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Mt Whitney & Mt Newcomb Off Trail from Green Pass (9/13/26)

John JDS

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Off trail trip to Mt Whitney starting at Meysan Lakes trailhead and over Green Pass to Miter Basin, then up Mt Newcomb for an overnight summit bivy, then over Crabtree Pass, up to Discovery Pinnacle, then along Trail Crest to the summit of Mt Whitney, and down 99 Switchbacks and Main Trail to Whitney Portal trailhead.

Chapter Timestamps:
00:00:00 Map Intro
00:00:25 Trailhead
00:00:37 Sunrise
00:01:07 Breakfast
00:01:49 Meysan Lake
00:03:54 Chute to LeConte Saddle
00:07:14 LeConte Saddle
00:08:33 Green Pass
00:18:35 Miter Basin
00:25:24 To Mt Newcomb
00:30:35 Lunch at Lake
00:32:25 Up Mt Newcomb
00:50:57 Mt Newcomb Summit
00:59:05 Sunset on Newcomb
01:02:40 Sunrise on Newcomb
01:05:20 Down Mt Newcomb
01:12:20 Breakfast at Lake
01:13:17 Up Crabtree Pass
01:14:41 Down Crabtree Pass
01:17:17 Up Discovery Pinnacle
01:22:17 Discovery Pinnacle
01:24:36 Down to Trail Crest
01:26:30 Trail Crest
01:28:20 Up Mt Whitney
01:28:45 Mt Whitney Summit
01:30:33 Down to Trail Crest
01:32:27 Trail Crest
01:33:30 Trail Camp
01:34:09 Trailside Meadow
01:35:18 Outpost Camp
01:36:28 Lone Pine Lake
01:37:33 Tough Guy Short Cut
01:38:28 Whitney Portal Trailhead
01:39:40 Map Outro

6 Comments

@mattmctour 4 days ago

"prominence" is the word you were looking for in terms of a peak getting its own name. Thanks for making these vids. I've been enjoying them and using them as intel for future trips.

@lisaryner7971 13 days ago

Enjoyed watching this sooooo much. My boyfriend and I spent 3 days exploring Miter Basin in mid-August. He went off by himself from Iridescent Lake, crossing over on the other side of The Miter and then his route overlapped with yours for a bit. He was excited to see this particular rectangular rock in your video that he had taken a photo of while on his wanderings -- in your video at 24:20. Funny that that one rock in the millions stood out and gave us a good laugh seeing it again while watching your video.

@AnneHall-u9v 2 weeks ago

Thank you what a few days. Amazing.

@robertbruce3641 2 weeks ago

Awesome video John. I met a person many years ago at middle Crabtree Lake who claimed to have started at trail crest and had navigated the McAdie/Newcomb/Chamberlain ridge out to the low saddle adjacent to that lake, so I've since assumed that it's been done and isn't impossibly difficult.

@allisondangelo2372 2 weeks ago

Beautiful pictures love to see the night sky watched your video last night with my husband. Thanks for sharing John.🩵🩵🌟🌟🏔️🏔️

@shinnimura3619 2 weeks ago

Amazing adventure trip as always. Your video, 22:31, showed our great camp site. We took the Green pass down to Miter basin from Mt. Irvine man years ago. Climbing up to Discovery pinnacle looks much better or fun than going down to Crabtree and come back up to Trail Crest. Next time, I hope. This video is great geography material. Thank you.