In the late seventies and early eighties John Muir was not alone in his appreciation of the beauty of the mountains. Even some of the cattlemen, miners, and lumbermen whose activities so upset Muir were not unappreciative of the scenery. Many summer residents of the Mineral King mining area apparently treasured the summer climate nearly as much as they did the possibility of striking it rich; in fact, after the Empire Mine failed, Mineral King became a summer resort. The same thing happened in the sequoia logging areas in the Tule River country, where a resort community called Mountain Home developed. Even Mt. Whitney was not immune. In the summer of 1878 a party of nearly thirty residents of the Porterville area, including four women, crossed the mountains and ascended Mt. Whitney. The women, apparently were the first of their sex to ascend the peak. In 1881, another Tulare County party, this one consisting of three friends named William Wallace, Frederick Wales, and J. W A. Wright, crossed the mountains on the Hockett Trail, climbed Mt. Whitney, descended into the upper Kern Canyon, and even made the first ascent of Mt. Kaweah from the Chagoopa Plateau. [33]

These three found themselves with considerable company when they arrived at the western base of Mt. Whitney in late August 1881. In place, accompanied by a rather elaborate scientific party, was Professor Samuel Pierpoint Langley, director of the Allegheny Observatory near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On the advice of Clarence King, Langley had selected Mt. Whitney and vicinity as the site for an attempt to determine the amount and quality of the heat being sent to the earth by the sun. Using the Hockett Trail from Lone Pine and the faint track that had been in use for some time that led north from Tunnel Meadow to the western base of Mt. Whitney, Langley set up his base camp at 12,000 feet, the highest point to which he could easily get stock. There he erected a "bolometer," a device that measured the radiant heat of the sun by correlating the radiation-induced charge in electrical resistance of blackened metal foil with the amount of radiation absorbed. Hauling sufficient wood to the site to construct the low 400-foot-long trestle the device required was a considerable challenge. [34] Langley was not satisfied to take measurements only at the base of the mountain, however, and eventually he tried to establish a camp on the summit. It was already September, and high winds and biting nighttime cold made summit readings difficult. Portions of the Langley party nonetheless spent several nights on the summit, and at least one night they were joined by Wallace, Wright, and Wales. [35]

The results of Langley's scientific efforts were inconclusive, but out of his group came one of the first small attempts at southern Sierran resource protection. Attached to the Langley expedition from the U.S. Army was a Captain Otho E. Michaelis, temporarily assigned to the Signal Corps, and from his involvement apparently resulted the creation in September 1883, of the Mt. Whitney Military Reservation. The reservation withdrew from sale much of the Sierra Crest in the upper Kern, including Mounts Williamson, Whitney, and Langley. In 1883 the weather bureau was still attached to the Army Signal Corps, and the reservation apparently was created for additional scientific work under these auspices. Little came of the designation, however, and it was abolished after the turn of the century and most of its lands were added to the Sierra Forest Reserve. [36]