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So I finally got my chance to hike/climb Mt. Whitney. A few of us have wanted to climb it for the last few years, but we've never been successful getting permits through their lottery system. This year I just decided we should go anyways and try to obtain no-show permits. I've been told by a few people that have gone, that there are no-show permits available almost everyday. Rob was going to be around this weekend and Kevin was free as well. The next free weekend would be too cold for us since we don't have crampons or ice axes. Unfortunately, Rob wasn't able to make the trip since he had to be on a flight back to DC.
I decided to call the Whitney Ranger's office every day (their suggestion) to see if anybody had cancelled their reservation so that I'd be able to reserve those permits. The ranger said that most people don't show up instead of cancelling ahead of time so that I probably wouldn't get a reserved permit, but I might as well try. Last Thursday, they had some cancellations so I was able to reserve 2 overnight permits onto Whitney. If I wasn't able to get the permits, we would have had to show up at 11am on Saturday and hope people didn't show up.
The ranger told me on the phone that the deadline for picking up your permits for an overnight trip is 11am and the phone message system of the permit office said the same thing as well. However, when we showed up at the permit office at 10:15am, they said we were lucky that nobody picked up our permits as a no-show yet since they start giving them away at 10am. I tried to tell the lady that I was misinformed and that they should check their phone message, but she really didn't care. I would have been extremely upset if they would have given our permits away since they told me wrong. Anyways, everything worked out OK with the permits.
From the permit office we drove north into Lone Pine and took a left at the first (and only) light in town and headed through the Alabama Hills up towards the Mt. Whitney Portals. There is a campground and store up there along with parking for the trailhead. All of the parking spaces were full so we had to park off the road a few hundred feet down and hike our stuff to the trailhead. We spent just a little time reading the boards at the trailhead and weighing our packs before heading up the trail. My pack was 44 and Kevin's was 42 pounds so we were pretty equal. We started hiking at 11:30am, Saturday September 13th.
The beginning of the trail was nice with a slow, but steady climb across very long switchbacks. The trail was in good shape and was mostly compacted dirt and small rock. After passing a small waterfall we entered the John Muir Wilderness area. There was plenty of opportunity to look back at Lone Pine to see our progress as we hiked up. We took our first break about 2 miles in according the GPS and ate lunch around the 4 mile mark. The GPS measured the trail as being significantly longer than what is posted and my belief is the difference between the USGS survey and the GPS track. I believe the USGS survey doesn't account for the distance traveled in the switchback, but instead measures direct line from point to point. I don't have anything to back this up, but I'll look into it.
As we continued, we saw 2 parachutes overhead, I'm not sure if they were powered parachutes or just para-gliders, but they weren't regular parachutes. That would have been by far the best way down! After passing a really cool water fall that flowed over a big rock and balancing over some logs across more water we reached Lone Pine Lake. It was a short trip down to the lake so we took the side track to check it out. It was a very cool lake and we found someone to take a picture of Kevin and me.
After leaving Lone Pine Lake and continuing up, the terrain became more rocky and we passed a rock that indicated the 3 mile mark. Remember I said we ate lunch at the 4 mile mark... The terrain was becoming much more arid with very few trees and mostly rocky terrain. Eventually we came to a meadow with a stream; the water was very reddish perhaps from high iron content. At the far side of the meadow was the lower of the two campgrounds for backpackers, Outpost Camp, which is at 3.5 miles.
Not too far past Outpost Camp we came across Mirror Lake. This was a very calm lake that seemed pretty shallow and about 200 ft across. There was a group of people here eating their lunch and I wish we would have stopped to eat here instead of a mile earlier, but this was my first trip up so I didn’t know what to expect. The next little bit of trail was a series of switchbacks that climbed up from Mirror Lake so we got a better view as we continued up. Eventually the view opened up and we could also see the meadow and Outpost Camp and Lone Pine Lake down below.
Soon we were above the tree line and the terrain was extremely arid. The trail was getting more difficult with more and more rock stairs instead of the regular trail. I saw a large bird as along the trail that seemed to care less about hikers. With ~150 people hiking the trail a day, I guess it was used to people. It actually started running right towards us and I got a picture of it. I think it was some kind of Partridge.
Soon we were above the snow line, but I was still comfortable in a short sleeve shirt. The temperature was probably still in the low 60s, but I was generating more than enough heat. Up a little higher and we came across another lake, I think this was Consolation Lake. I'm pretty sure camping is now allowed there although we did see a tent there. As we kept going, Kevin ran out of water. I was trying to give him some water, but my pack wasn't working that well. We decided to keep going since the campground was supposed to be really close.
After another quarter mile, we came across Trail Camp. This is a large area that is very rocky with large boulders, but plenty of sandy flat spots between the boulders to set up tents. There was a lake right there as well for us to get out the water filter and fill our water packs. Instead of filling right at the lake, we walked to the steam inlet and got fresh water instead of the lake water right by all the campsites. It was obvious that this area was very heavily camped because many of the flat spots for tents smelt like urine. You're supposed to hike away from the lake, but you could tell that plenty of people had been too lazy. Being exhausted ourselves, we found one that wasn't terrible and started to set up camp.
