Body of missing climber found, buried in snow, on Mt. Whitney, California

Iris Kwok, Los Angeles Times on Oct 27, 2026

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LOS ANGELES — The body of a missing climber was found, covered in snow, on Mt. Whitney's Mountaineer's Route after a storm delayed recovery efforts, according to authorities.

The Inyo County Sheriff's Office said in a statement Monday it received a report from an employee at a Lone Pine motel shortly before 10 p.m. Oct. 19 of a guest who missed checkout and left his personal belongings behind. The man had told motel staff that he planned to go hiking in the area, according to the sheriff's statement.

Locating him proved to be a challenge. Deputies had limited information about the route he'd taken and his whereabouts, the statement said. They tried to contact him using Rapid Deploy, a special messaging system, but did not receive a response.

A break in the case came the next day when the Sheriff's Office found the climber's vehicle at Whitney Portal. The U.S. Forest Service helped confirm he had a permit for the Mountaineer's Route for Oct. 18. The most common route up Mt. Whitney is the 20-plus-mile Whitney Trail; the roughly nine-mile Mountaineer's Route is more direct but much steeper.

Later in the day, a California Highway Patrol helicopter located a deceased climber on that route, but a storm system soon moved into the area, according to the Sheriff's Office. The snow and hazardous weather temporarily delayed recovery efforts.

Once conditions improved, a CHP helicopter took an Inyo County search-and-rescue team to Iceberg Lake, where they "navigated snow and ice to reach the climber, whose remains were covered in snow." The helicopter then hoisted the climber's remains from an elevation of roughly 13,600 feet.

The Into County coroner's office, which is handling identification, was not available for comment Monday night.

Authorities have not identified the hiker. The Sheriff's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

At 14,505 feet, Mt. Whitney is the tallest mountain in the continental United States.

There have been at least two hiking deaths on Mt. Whitney this year. Earlier this month, a Fresno contractor who previously appeared on HGTV died as he tried to summit the mountain. In January, an unidentified hiker was found on the north face of Mt. Whitney, below the notoriously dangerous final 400-foot stretch of the Mountaineer's Route.

Last December, the body of a 21-year-old hiker was found on Mt. Whitney. Another hiker slipped and fell to their death in October 2025 after some of Mt. Whitney's earliest snows of the season. Both were found on a difficult portion known as the 99 Switchbacks.