Mount Whitney is the highest summit in the contiguous United States with an elevation of .^[1] It is located at the boundary between California's Inyo and Tulare counties. The western slope of the mountain lies within Sequoia National Park and the summit is the southern terminus of the John Muir Trail which runs from Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley.

The peak was named after Josiah Whitney, the State 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 just west of the lowest point in North America at Badwater in Death Valley National Park ( below sea level), and can be seen from points within the park, atmospheric conditions permitting.

Geography and geology

The summit lies along the Sierra Crest and near many of the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Water that falls to the west of the crest flows into the Pacific Ocean, while that to the east flows into the Great Basin.^[2] The peak rises or just over two miles above the town of Lone Pine in the Owens Valley below. The eastern slope of Whitney is far steeper than its western slope. This is because the entire Sierra Nevada is result of a fault-block that is analogous to a door: the door is hinged on the west and is slowly rising on the east.^[3] The rise is caused by a normal fault system that runs along the eastern base of the Sierra, below Mount Whitney. Thus, the granite that forms Mount Whitney is the same as the granite that forms the Alabama Hills thousands of feet below.^[4] The raising of Whitney (and the downdrop of the Owens Valley) is due to the same geological forces that cause the Basin and Range Province: the crust of much of the intermontane west is slowly being stretched.^[2]

The granite that forms Mount Whitney is part of the Sierra Nevada batholith. In Cretaceous time masses of molten rock that originated from subduction rose underneath what is now Whitney and solidified underground to form large expanses of granite. In the last few million years the Sierra started to rise enabling glacial and river erosion to strip the upper layers of rock to reveal the resistant granite that makes up Mount Whitney today.

Elevation measurements

The estimated elevation of the summit of Mount Whitney has changed over the years. This is not due to the peak growing (although it is). The technology of elevation measurement has become more refined and, more importantly, the vertical coordinate system has changed. The peak was commonly said to be at and this is the elevation stamped on the USGS brass benchmark disk on the summit. An older plaque on the summit (sheet metal with black lettering on white enamel) reads "elevation 14,496.811 feet" but this was estimated using the older vertical datum (NVGD29) from 1929. Since then the shape of the Earth (the geoid) has been estimated more accurately. Using a new vertical datum established in 1988 (NAVD88) the benchmark is now estimated to be at .^[1][5]

The Needles and Whitney's East Face.

Recreational opportunities

Hiking

The most popular route to the summit is by way of the Mount Whitney trail which starts at Whitney Portal () west of the town of Lone Pine. The hike is about round trip with an elevation gain of over . Permits are required year round, and to prevent overuse a limited number of permits are issued by the Forest Service between May 1st and November 1st.^[6]

Climbing

The steep eastern side of the mountain offers a variety of climbing challenges. The "Mountaineer's Route", a gully on the north side of the east face first climbed by John Muir, is considered a scramble. The East Face route, first climbed in 1931, is a classic route in the Sierra Nevada and involves technical free climbing (Class 5.4) but is mostly Class 3. Other routes range up to Class 5.10.^[7]

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. Keeler Needle was named for James E. Keeler and Day Needle was named for William Cathcart Day. The latter has now been renamed Crooks Peak after Hulda Crooks who hiked up Mount Whitney every year until well into her nineties.

References

See also

• Mountain peaks of California
• Mountain peaks of North America
• Mountain peaks of the United States
• List of California fourteeners
• Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708: a plane that crashed into the side of Mount Whitney in 1969, killing all 35 on board.
• Badwater Ultramarathon: a 135-mile (215 km) running race from the bottom of Death Valley to Whitney Portal.
• List of highest points in California by county

External links

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