The Plan:
With my Mt. Whitney Hike coming up the first week of June, I am hoping to spend some time ‘at elevation’ to help with the acclimation process. Being so early in the year, the options are somewhat limited unless you’re interested in hikes that require some serious winter gear & experience.
After doing some research, we finally settled on hiking in the Cottonwood Lakes area. The trailhead is at 10,000 ft and is located in a very scenic area. It has been a very dry year without much snow, so there is also a very small possibility that Mt. Langley could be reachable without gear.
Planned Schedule
Day 1 (Saturday)
- 5:00 AM – Leave Home
- 8:30 AM – Arrive in Lone Pine
- Pick up permits & bear canister(s)
- Stop by the Lone Pine Film museum
- Clean the Mt. Whitney webcam
- Eat late breakfast/early lunch
- 11:00 AM – Arrive at trailhead
- Start 1 of 2 hikes, based on the weather:
- Cottonwood Pass (CWP) Trail (click for details)
- preferred hike
- with low snow levels, offers the best opportunity to summit Cirque Peak and/or Mt. Langley
- Cottonwood Lakes (CWL) Trail (click for details)
- if snow levels aren’t low, safest option
- if the forecast isn’t clear, safest option
- Cottonwood Pass (CWP) Trail (click for details)
- Start 1 of 2 hikes, based on the weather:
Day 2 (Sunday)
- 3:45 AM – Start Hiking
- mileage & timing vary depending on route picked above
- hoping to have a nice vantage point for sunrise, regardless of what route we pick
- Finish hiking somewhere between 2:00 pm and 5:00 pm.
Expected Weather
It is going to be cold! Here is the weather data I dug up from last couple of years:
I plugged this info into a spreadsheet and came up with this:
| Average Minimum Temp: 23° Average Maximum Temp: 47° Average Temp for All Dates Listed: 36° |
Here are forecasts for the areas we may visit:
- Cottonwood Lakes Weather Station: CDEC (great source for seeing weather trends, checking snow levels, etc)
- Cottonwood Lakes Trailhead: weather.gov || wunderground*
- Chicken Springs Lake (possible campsite for CWP hike):
- Cottonwood Lake # 3 (possible campsite for CWL hike): weather.gov || wunderground
- Mt. Langley Summit: weather.gov || wunderground
- Trail Peak: weather.gov || wunderground
- a note on wunderground – if you click on the link and you can’t see anything but colors, you need to change the opacity of the temperature forecast layer:
- In the pane on the right, click on the gear symbol next to ‘U.S. Forecast.’
- Drag the opacity slider to the left
Gear
This is essentially a winter hike, so I will be using the Winter Gear List I put together, as well as my Overnight Gear List. This is will give me a chance to try out some of the new gear I plan to take on my Mt. Whitney trip.
Here is some of the gear that I plan to take:
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Food
I plan to carry a ‘minimal’ amount of food on this trip. It is not uncommon for me to carry too much food and only eat half of what I bring. I may take advantage of the cool weather and carry some items that I don’t normally take. I will have enough food for 2 days, as well some extra in the event we get stuck out there longer than anticipated.
| Saturday | kCals | ||
| Dinner | Beef Summer Sausage (4.5 oz) | 400 | |
| Ramen Noodles (1 bricks) | 380 | ||
| Guryere Chese | 200 | ||
| Total kCals: | 980 | ||
| Sunday | |||
| Breakfast | Coconut & Chia Granola with powdered milk (4 servings) | 1080 | |
| Lunch | Beef Jerky | 240 | |
| Uncrustables Sandwiches (x2) | 420 | ||
| Snickers | 440 | ||
| Total kCals: | 2210 | ||
| Snacks | |||
| Stinger Chews (x5) | 800 | ||
| Bevita Biscuits | 230 | ||
| Beef Jerky | 240 |
Keith Winston
Good luck on your prep hike and on Whitney. You picked a nice area. Last year, I hiked up to Chicken Spring Lake to prep for my Whitney run. We started toward Cirque Peak, but two things went wrong. We started running out of water, and my hiking buddy lost his backpack. The whole story here:
http://ironhiker.blogspot.com/2013/06/chicken-spring-lake.html
Anyway, it was great altitude training and great fun. I think you are first person that [over]plans more than me. Planning FTW!
TheHikingGeek
LOL – I go a little crazy when it comes to planning these trips!
Wow, sounds like you had a ‘memorable’ day! I’ve been up to Horseshoe Meadows/Cottonwood Lakes a couple of times now. I love the area.
Nice webstie btw. I will add it to my links page when I get around to making it!
Scott Hardy
I would love to hear how your trip went? Please post.
TheHikingGeek
Here is a quick summary:
A couple of us managed to summit Cirque a few minutes after sunrise Sunday morning. No snow to really speak of, until the last 100 yards to the summit or so. It probably could have been avoided. All of us had some (somewhat) surprising issues with elevation. Due to the difficulty all of us were having, we only did the yellow and blue routes (Cottonwood Pass) to get off the mountain as quickly as possible. I am hoping my difficulty was due to lack of sleep and acclimation and not an indicator of my fitness level (I’ve been dealing a bad cold or allergies for 6 weeks now and haven’t been able to train).
Here is a link to pics we took.
http://www.hikinggeek.com/2014/05/20/cirque-peak-via-cottonwood-pass-trip-report-may-17-18-2014/
I am working on a trip report, but it may be a few days. I have Whitney permits for June 3, but it appears I may need to come up with some alternate hikes. We are not prepared to use ice axes/crampons and this new system moving in could dump a foot of snow in the Sierras.