Friday, August 31, 2007

Mount Whitney

Mount Whitney

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Mount Whitney

East Face close-up seen from the way up on Whitney Portal.
Elevation 14,505 feet (4,421 meters)
Location California, USA
Range Sierra Nevada
Prominence 10,081 ft (3,073 m) Ranked 81st
Coordinates 36°34′42.9″N 118°17′31.2″W / 36.578583, -118.292Coordinates: 36°34′42.9″N 118°17′31.2″W / 36.578583, -118.292
Topo map USGS Mount Whitney
Type Granite
Age of rock Cretaceous
First ascent 1873
Easiest route hike
Listing SPS Emblem peak

Mount Whitney is the highest point in the contiguous United States at elevation 14,505 feet (4,421 meters). It is located at the boundary between California's Inyo and Tulare counties. The western slope of the mountain lies within Sequoia National Park. Mount Whitney is the southern terminus of the John Muir Trail, which runs 211.9 miles (340.9 km) from Yosemite Valley.

Mount Whitney 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 76 miles (123 km) west of the lowest point in North America, in Death Valley (282 feet (86 m) below sea level).

Contents

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[edit] Geography and geology

Mount Whitney lies along the Sierra Crest: the range of highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Water to the west of the crest flows into the Pacific Ocean, while water to the east flows into the Great Basin.[1] The eastern slope of Whitney is far steeper than its western slope: Whitney rises just over 2 miles (~3,300 m) in elevation above the floor of the Owens Valley. The difference is slope arises because the entire Sierra Nevada is one fault block that is analogous to a door: the door is hinged on the west, and is slowly rising on the east.[2] The rise is caused by a normal fault system that runs at the base of the Sierra, below Whitney. Thus, the granite that forms Mount Whitney is the same as the granite that forms the Alabama Hills, thousands of feet below.[3] 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 intermountain west is slowly being stretched.

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

[edit] Elevation measurements

The estimated elevation of the peak of Mount Whitney has changed over the years. This is not due to the peak growing (although it is): the elevation measurement has become more refined, and more importantly, the vertical coordinate system has changed. The peak is commonly thought to be 14,494 feet (4,418 m) high from a USGS brass benchmark. The older summit plaque (sheet metal with black lettering on white enamel paint) reads: elevation 14,496.811 feet. However, this is in the NVGD29 vertical datum from 1929. Since then, the exact shape of the Earth (the geoid) has become better estimated, with a new coordinate system NAVD88 established in 1988. In this new coordinate system, the benchmark GT1811 is estimated to be at 14,505 feet (4,421 m). [1]. See [2] for the elevation data of this benchmark, supplied by the United States National Geodetic Survey, the agency that estimates the horizontal and vertical position of landmarks.

The Needles and Whitney's East Face seen from the Mountaineer's Route
The Needles and Whitney's East Face seen from the Mountaineer's Route

[edit] Recreational opportunities

[edit] Hiking

Main article: Mount Whitney trail

The most popular route to hike to the summit of Mt. Whitney is the main Mount Whitney trail (MMWT) whose trailhead originates in Whitney Portal at 8,360' (2,548 m), 13 miles (21 km) west of the town of Lone Pine, CA. (Access from Tulare County, on the west side of the Sierra Crest, involves a much longer, multi-day excursion.) The hike is about 22 miles (35.4 km) round trip with an elevation gain of 6,100 ft (1,859 m). This trail is extremely popular and its access is restricted between May 1st and November 1st, permitting 60 backpackers and 100 day hikers daily for the MMWT.

[edit] Climbing

The steep eastern side of the mountain offers a variety of climbing challenges. The "Mountaineer's Route", a Class 3 gully to the north of the east face, was first climbed by John Muir. The East Face route, first climbed in 1931, is a classic easy climbing route of the Sierra; mostly Class 3, with the hardest parts at only 5.4 (YDS). Other routes range up to 5.10 in difficulty.[4]

To the 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: the Keeler Needle and the Day Needle; the latter has now been renamed Crooks Peak after Hulda Crooks, who hiked up Mount Whitney every year until well into her nineties.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Great Basin. Great Basin National Park. U.S. National Park Service. Retrieved on 2007-05-12.
  2. ^ Sierra Nevada. Ecological Subregions of California. United States Forest Service.
  3. ^ Schoenherr, Allan A. (1995). A Natural History of California. UC Press. ISBN 0-520-06922-6.
  4. ^ Steve Roper (1976). The Climber's Guide to the High Sierra. Sierra Club Books. ISBN 0-87156-147-6.
  • Doug Thompson and Elisabeth Newbold, Mount Whitney: Mountain Lore From The Whitney Store (Westwind Publishing Company, September 1997)) ISBN 978-0965359603

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Whitney"
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