Climbing Mt. Whitney at night, is it doable?

[wornoutboots]

Most hikers who day hike Whitney start @ midnight, so it's common practice to hike that trail at night. Coming up from Whitney Portal is a nice safe trail & no edges to worry about. Coming in from Guitar Lake is a more dangerous hike & most folks from that side hit the trail @ 2 am to catch a sunrise. I remember watching the stream of headlamps on the switchbacks as I cowboy'd at guitar lake, pretty cool!! Surreal Hike, Enjoy!!

[JPritch]

Funny the few mentions of the horrible descent from Whitney to the Portal. My trip was coming to an end and it was supposed to be a time of reflection, somberness, and trying to soak in every last minute of the beauty.

But man did that descent suck big time and I couldn't wait for it to be done. The worst was the miles of poorly graded rock that they decided to call a trail. They just roughed it up a bit and said yep, this here is the trail boys. I'm sure the prospect of an imminent burger and pizza amplified the suck too.

[MuddyWaters]

Funny the few mentions of the horrible descent from Whitney to the Portal. My trip was coming to an end and it was supposed to be a time of reflection, somberness, and trying to soak in every last minute of the beauty.

But man did that descent suck big time and I couldn't wait for it to be done. The worst was the miles of poorly graded rock that they decided to call a trail. They just roughed it up a bit and said yep, this here is the trail boys. I'm sure the prospect of an imminent burger and pizza amplified the suck too.

Worst bit of established trail i can recall.
Starts bad with the 99 switchbacks
Where you expected to yield to the hordes of hikers coming up from Trail camp.

Then gets worse with the absolutely horrible Trail

The POS trail meander's all over the place
Never able to take a normal step because of the spacing of rocks aren't correct for it.

Now, it's a nice enough area and trail truly
Except for when you're in a hurry to get to a hamburger at the portal. And disgusted from just having to stop a hundred times for everybody on the switchbacks.

[saltysack]

Most hikers who day hike Whitney start @ midnight, so it's common practice to hike that trail at night. Coming up from Whitney Portal is a nice safe trail & no edges to worry about. Coming in from Guitar Lake is a more dangerous hike & most folks from that side hit the trail @ 2 am to catch a sunrise. I remember watching the stream of headlamps on the switchbacks as I cowboy'd at guitar lake, pretty cool!! Surreal Hike, Enjoy!!

Not sure I’d want to hike all those 99 switch backs in the dark especially if there’s any ice....I recall a few sheer drops where the chain was missing....a heavy pack with full resupply and a bum leg sounds like a disaster waiting to happen...just my $.02....


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[HooKooDooKu]

Worst bit of established trail i can recall.
Starts bad with the 99 switchbacks
Where you expected to yield to the hordes of hikers coming up from Trail camp.

Then gets worse with the absolutely horrible Trail

The POS trail meander's all over the place
Never able to take a normal step because of the spacing of rocks aren't correct for it.

Now, it's a nice enough area and trail truly
Except for when you're in a hurry to get to a hamburger at the portal. And disgusted from just having to stop a hundred times for everybody on the switchbacks.

Perhaps you were there on the weekend or something?
I was coming down from Whitney on a Wednesday, and I didn't have an issue with people slowing me down.

I also didn't have an issue with the condition of the trail itself... other than how steep it was compared to the JMT.
I left the top of Whitney expecting to reach the portal in 4 hours based on the progress I had made going down hill on the JMT. But the steepness of the trail (again, a 6,000' drop in 8 miles) made for slower going and it took a full hour beyond my expectations.

However, I too tried to speak of the trail's meanderings... perhaps it was due to how steep the upper section of the trail was... but as I got towards the bottom, I could not understand why the trail felt like the switch backs were taking the full width of the canyon, with several legs of the switch back seeming to simply cross the canyon without making much of any progress in getting down the mountain.

[MuddyWaters]

I dont recall trail being steep at all, except switchbacks. You walk downhill. Not stairstep