It didn't take us too long to get our tents set up and we started dinner. I had a chicken and rice dinner for 2 that I had no problem finishing, Kevin finished his oriental chicken and rice for 2 as well. The meals are pretty easy to make. You just boil some water, then pour water into the food pouch and 9 minutes later you have a hot dinner. With some time before dark, we boiled some extra water and had some hot chocolate before heading to bed.
We stayed up as the moon rose over the mountains to illuminate the campground. I tried taking a few pictures, but they didn't turn out well of course. Once it was dark I headed to bed, it was only 7 or 7:30, but I was exhausted. I laid in bed for awhile before I was able to fall asleep. Last time I camped when it was cold out, I ended up freezing all night long. This time I remembered to bring my sleeping bag cocoon with me; which worked incredibly. At about 2am I woke up pretty cold. I thought the sun was starting to come out so we should get started, but it was just the moon being so bright. I put on an extra layer of clothes and I slept fine until morning.
I got up around 7am and packed my water pack for the trip to the summit and ate a PB&J sandwich for breakfast. We went back down to the stream and refilled out water for the trip up to the summit. This is the last source of water on the way up so we won't have another chance to fill up until we get back down to camp. We started the 98 switchbacks up to Trail Crest around 7:30am.
Once we got to got to Trail Crest at 13,600 ft, we could look down and see several other lakes that we couldn't before. Trail Crest is at a saddle to the south of Mt. Whitney where you cross over to the west side of the mountain. Here you start hiking down a little bit before you start a mostly flat trek across a very exposed rocky trail. A few places opened up where you would be standing on the crest of the mountain and be able to see both to the east and the west of the mountains.
After about a half a mile, you reach Mt. Whitney, but not the summit yet. There is a long hike up around the backside of the mountain where you start a few more easy switchbacks before a building comes into sight and you have reached the summit! There were two USGS markers on top and I made sure to find them and get pictures. I was also sure to get my name in the book to make it official that I had reached the top.
I had read that cell service is available at the peak due to the clear view of everywhere, but even though I had 2 to 3 bars, I couldn't get any calls to go through, so much for calling Rob and rubbing it in!
While we were sitting there enjoying the view, I pulled out two cold Miller Lites. That beer was one of the best I ever had, and yes I did carry it more than 11 miles and over a mile vertically to drink it on top of the US (at least the lower 48). To get a perspective of how high Mt. Whitney is, we were almost 3 times higher than Denver at almost 3 miles up from sea level. This is equal to the service ceiling of my airplane and higher than I've ever flown before. I would need to be on oxygen to legally fly this high.
Wow, I remember this picture; I was standing on the edge of a 2,500 foot cliff. That drop-off went down essentially to where we had camped for the night, down at only 12,000 feet!
This picture almost seems fake, but that's what it looked like from up so high.
The way back down to Trail Camp was pretty much the same as the way up except for much faster and easier. It took us 4 hours to hike from Trail Camp to the summit and only 2 to hike back down. Once we got to trail camp, Kevin laid down to rest his feet for awhile and I started to tear down my tent. Kevin didn't rest long; I think he felt rushed since I was tearing down my tent. I told him he could keep resting, but he got up anyways and soon we were packed and ready for the hike back down to the portals. Just before we left, we checked our water and we were both still fine so we didn't spend the time to top off our water packs.
I don't remember the hike up having so many steep steps, but I sure did notice them on the way down. By far the hardest part of this hike was carrying the backpacks down the last 6 miles. I was very happy once Lone Pine Lake came back into sight because that meant we were making progress downwards. Not soon enough we were back down below the tree line and we could see Mirror Lake. With about 4 miles left to go, my legs started to shake as I walked and my knees were killing me. I just started to zone everything out and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. We stopped a few times, but it seemed harder and harder to get back to keep going so we just tried to keep the pace headed downhill.
Before we reached Lone Pine Lake, I ran out of water. I'm not sure how I ran out since I had a lot up at Trail Camp. I was drinking more going downhill than I did going uphill. We stopped at the place where we had to walk across the logs and I filtered some more water. There were gnats everywhere, but at least they didn't bite. Soon we were able to see the highway that comes up to the trailhead, it was still a long ways off, but at least it was something positive. After another 2 or 3 terrible miles, we reached the bottom. My body was done a few hours back, but I pushed it hard enough to make it down. We re-weighed our packs and I went to drive the Jeep back to pick up our packs; I wasn't able to carry the pack the rest of the way down to the Jeep. We finished the hike at 6:00pm on Sunday September 14th.
I'm finishing this on Wednesday and I still can barely walk. My knees and calves are so sore that I drove into work instead of taking the motorcycle. I've been sore from hiking before, but never this bad and it never lasted this long. I'm extremely glad I went on the hike and that Kevin made it as well, but now that I've been to the top, I doubt I'll ever go again. I didn't do the hike in one day so I'll never be able to carry that badge, but I've been there and that's good enough for me.
PROUD OF YOU, SON!
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