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Xi-Er D
Marketing enthusiast. Product Marketing Manager @ Silicon Valley Forum.

Hiking Mt Whitney via Cottonwood Pass*

Mount Whitney via Cottonwood Pass in 5 days.

*correction on my previous title which was hiking Mt Whitney without permit. It should have said without the Mt Whitney lottery permit, but you do need a wilderness permit that can be picked up at the visitor center in Lone Pine right before your trip.

After hiking Sweden’s highest mountain Kebnekaise (6879 feet, 2097 meter), we felt the urge to climb another higher mountain. Luckily, we live in the state that has the highest mountain in the contiguous United States, Mt Whitney (14 505 feet, 4421 meters). This post will explain the hike we did via Cottonwood Pass towards Mt Whitney without the need of a permit.

Distance: 54,1 miles (86,9 km) round-trip
Duration: 5–6 days
Weather (1st week of July): Day 59 °F, 15 °C and Night 30°F, 0 °C

Three things I loved with the trail:
1. The climb towards Mt Whitney to reach the top!
2. The beautiful lakes that reflected the mountains.
3. Talking with people that hike the PCT (crazy or what!?).

Three things I liked less with the trail:
1. The thunderstorm and blizzards.
2. The freezing cold nights when hiking it the first week in June!
3. The horse shit on the road because of organized hike tours that have horses that carry all the gear.

Permit
Normally, if you wish to hike Mt Whitney on only 1 or 2 days you can get a permit through a lottery that opens on February 1st. If you have 6 days to enjoy the nature then I suggest the following route that we did, which only requires a wilderness permit to be picked before the trip at the visitor center in Lone Pine.

Gear
You can find our full list of camping gear here, below I will mention a few things to have in mind when it comes to gear for this particular hike.

  • Warm clothes!!! Check weather report on NOAA and not on Google Search (like we did, big mistake). We literally wore everything we brought with us every night because the nights were freezing, 30F, 0C.
  • Sleeping pills (might not be needed, but since we were so cold we needed something to help us sleep so that we could be well rested for next day’s hike.).

Route
Below is a map on the hiking route we did. Not the best map, but I couldn’t find a better one. The trip was in total 6 days and we came out the same way as we went in. An alternative that some people chose to do was to go out through Whitney Portal and pay for someone to drive them back to their car in Horseshoe Meadow.

Day 1
We drove from San Francisco at 6 AM in the morning and arrived at the National Park Service in Lone Pine around lunch time to get a map and the current condition of the road. From Lone Pine the drive up to the Horseshoe Meadow took around one hour. We parked our car next to the trail head and started our hike around 3 PM. Parking is free. Passing the Cottonwood Lakes was absolutely magnificent. We decided to camp in front of the lakes.

Day 2
The first picture is from wakening up from our first freezing night. We walked further one hour and was suppose to pass New Army Pass. We were warned that there would be thunderstorms at noon, so we needed to put up camp before New Army Pass to wait for the thunderstorm to pass. It started to hail and snow, so everything around us turned white. From a sunny morning to a snowy afternoon — talk about the unpredictable weather! Then when the thunder had stopped at least we hurried through New Army Pass as we have already lost an hour waiting. It continued to snow and everywhere was gray because of the fog. We were freezing our way through New Army Pass, and even though the trail was hidden on the other side of the Pass, we made it down alive! We settle down our camp for night two right before Rock Creek.

Day 3
There is a ranger station at Rock Creek so you could talk to them in a case of emergency or if you would like to know the weather condition.

Day 4
Woke up bright and early before the sunrise and as the sun came out, everything around us was crystallized. The longest day of our hike. A total of 15 hours hike up to the top of Mt Whitney and back down to our camp at Crabtree Meadow. The most beautiful day of our hike.

Day 5 & 6
Last two days we hiked out the same way as we hiked in. Even though you walk through the same path everything still looks different coming from the opposite direction.