Major cloudburst closes Whitney Trail

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eeek

Major cloudburst closes Whitney Trail
July 30, 2011 01:58PM

Admin
Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 17,051

The trail remains closed as assessment goes on. The Forest Service reports that the campground was expected to re-open at 9am. The road is open. A search and rescue effort to bring out one person with hypothermia was successful, and a group of day hikers did make it out and said they saw o one else in apparent need of evacuation.

http://goo.gl/fb/hXK6t

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Bee

Re: Major cloudburst closes Whitney Trail
July 30, 2011 02:02PM

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Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 1,347

Some interesting Trip Reports during the storm are here

The body betrays and the weather conspires, hopefully, not on the same day.

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plawrence

Re: Major cloudburst closes Whitney Trail
July 30, 2011 03:17PM

Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 4,173

Good posts on Whitneyzone.com. And after reading the TRs, one can't help to think how many people decided to push on because they knew they didn't have a permit to hike Whitney for the next day. That's one of my concerns about the current Half Dome permit system. People climbing Half Dome might make the same mistake of pushing on because they won't have a chance to climb it the next day.

A possible solution to this dilemma, at least in regards to Half Dome, would be if inclement weather (lighting) makes ascending the Half Dome Cables too risky, the Park Service could have the ranger(s) on duty at the base of the cables extend or change a hikers permit for another day.

Yes, that would possibly make the cables a bit more crowded the next couple of days after a storm, but it would help discourage people from making a risky choice to push on.