Mt. Whitney (Sept. 20-22, 2008)

Last January during a ski trip, Roanne, Matthias, and myself had laid plans to hike up Mt. Whitney.  Matthias (Matze) entered our names in the permit lottery, and our lucky number came up for the third weekend in September.  Roanne and I flew into Las Vegas on Friday night and then drove the remaining 4 hours to Whitney Portal in our rental car, arriving at 1:00am.  We quickly set up our tent and went to bed, with Matthias already asleep in the back of his beloved Volvo, having arrived from Los Angeles a few hours earlier.  We woke up the next morning feeling refreshed, and after breakfast we had to switch campsites as we had not been able to reserve one site for all three nights of our stay.  We didn't want to take down our tent and set it up again, and being too lazy to walk it up the road to our new site, our only choice was to set it on top of Matze's Volvo and have him drive it over for us:

Great success!  Our new campsite was really nice, right by a stream with quiet neighbors.  We then headed back down into the town of Lone Pine to pick up our permits and poop bags for our hike the next day.  After taking care of this business, we decided to spend the rest of the day doing some sport climbing in the nearby Alabama Hills.  I had printed a topo for one of the areas (Alabama Dome) off of the internet and it sounded good, so we headed there.  It wasn't too hot and the climbing was really good, vertical face climbing on granite with nice clean patina edges that were reminiscent of Bishop bouldering in the Buttermilks.  We started on a 5.9 called Southern Man, which Matthias is shown starting up below:

Matthias only climbed once, 12 years prior, and despite this he cruised up the 5.9 without any problems.  Roanne followed suit, and we then moved around the corner to a nice 5.10a called Gone with the Wind that ascended a clean arete.  Here is a shot of Roanne belaying me on the climb, and then one of Matthias demonstrating his honed rock master technique:

Here are a couple shots of Roanne on this climb:

Roanne's climbing shoes had been painfully tight on the last two climbs, so at this point she withdrew from the action and immersed herself in her latest wizard book.  Matze was still psyched to climb though, and I am always psyched to keep climbing, so we threw ourselves at the two remaining climbs on the wall, a couple of 5.10c's called Blockade Runner and Dihedral Dance.  These were both excellent climbs, highly recommended if you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Lone Pine.  Here is a shot of me heading up the thin edges of Blockade Runner:

At this point our skin was getting a bit raw from the sharp granite and we wanted to make it back to cook dinner before dark, so we packed up and headed back towards Whitney Portal.  On the way back we took a detour through another section of the Alabama Hills to see how our Ford Focus rental car performed in the off road department.  The landscape here is pretty amazing tons of boulders and rock formations as far as the eye can see.  Apparently this is a popular location for filming western's but we didn't see any cowboys.

We made it back to camp just before dark, and posed for a group photo before starting to cook some dinner:

Here are some shots of Matthias and myself working on dinner.  Matthias is a crazy health nut, and examines every ingredient label carefully to make sure he isn't consuming anything bad for him.  This makes for an interested challenge every time we eat together, to see how much sugar, salt, and fat we can introduce into his meals.  After intense negotiations he agreed that we could have vodka cream sauce on the pasta, and dinner preparations proceeded smoothly.

Here is a shot of Roanne after washing up from dinner, with Matthias's favorite Captain America plastic plate visible to the right of the lantern.  After packing everything into the bear box, we retired to bed with our alarms set for 5:30am the following morning to get an early start on our hike.

We rose bleary eyed at 5:30am and prepared breakfast.  After trying in vain to get Matthias to eat a Pop Tart with his seeds and nuts, we loaded up and headed for the trail head.  After walking in a circle searching for the trail head we finally found it and started hiking just before 7:00am.  Here is a group photo at the trail head:

We headed up the trail in the early morning light, which switch backed gently up the hill side:

In view ahead was Mount Whitney and it's associated spires, Crook's Peak and the Keeler Needle.  Mount Whitney is the rightmost (and largest) of the peaks in the background (partially obscured), and Crook's Peak and Keeler Needle the prominent peaks to it's left.

A few miles along the trail we were startled by a deer who wasn't too afraid of us and kindly posed for pictures.

We passed Lone Pine Lake and continued on to some nice meadows, here is me posed beside them:

We continued on past a bunch of people camped in the meadows to the next lake called Mirror Lake, which was really nice looking (below).  We relaxed in the sun by the lake for a while and ate some food while talking to a nice Asian guy who had given up on the hike and decided to read his book by the lake for the day.  We were most certainly not giving up, so before too long we continued on up the trail.

