Skyline vs. Whitney

[zippetydude]

I was looking for a good tool to predict my time on Mt. Whitney. I had some good suggestions (over on the Whitney Portal board), but I found the best predictor was Skyline: My Whitney time (going up only, of course) was only about two minutes different from my Skyline trail time.

I believe some of the people on this board have done both as dayhikes. All other things being equal, do you find your times very close also?

z

[wingding]

zip - are you comparing Whitney to the Skyline Trail from PS to the Tram or all the way to the top of San Jacinto?

[AlanK]

Our last couple of Whitney trips (Main Trail) have been about 30 minutes faster than our last couple of Skyline trips. I am referring to Palm Spriongs - Long Valley. We always continue on to the top of San Jacinto, which obviously takes longer. Whitney's sure easier!

[zippetydude]

By Skyline I mean museum to Long Valley. (I used to call that Cactus to Clouds, but it seems like people mean the whole museum to peak when they refer to c2c, so I'm guessing the Skyline trail means up to Long Valley. I'm not sure if that's right.)

Put more exactly, the times were almost identical, and the way I felt after Trail Crest was somewhat like how I feel when I leave Slick Rock. Of course, with Whitney, I think those feelings are altitude induced, with Skyline I think they are elevation-gain induced, but that sort of "What on earth have I gotten myself into?" question popped into my mind on both trips.

So how do your times compare? AlanK, sounds like yours were similar, but not quite on top of each other like mine. (Incidentally, thanks for the definition of MR Route ) How were your times wingding? Anyone else?

z

[RV]

Zip: It took us around an hour longer to do Skyline then it took us to do Whitney but we did a night hike up Skyline that did not go well . We had a weird hike there and even ended up sleeping for a while at Flat Rock so I don't think our experience gave us a good compatrison to work with. I think that if we started Skyline early morning as we did on Whitney that our times would be very similar.

RV

[Perry]

Whitney ascent via main trail should be faster with high altitude acclimatization and a small water load (fill up at North Fork Lone Pine Creek and the bottom of the 97 switchbacks). But if you try to carry your entire water load for the round trip and have little altitude exposure prior, then the ascent on whitney could take as long as museum to tram, plus you have to come down.