Hiking
A four-wheel drive road reaches the summit from the south to service the summit laboratory of the White Mountain Research Station. The road is normally gated seven miles from the summit at an elevation of 11,680 ft (3,560 m), making this California's easiest 14,000 ft (4,300 m) summit. North of White Mountain Peak, two sharp arêtes alternate along the crest with broad "whalebacks" and high plateaus with about six more summits over 13,000 ft (4,000 m). The crest crosses the California-Nevada state line just south of a final high summit Boundary Peak 13,147 ft (4,007 m), Nevada's high point. Boundary Peak is the "prow" of the triangular fault block. It has views directly down into valleys to the west, north and east that are hidden by the increasing width of the high plateau to the south. North of Boundary Peak the range rapidly loses altitude and ends at Montgomery Pass.
The west face of the White Mountains rises steeply out of Owens Valley. Climbing to any summit from this direction is a scramble with about 8,000 ft (2,400 m) elevation gain. Eastern slopes are somewhat gentler and have numerous cirques left by Pleistocene glaciers and even a few snowfields persisting through most summers. Most of these cirques are entered or approached by jeep roads and offer scenic yet non-technical routes to the crest.
Read more about this topic: White Mountains (California)
Famous quotes containing the word hiking:
“The westerner, normally, walks to get somewhere that he cannot get in an automobile or on horseback. Hiking for its own sake, for the sheer animal pleasure of good condition and brisk exercise, is not an easy thing for him to comprehend.”
—State of Utah, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)