Overnight stay on the summit?

[brb_photo]

I have been staringt SJ since i was five years old and wondering, "Man i wonder what the view is like from up there!", and recently i've banded a group of friends together who want to hike the C2C trail, then camp overnight on the summit, and leave abruptly after sunrise...weather and park service permitting...
I was wondering if this was at all possible and will pass with the rangers... does anyone have any idea? On every park service website i have seen nothing saying NO but at the same time, nothing saying YES...

We are all generally light packers taking only the essentials, except for me as i will be carrying a bunch of camera stuff...

I dont expect that we'd have any truly negative impact, as we'd probably just pitch our tents in gaps within the multitude of boulders on the sheltered side of the peak... and we're going to be eating MRE's, soe wont need a stove or any potentially harmful way to prepare our meals...

Main reason i want to do his is for the sake of photography

Any info would be very helpful, i plan on contacting rangers headquarters either tomorrow or wednesday, but i figured i'd ask here both for quickness and to make this question answered somewhere on the internet

thanks, Bryce

[Perry]

Nice photos. I bet you will do something creative... Technically it's not legal. That hasn't stopped a few people, but if you are bringing a group starting at 500' and sleeping at 10,800' elevation, there's a good chance that somebody is not fit enough to climb over 10,000 feet, and there's a possibility that somebody will get altitude sickness in the middle of the night. It would be safer to ride the tram up and sleep in Round Valley at 9,100 feet, setting a watch alarm for midnight, then hike up before sunrise.

On an unrelated note: if anyone posts their email address in a public message or in their public profile, the spambots will pick it up, and you'll get spammed. Fortunately, they can't make it through the registration process, and even when a real person registers and emails you, they will not have your email address unless you reply.

[brb_photo]

Thanks!
I was expecting ot to be illegal... But rangers aren't exactly hiking around up there in the middle of the night right? Hahaha
I had thought about altitude sickness, but realized that three of us just got done climbing Whitney and the other two, including me, are accustomed to altitude... Heck, I climbed Echo Summit starting from the valley floor in Christmas Valley the first day I arrived in Tahoe!
I don't expect sickness to be a problem... We'll see though

I plan to do 4 30minute bulb exposures, one in each direction, and plenty of other photography outside of those...

Thanks for the info!

[SummitGreen]

Hey Bryce,

Post some photos here when you get back. I would be interested in seeing how the 30min exposure turn out =).

Do you have links to your mt whitney summit.

I really wanted to go there.. but the local SJ will suffice.

[brb_photo]

^^ i definitley will! i will be shooting them on 35mm, so i'll make sure to get a quality scan done so i can post them up!

Personally, I havent summitted Whitney, but my friends have... i've summitted Tallac, but didnt take pictures because we rested for 30mins and then snowboarded down... i didnt have any camera gear on me either, so there was no chance

[LAMike]

So so... how did the overnight on the summit go, or have you not gone yet?

[phydeux]

A bettter area for night sky photography might be Death Valley, specifically the Telescope Peak area in the Panimant Mtns. Its the highest region in a remote area, so you'll have very little city light interference. You could go all the way up to Telescope Peak's summit for the night, or just to Bennet Peak or Rogers Peak (both along the same trail, but shorter hikes if you're carrying a lot of photo gear). Also, no restrictions on where you can set up a campsite (except "leave-no-trace", of course!)

[SummitGreen]

Post some Photos when you have the chance