There were some good views back down the valley towards Lone Pine, and some really nice looking trees with vivid red/orange trunks:

Just before reaching Consultation Lake we stopped at a stream to filter some water.  Consultation Lake was the last major lake on the trail and was really nice looking (shown on the right):

After Consultation Lake we passed Trail Camp where most people doing the hike as a two day trip camped, and then headed up the numerous switchbacks towards Trail Crest.  Apparently there are 97 of these switchbacks, and they were really well constructed.  The cooler fall weather was evidenced by the ice and snow that we encountered in some of the shady sections of the trail:

Here are some shots of Roanne and Matthias making their way up the switchbacks.  In the photo on the right, Matthias is bending down to scoop up a snow ball that he will then pelt the unsuspecting Roanne with.

Finally we reached Trail Crest at 13,500 feet of elevation, where we came around a corner onto the west side of the Whitney Massif.  Here is Roanne hopping and skipping around the corner.  At this point we also entered Sequoia National Park, and we were disappointed to learn from the sign that we could not bring our pets and firearms on this part of the hike.

As we continued along this portion I spied an enticing looking pinnacle down from the trail, and I went out and sat on the spire for a nice photo opportunity.  This was a bit spooky as it was really exposed, dropping steeply off to both sides.  Matthias came on the pinnacle side trip also, but stopped and hid behind a boulder before making it all the way out to the pinnacle:

We then resumed the traverse towards the summit of Mt. Whitney, passing numerous spires and aiguilles along the way framed by the brilliant blue sky.  It was quite windy along this stretch, and we stopped just over the ridge for a lunch break of bagels and nutella for Roanne and myself, and vegan cookies for Matthias.  At this point we realized that the camera had been left back at the pinnacle photo shoot, so I ran back to retrieve that, feeling quite sprightly as at this point the elevation had not yet caught up with me.

We continued along the ridge, and as we passed the peaks of Keeler Needle and Crook's peak I had no choice but to make diversions and scramble up each of them.  They had nice small summits, and dropped really steeply down to the talus below.  Apparently there are some good climbs up them, and this certainly appeared to be the case.  Here is a self portrait of me on Keeler Needle (14,260 feet of elevation), and the view down the abrupt drop of the east face of the formation:

After rejoining Roanne and Matze, we then headed up the final part to the summit, at 14,505 feet.  At this point I noticed that Matthias was rushing ahead and I didn't give it much further consideration until catching back up with him by the summit hut, where he gleefully informed me that he had beaten me to the top of Mt. Whitney.  Scheize!  I outwardly conceded defeat, while inwardly scheming about how I was going to sneak some M&Ms into his vegan stew that night.  Here is a photo of the three of us on the summit:

Here is a panorama view from the summit:

One interesting feature on the summit was a shelter that had been fitted out with multiple lightning rods for the frequent electrical storms.  Here are some photos of us taking shelter inside:

After sufficiently savoring our conquest of Mt. Whitney, we headed back down.  Here is a view of Keeler's Needle and Crook's Peak from the backside of Mt. Whitney as we passed them on the way down:

As we passed Mount Muir I again felt a strong force pulling me off the trail on a detour towards it's summit, so I relented and headed up to tag the summit of this 14,015 foot peak.  It is really just a bump jutting out from the Mount Whitney Massif, but it had a fun little 3rd class scramble towards the top, so it was worth the trip.  We then continued around Trail Crest back to the east side of the formation and headed down the 97 switchbacks:

We reached the small lake at Trail Camp just as it was passing into the shadow of Mount Whitney:

By this point we all had a bit of a headache from the time spent at higher altitude, but we carried on, completing the last stretch of trail in the dark by headlamp.  We arrived back at the trail head just before 8:00pm:

This hike had provided me with the opportunity to test out our new GPS (a Garmin eTrex Legend model, purchased as a way of helping to fund the Garmin-Chipotle Professional Cycling Team), and I found it really fun to hike with the GPS.  Below is the saved track plotted on the map.  Our starting point was on the right, with Mount Whitney and the course deviations from the bonus summit diversions on the left.  The GPS reported the total distance traveled as 42 km, however the distance from the saved track was slightly less (as seen below on the elevation plot) since the track saved fewer points that eliminated some of the distance covered on the switchbacks.

Below is the elevation profile from the GPS, where I have pointed out each of the summits that were attained, all over 14,000 feet.  Our starting point can be seen as 8,300 feet, so we ascended over 6,200 feet, not a bad day's outing!

The next morning we slept in a bit, and after packing up camp we spent the rest of the morning exploring some of the granite boulders surrounding the campground before parting ways.  Roanne and I headed back towards Las Vegas which took us through Death Valley (in the daylight this time), and we then boarded our respective flights, Roanne to rainy Seattle and me to sunny Salt Lake City.  It was a great trip, and as a bonus I think we might have gotten Matze hooked on climbing, so I now have a new climbing partner!