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Submission
While planning your wilderness trip, please note that activities like backpacking, hiking, skiing, mountaineering, and horse camping are allowed. Motorized or mechanical activities like drones or bicycles are not allowed in wilderness.
There are maintained trails through the area to hike on, but no developed campground facilities. Campsites are not assigned. Follow Leave No Trace principles when selecting a wilderness campsite. Groups are limited to 15 people or less, in order to preserve the solitude and tranquility of the backcountry. If you will travel into the neighboring national parks, you may be limited to a smaller group.
When you sign a permit as group leader you are agreeing to abide by all laws, rules and regulations that apply to the area and accept responsibility for your group to do likewise.
The first principle of Leave No Trace is to plan ahead and prepare. Learn the rules & regulations for the area you'll visit.
Mount Whitney portal was finally open so I took the trail up to Lone Pine Lake. It was a pretty hike although I was struggling to breathe so i took oxygen and went thru a small bottle. The accent was pretty hard for me since I stopped hiking for months due to the pandemic. It was worth it although it was frozen. It was my 1st time taking this trail so I might have overpacked a bit but it's better to be safe than sorry because the weather does change drastically it was about 30ﾟ by the time we were done hiking there is some Sun but still some parts were very cold because they were snow on the ground In some areas Make sure you take enough layers of clothes that you can layer down and also and issacs enough water and some crampons cause you may need them.
My group stayed at Lone Pine Lake on our Whitney summit trip. It was a great place to spend the first night and following morning.
A huge advantage is being able to acclimate to the elevation. Lone Pine Lake is approximately 10,000 feet, and spending a night there helps to be ready for the summit elevations.
It is a pretty little lake, surrounded by sheer granite cliffs on one side, views of the valley below on another, and high mountain pine forests on the others. My group of 5 found plenty of places to camp. The lake does have some small fish, but fishing was much better further up the trail at Mirror Lake.
We secured permits for the summit, and this was one of our planned stops. The Whitney Zone is about 1/4 mile further up the trail. You are required to carry WAG bags here, as well as bear canisters. We filtered water from the lake. And as a side note, we found that on the far side of the lake, you can actually get limited cell service
A beautiful scenic lake about 2.75 miles from Whitney Portal. We took the opportunity to rest, refill water bottles (filter the water) and eat lunch on our way up to climb Whitney.
Camping is allowed in the area and it’s outside the permit zone so anyone can make the trek up there. The elevation gain is about 1,600 feet from the Portal. This is nothing to sneeze at, but for perspective, on our way up we saw a family with kids between 7-10 years old at the lake enjoying themselves.
The trek is long enough so that if you do decide to go to the lake you’ll likely it to yourselves for long periods of time. It’s too far away for casual campers and people with permits will only stop for a short while before continuing along the trail.
