Hiking Mount Whitney: Summiting the Tallest Mountain in the US

I consider myself a pretty avid hiker, so when my friends asked if I wanted to hike Mount Whitney, I didn’t even hesitate. Standing at 14,505 ft., Whitney is the highest mountain in the contiguous US (not counting Alaska).  Although Mount Whitney towers over all other mountains in the Sierras, the hike to the summit doesn’t require any special mountaineering skills. This means that as long as you can secure a permit, train your body for long hikes and high altitude and can withstand freezing nights, you can hike Mount Whitney.

Mount Whitney Stats

Distance: 22 miles

Hike Time: 12-16 hours in one day or a 2 day hike

Total Elevation Gain: 6,960 feet

Highest Elevation:14,505 feet

Day Hike Vs. Overnight Hike

Before getting a permit to hike Mount Whitney, you will need to choose whether you’d like to hike Mount Whitney in a day or in two days. A day hike means that you will be hiking for the entire day, but on the positive side you won’t need to carry all of your heavy belongings (food for two days, tent, sleeping bag, etc.). Alternatively, hiking Whitney in two days means that you have less mileage to cover each day, but you will also have to carry a heavy pack up the first 6 miles.

We opted for the latter. Splitting the hike into two days also gives you more time to acclimate to the altitude, which was what I was most worried about. I also thought it would be fun to camp one night backcountry (laughing at this now thinking of me freezing in my tent). 

Hiking Whitney in 2 Days

If you do opt to do Whitney in two days, the most popular place to camp is trail camp at 12,000 ft. It’s 6 miles from the trailhead, so that will be the distance you have to carry your pack. If there’s no space at Trail Camp or you can’t make it there the first day of the hike, you also have these options:  Consultation Lake (near Trail Camp), Outpost Camp (3.8 miles on the trail, 10400 feet), or Lone Pine Lake* (2.8 miles, 9900 feet).

If you decide to camp, also know that:

• You will need to keep your food in a bear canister (the critters are serious here!)They will give you one at the ranger station where you pick up your permits. You will have to attach this to your pack in and out of the hike.
• You need to pack out all your waste (yeah that’s right…meaning poop) in a WAG bag. You will also get these when you pick up your permit. 
• It does get really cold at night, so keep this in mind when buying a sleeping bag and packing layers (packing list below)
• There are no fires allowed!

Getting the Permits to Hike Mount Whitney

Permits run on a lottery system, where you pick a few dates that you would prefer and then find out by email if you “won” any of them. The permits run from May 1st to November 1st, and I’d recommend trying for July, June or September. Anytime before that will mean more snow on the mountain and and time after will mean colder temperatures. We ended up going in October, and while we had an extremely beautiful day during summit, the night was f**cking freezing. Like coldest I’ve ever been in my life freezing.

Here’s the link for the Whitney Portal lottery

Training for Mount Whitney

I’d recommend hiking a few 14ers before hiking Mount Whitney if you can. This will help you prepare for the high altitude and show you how your body will react to it. My brother lives in Colorado, so I hiked Grays and Torrey’s Peak and Mount Evans.

If you don’t have access to any 14ers, there are still plenty of other high mountains you can train on. In Southern California, you can hike Mount Baldy, San Jacinto and San Gorgonio. 

I was also traveling a ton when I should have been training (remember my 10 day Alaska trip), so followed this training schedule while I was on the road. Now, I’m having flashbacks to me doing squats in our tiny room in Barter Island, while my friend laughed at me for doing plyometrics. 

Handling the Altitude

Besides doing a few 14ers before Mount Whitney to get your body used to the altitude changes, there are also a few other things you can do. First, make sure to drink a ton of water during the hike, and maybe even add electrolyte tablets in (like these ones). There are also prescription pills you can get for altitude sickness (talk to your doctor).  Lastly, make sure to eat every hour, even if you’re not hungry. We actually had a timer that would tell us when another hour would go by so that we would make sure to eat. Snack bars, gels and trail mix are all great snacks eating while hiking. 

