Cottonwood Pass to Mt. Whitney ~ Day 1 (Plan)

Elevation profile (Cottonwood Pass Trail head ~ Guyot Creek)

Started planing a hike from Cottonwood Pass to Mt. Whitney

Since I got a permit from Cottenwood Pass to Mt. Whitney this end of summer, I started planing the hike.

Here is the day one:

The starting point is a campground of Cottonwood Pass Trail Head.

Based on the elevation profile, I probably want to camp lower elevation as possible to avoid impacting of high altitude sickness.

The lowest elevation is a crossing point of Rock Creek at 20km from the trail head.

That would be one of possible point for the camping on the first day.

The other option would try to camp at a crossing point of Guyot Creek.  The elevation is a little below 3200m.

The total distance from the trail head would be around 20 ~ 22km.

It is better not to camp high elevation where more than 3500m.  So the selection is very limited.

The other factor this summer is minimize crossing creeks.  Since amount of snow last winter is more than typical years, therefore it might be hard to cross creek some time.  For safety, it is better to minimize it.

There are two possible route in the later section of the day one.

One is along with Rock Creek and the other is through a ridge.

I think through the ridge would be better this summer to minimize the crossing creeks.

Here is the day 1 of this hiking:

Cottonwood Pass Trail Head - Guyot Creek (22km)

(To be continue)