Mount Whitney

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Mount Whitney is the highest point in the contiguous United States. It is located at the boundary between California's Inyo and Tulare counties. The western slope of the mountain lies within Sequoia National Park.

Mount Whitney was named after Josiah Whitney, the chief geologist of California. It was first climbed in 1873 by Charles Begole, A. H. Johnson, and John Lucas (fishermen who lived in Lone Pine, California.)

Mount Whitney is less than 90 miles from the lowest point of the United States, in Death Valley, and immediately rises just over 2 miles (~3300 m) in elevation above the floor of the Owens Valley. The Badwater Ultramarathon is a 135 mile (215 km) running race from the bottom of Death Valley and ending at an elevation of 8360 feet (2548 m) at Whitney Portal, the trailhead for Mount Whitney.

1 Hiking
2 Climbing
3 Elevation
4 Reference
5 External links

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Hiking

It is possible to hike up Mount Whitney from Whitney Portal. The hike is 21.4 miles (34.4 km) round trip and 6100 feet (1900 m) of elevation gain. There are two places to camp on the trail. Outpost Camp is the lower of the two, while Trail Camp lies just below a long series of switchbacks up a steep face. Permits are required for either day hikes or camping. These permits are in great demand, so reservations in advance are required. The one-day hike up Mount Whitney is extremely strenuous: hikers are advised to be careful of altitude sickness. People also hike the trail in two, three, or four days, sleeping at the camps on the way to the summit. Hikers are required to store their food in approved bear canisters.

Image:Mt Whitney from Alabama Hills2.jpg

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Climbing

The steep eastern side of the mountain offers a variety of climbing challenges. The "Mountaineer's Route", a Class 3 gully to the north of the east face, was first climbed by John Muir.The East Face route, first climbed in 1931, is a classic easy climbing route of the Sierra; mostly Class 3, with the hardest parts at only 5.4 (YDS). Other routes range up to 5.10 in difficulty.

To the south of the main summit there are a series of minor summits that are completely inconspicuous from the west, but appear as a series of "needles" from the east. The routes on these include some of the finest big-wall climbing in the high Sierra. Two of the needles were named after participants in an 1880 scientific expedition to the mountain: the Keeler Needle and the Day Needle; the latter has now been renamed Crooks Peak after Hilda Crooks, who hiked up Mount Whitney every year until well into her nineties.

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Elevation

The estimated elevation of the peak of Mount Whitney has changed over the years. This is not due to the peak growing: the elevation measurement has become more refined, and more importantly, the vertical coordinate system has changed. The peak is commonly thought to be 14,494 feet high. However, this is in the NVGD29 vertical datum from 1929. Since then, the exact shape of the Earth (the geoid) has become better estimated, with a new coordinate system NAVD88 established in 1988. In this new coordinate system, the benchmark GT1811 is estimated to be at 14,505 feet. [1]. See [2] for the elevation data of this benchmark, supplied by the United States National Geodetic Survey, the agency that estimates the horizontal and vertical position of landmarks.

Image:Whitney East Face.jpg

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