Lone Pine Peak
Above Whitney Portal Road, Lone Pine · near Lone Pine · Eastern Sierra
Rock Climbing · Mountaineering
At a glance
- Skill level
- advanced
- Grade range
- 5.6-5.10d; commitment Grade III-V
- Best season
- July-September
- Grade
- technical
- Elevation
- 12944
- Best season
- June–October for dry rock; the North Ridge is a big summer day
Permits and booking
- Permit
- IMPORTANT: Lone Pine Peak is NOT in the Mt Whitney Zone - no lottery permit required. North-side routes approach from Whitney Portal Road; the south face from Tuttle Creek. Inyo NF wilderness permit for overnight (John Muir Wilderness quotas); day climbing needs none. Very long routes and descents mean real benightment risk; altitude 12,944 ft; afternoon storms.
What is here
- Terrain
- alpine-rock
- Amenities
- Meysan Lakes / Whitney Portal Rd access · Classic North Ridge line · Close to Lone Pine & the Alabama Hills · A rope objective, not a walk-up
- Best for
- A great long ridge climb over the Alabama Hills
- Features
- Towers over Lone Pine · The classic long North Ridge · Superb moderate alpine rock · Front-row Owens Valley views
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- No
- Hazards
- Long, sustained ridge — route-finding & retreat are complex · Exposure on the class-3/4 sections · Big elevation gain from the desert floor · Heat low down, storms up high
- Beginner friendly
- No
Guides, rentals and operators
- Guided trips
- Yes
Rock Climbing detail
- Climb types
- trad · multi-pitch
- Rock type
- Sierra granite
- Route count
- Several long alpine rock routes
- Signature routes
- North Ridge · Direct South Face
- Intl tip
- The big peak everyone mistakes for Whitney from town - and, crucially, it is outside the Whitney permit zone, so no lottery. The North Ridge (5.6) is a classic long moderate; the Direct South Face is a 16-pitch epic. Start very early - these routes are long.
Mountaineering detail
- Skills
- roped-rock · scrambling
- Style
- rock-route
- Altitude
- 3
- Route notes
- The dramatic peak that towers over Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills — lower than its famous neighbors but a superb alpine-rock objective, with the long, moderate North Ridge (class 3–4) among the range's great ridge scrambles
- Beta note
- ~12,944 ft; North Ridge Class 3–4; a long, committing alpine-rock outing close to town
- Intl tip
- The great pyramid that dominates Lone Pine's skyline (Whitney is hidden behind it). Lower than the crest 14ers, but a superb alpine-rock objective — the long North Ridge is a classic eastern-Sierra ridge climb, a sustained class-3/4 outing needing rope skills, route-finding, and endurance for the big desert-floor gain. Harder face routes exist too. A committing summit day with no Whitney permit hassle, right by town.
- Directions note
- Approach from Whitney Portal / Meysan Lakes trailhead
The guide
Lone Pine Peak is the great pretender - the massive 12,944-foot pyramid that dominates the skyline above Lone Pine and is routi…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Lone Pine Peak — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 36.5616, -118.2251