Trail Crest is a mountain trail pass on the

Mount Whitney Trail The Mount Whitney Trail is a hiking trail that climbs Mount Whitney, the tallest peak in the contiguous United States. It starts at Whitney Portal, west of the town of Lone Pine, California. The hike is about round trip, with an elevation gain o ...

that crosses the

Sierra Crest The Sierra Crest is a roughly generally north-to-south ridgeline that demarcates the broad west and narrow east slopes of the Sierra Nevada and that extends as far east as the Sierra's topographic front (e.g., Diamond Mountains and Sierran esc ...

. East of the pass are 97 switchbacks leading down to Trail Camp in

Inyo National Forest Inyo National Forest is a United States National Forest covering parts of the eastern Sierra Nevada of California and the White Mountains of California and Nevada. The forest hosts several superlatives, including Mount Whitney, the highest poi ...

. West of the pass is

Sequoia National Park Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, and today protects of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing ...

and the trail leading north to the summit of

Mount Whitney Mount Whitney (Paiute: Tumanguya; ''Too-man-i-goo-yah'') is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States and the Sierra Nevada, with an elevation of . It is in East–Central California, on the boundary between California's Inyo and Tu ...

. Trail Crest, at an elevation of , is the highest trail pass in the United States.

Geographic Names Information System The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories, Antarctica, and the associated states of ...

U.S. Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and ...

References

Landforms of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Mountain passes of California Landforms of Inyo County, California {{InyoCountyCA-geo-stub