One of the regulars on the Mt. Whitney bulletin board posted this shot of the slope with the infamous "97 switchbacks" on the main Mt. Whitney trail. For those of you who haven't hiked Whitney, the switchbacks take you from Trail Camp at about 12,000' to Trail Crest at about 13,600' before you start the final push to the summit at nearly 14,500'.



If you really want to be able to see each and every one of the switchbacks, look at the full-size version. You will notice that he stitched it together from a couple of shots...there are a few artifacts down the middle of the image. The photos were taken from the top of Wotan's Throne, a granite dome next to Trail Camp.

Another of the Whitney regulars took BobR's photo and annotated it with the switchback numbers. (By Whitney convention, the numbers refer to the corners, not the "run" of the trail between the switchbacks.)

This photo gives you a very good idea of exactly how the trail goes up if you aren't used to picking out the trail among the rocks.