Lone Pine Lake Trail to John Muir Trail is a 14.3 mile heavily trafficked out and back trail located near Lone Pine, California that features a lake and is rated as moderate. The trail is primarily used for hiking and is best used from June until November.
hiking
lake
no dogs
beautiful
Got a late start around 10:30am, and felt slightly rushed as a result. Overestimated the difficulty/length, and surprised myself by making it to the pond from the portal in 2 hours despite plenty of small breaks along the way. First time hiking above ~6000 feet, and I started to feel the altitude in my breathing just a bit.
Be sure to walk around the pond when you get there -- great views down the vallery from the rocks on the far side of the pond, and a nice perspective looking up the rest of the valley toward Whitney from that side as well.
Took just about as long going down, so it was 5 hours round trip including the hour spent exploring and relaxing at the pond. Definitely recommend the hike, and can't wait to do it again.
Great hike!! Worth the hike!
About 2.5 hours up and 1.3 down. We'd do it again
Loved it!! Challenging, yes but was the best hike of my life so far!! Can't wait to do it again!!
The trail was definitely worth it and the lake was lovely but it's straight up hill, no flat areas at all for the 2.5 mile climb. Also the instructions confused my hiking partner and I. For anyone venturing: you keep left at the first fork in the road (across the tiny "waterfall") and keep going up until you cross the log-bridge, then it's just up and over a few rocks to get to Lone Pine Lake (there's a sign) This is the furthest place you can hike without a permit at Mt. Whitney, and it's a great place to have lunch, took us 2 hours up and 1.25 down.
Did this hike with 5 kids in various levels of fitness. Was a good steady climb up to 10,000 ft just before it goes back down 8,890 at a beautiful Lone Pine Lake at the treeline. Great place to have lunch. About 2 hrs max up and 1.5 or better down.
Scenic. Not in very good shape and this brought out muscles I didn't realize I had. I Almost quite half way up but I'm glad I didn't. My Girlfriend is in much better shape and had no problem with it. Our 17 pound Pug mix got a work out but had no problem.
Lynda C.
I started out from Whitney Portal at 3am and hiked up to Mt Whitney. The best part was while I was coming down the trail I remembered that the first 5 mi or so was done in the dark. I didn't see a thing. So, on the way back I saw terrain that I missed on the way in. It was so beautiful. It was like a landscaped park. And it helped to finish off Mt Whitney out and back trail because I didn't even see this before!!
I would love to do just this portion again. It is by far the most beautiful part of the Mt Whitney hike!!
As we didn't have the necessary permit to go further, we just had our lunch at the beautiful lake before returning. We hiked at a very moderate pace and were at the lake an hour and forty-five minutes after we left the trailhead. The trip down took only an hour and fifteen minutes.
This is a very easy hike although the change in altitude can obviously be felt if you pace yourself. It is a very beautiful hike and you should be able to spot some wildlife along the trail.