The Night Before Hiking Mount Whitney

The closest town to Mount Whitney is Lone Pine, California. So the night before the hike, you should book a hotel or plan on camping near this town. Lone Pine is 13 miles to Whitney Portal. We booked a hotel since I didn’t want to have to repack my tent from camping the night before. I’d recommend booking the hotel as soon as possible, since this is a popular area for hiking and hotels and campgrounds get full quickly. If you want to camp, you can also camp at Whitney Portal which is closer to the hike. 

I also recommend eating a big meal in town, preferably of the carb variety 🙂

Hiking Mount Whitney

The morning of the hike we drove to the trailhead and parked our car in the lot. Right after the trailhead, we passed a scale, where a group of Asian tourists were eager to help us weigh out our packs. I kind of felt like a tourist attraction, and it was a funny start to this long haul up the mountain. 

After finding out how much weight we were carrying on our backs (I’m not sure I even wanted to know), the trail continued on gradually uphill. Golden trees and pine trees framed the mountains ahead. There were also some fun logs to hike over (which could be a little tricky to balance on with a pack), and we decided to stop at a lake for lunch.

Once we ate our sandwiches, we started off again by crossing into “the Whitney Zone”, which is the part where a permit is required. From here, a set of rocky switchbacks would take us up to a golden field and we would be exposed from here on out. 

After what seemed like a never-ending rock face, each turn revealing more trail, we reached the Trail Camp. We were pretty exhausted by the end of the day, but we still had to set up the tent and filter water for our camel paks for the next day. 

I highly recommend buying a water pump filter. I cannot stress this enough. We had bags to filter water, which worked great in Havasu Falls, but were not fun to use in the freezing cold. They also kept ripping which made it very stressful to get water. 

As night crept in, so did the freezing cold temperatures, so we headed to our sleeping bags and went to bed. Sleeping at altitude was tough, I’m not sure there’s much I could recommend for that. Make sure to buy a really comfortable sleeping pad (love this one).

We woke up early the next morning (around 4 am) to summit since we wanted to see the sunrise. Unfortunately our water froze over night and it ended up being a long and complicated ordeal to get more water to unfreeze our camelpaks. I’d recommend sleeping with your water in the tent to hopefully avoid this issue. We didn’t end up leaving Trail Camp until sunrise because of this. 

The first part of the second day are the rocky 99 switchbacks. I was honestly dreading these switchbacks the entire time, but without my pack on, it really wasn’t too bad. The switchbacks aren’t steep at all, there’s just a lot of them. 

Once the switchbacks are over with, you come around the backside of Whitney. I thought this was the prettiest part of the hike. There were a few interesting parts of the trail, like this narrow snow path below, but the rest of the hike gradually winded uphill. During this section we were hiking particularly slow due to the elevation, stopping very often for water and food. 

Finally the small shack came in to view and we reached the summit. Despite the freezing cold during the morning, our summit day ended up being absolutely beautiful. Zero wind at the summit and not a cloud in the sky! I’m not sure how we got so lucky, but I’ll take it!

Someone at the top had a sign that everyone passed around for a picture. We hung out here for a while eating snacks, taking photos, and ultimately delaying our treacherous hike back.

Gear for Mount Whitney

Osprey Eja I’m in love with this backpack, it’s one of the lightest packs I could find and you can’t go wrong with Osprey

3L CamelPak

Hiking Boots – I’m obsessed with my Ahnu Sugarpine Boots, there is literally not a comfier hiking boot. I also recently bought these because they’re so aesthetically pleasing, but still wouldn’t choose them over the Sugarpine

Lightweight Down Jacket

Merino Wool Base Layer Leggings

Merino Wool Base Layer Long Sleeve Shirt

Fleece

Rain Jacket

Leggings

Hiking Socks (2 pairs)

Lightweight 2 person backpacking tent

Lightweight Sleeping Bag 

Sleeping Pad – This one is THE BEST

Gloves

Headlamp

Backpacking pillow

Trekking Poles

Day Pack (to summit)

Food – We packed pizza in for dinner, fruit, granola bars, trail mix, and energy gels

Hat

Sunscreen

Water Filter (I highly suggest bringing one like this instead of the squeezable bags (the water is freezing and if you are there in cold whether your hands will be too!)

Nuun Electrolyte Tablets (these help fight dehydrationa and also help with the altitude)

Backpacking Stove

Have any questions about hiking Mount Whitney? Feel free to comment below!