Mt._Whitney_July

The crew was:
Me
Auntie Ann & Uncle Peter
Their friends: Jim & Elise, Mac & daughter Laura (13 yrs old), & Rocky

I was picked up in Chino by the crew driving up from San Diego on Friday. We
drove 4-5 hours up to Lone Pine, CA. and established base camp at Lone Pine
Campground for two nights. We all had made REI and EMS rich with our gear
purchases and were all demonstrating and showing pride in each other's gear.
We are all gear nerds as it turns out....

We did a practice hike, about 4.5 miles up to 11,000 ft on Saturday. At a
neighboring mountain up to Horseshoe Meadows and Cottonwood lakes, these
little alpine lakes, meadows, and streams nested up under Mt.Langley which
is only 500 ft lower than Whitney. Saw some hang gliders taking off on the
way. Those guys grab thermals and can hug the mountains all the way up to
Mammoth. Amazing.... This practice hike was Final Check for everybody. Check
shoes, gear, water usage, reaction to altitude... Jim and Elise and Mac
Little Laura turned back halfway, so we were a little concerned... but not
to worry... Elise's attitude was good as she didn't want to exhaust herself
on the practice hike. Laura was tired from not too much sleep and time zone
changes and wanted to reserve energy for The Big Hike. Good call. Smart.

We packed up camp early Sunday morning and drove up to the Whitney Portal to
begin the ascent with a huge breakfast of monstrous pancakes and eggs....... actually, the
people next to us were having the pancakes and they were so huge that none
of us dared to order them. Just looking at one made you full.......So we got
going on The Big Hike. We would have 6 miles to do today to reach Trail
Camp.

That hike was WORK. up up up up up relentlessly. Incredible vistas. Lone
Pine Lake was awesome. We dipped our already tired feet into the cold water,
ate some lunch and had a rest.

Next leg was up into The Whitney Zone where
Ranger checked our permits. Up into Outpost camp where we saw the first
Solar Toilets (how DO those things work anyway?) and had a rest to purify
some water and munch on GORP.

The next leg was probably the most difficult
of the whole trip up to Mirror Lake, Trailside Meadows, and then
Consultation Lake. This is the steepest part of the trail up, up, up endless
rock stairs. We reached Trail Camp 12,000 ft just an hour before the shadows overran the camp and then the damn wind kicked up with the change of temperature. One of my aluminum poles snapped on my brand new North Face tent... had to splice and tie...
(I'll be talking to Rei when I get back) It was around 42 degrees and windy, making
cooking dinner a huddled hurry-up-and-lets-sleep event. Two Marmot bags were hung
and in the morning we saw one got attacked...

Elise stayed back from the summit trip to throw rocks at Marmots. We started
the Summit ascent at 8am up the relentless 97 switchbacks to Trail Crest....
although in my humble opinion, this part of the trip was easier than the bit
before Trail Camp.

Wonderful along this section are the spectacular blue Sky
Pilot flowers. They look like some expert gardener put them all up there
just for us. The snow melting off the snow fields creates little streams
along and sometimes right under the trail and the actual trail was blocked
on one section by a big snow field requiring an impromptu rock scramble. (oh
no! Verboten! Do not cut the switchbacks!) There were also two small
sections of snow we had to cross, although the snow was soft and it was no
big deal.

Up finally at Trail Crest you look out over the Sequoia National
park to the west and the Owens Valley to the east. And yes, there were
Marmots up here just waiting for hikers with GORP...

Along the next two miles on the crest we hiked at a rather easy grade, until the worst part
just before the summit which required an exhausting scramble up the rocks to
the right of a snow field which might have been hiding an easier trail....

I had all the right clothes on. Layers. My SKI jacket worked great with the zip-out-able fleece.... Trail Crest up there to summit was like being on Mars or something.... it's an interesting landscape. Most of the time you have to be looking down at the little rocks just waiting to twist an ankle but it is important to take a few breather breaths every once in a while and take in the massive views. The sky up there is so blue it hurts especially how it contrasts against the warm rock colors. It is amazing. Coming from LA smog, I just couldn't believe the stars at night and the blue sky in the day.

Made summit 14,496 ft. at just before 1pm, Jim and I first. I had been
taking Diamox for altitude sickness prevention and acclimated well, and
drank tons of water, and quit smoking early enough, and had been working out at LA
FATness, so actually, I felt like a million bucks! No big deal. It was especially nice having to only carry some GORP and 2 1/2 liters of water in the Platypus water bag. Those things work so well! Bite valve! As Rocky said, it makes you want to have one all the time
even in normal life....

So yeah, we took some pix, signed the guest book at the summit cabin, and
started back down.

There were some clouds off to the west which were of some concern as usually
Whitney gets hit by nasty thunder & lightening, hail, sleet, snow, & rain
storms every afternoon. Lightning can be a scary thing. There are warning
signs about this and really nowhere to hide up on the trail crest. But as it
happens, not a storm hit the mountain when we were there!

It was easier going down. The temperature was dropping already when we
reached the cables creating some "black ice" on the rocks. Of course the
worst section was where the hand-cables were all distorted from rock and
snow slides leaving a gaping exposed precipice should someone have slipped
on the ice. We all traversed with no incident. We got back to Trail Camp
around 5 or 6pm (can't remember) so packing up and going all the way back down in the dark did not sound like a good idea, so yeah, we stayed a second night at Trail Camp. We tried to eat all the rest of our food saving only the bacon and eggs for a nice big farewell breakfast in the am. We hung all the food and garbage off the rocks.

I was the first up at 5am and saw the carnage first. Those damn Marmots got
ALL the rest of our food. All of it. They are way too clever those damn
critters. Another group had their bag tied well so the Marmots couldn't jump
and tear (like they did to us) but the Marmots are way too clever so they
just went up and chewed through the rope....

The only way to deal with those things is a bear canister. Next time....

So we salvaged the instant coffee out of the trash and two girls next to us
gave us some granola and two power bars. So we had two bags of granola split
8 ways for breakfast and two power bars split 8 ways for lunch down at Lone
Pine Lake...

The landscapes are stunning. You cannot realise the scale of everything by photos. Even looking across as a boulder field, until you get up closer do you realise that these boulders are the size of houses... from where you are you think it is gravel.....

I would do the hike again..... it was simply awesome. What an achievement.
No blisters either!
The crew was great. Auntie's walkie talkie handle was SKU: She Kept Up.
Everyone got along great.

You can learn more about Mt. Whitney at:
http://www.395.com which is a good website.
The Mt. Whitney message board is especially interesting.

Cheers, EveAnna