, I’ve found those eastern Sierra trailheads to be particularly easy to hitch-hike from the times that I did a thru trip and then caught a bus from Lone Pine, etc.  Chat up the people you see on the last mile of trail or make a sign that says, “Lone Pine” (so they know they won’t have to smell you all way back to LA or SF).

Check out Sierra Mapper.

Here’s the info on the route.

I did map it on the Sierra mapper website. We were thinking of doing it out and back from roads end. Snow doesn’t bother me, tried to summit Whitney first week of October this year and got dumped on by a storm. No one blazed a trail through the switchbacks. Apparently there was like 5ft of snow up top. I will have to upload photos of that trip sometime.