Mt Whitney Trip Report

On Sunday evening, I decided to take an opportunity to hike Mt. Whitney this week with Brent Cannon and some friends of his from work.  It was such a last minute decision, that I was kind of going crazy making sure I was ready.  I already had most of the things I need except the ice axe and crampons that I borrowed from another friend.  The one thing that I wasn't sure about was which boots to take.  The crampons only fit into a pair of boots that an old friend had given me, but those boots didn't fit very well and were a bit tight in some places due to my wide feet.  I tried different insoles and socks and eventually settled on a combination.  I knew it wouldn't be the most comfortable, but it would have to do.

The other item that concerned me was the weather: forecast major winds and a temperature drop just as we should be heading up the mountain.  Not good, especially since the wind is one thing I despise about this area.

Tuesday night I headed up with everyone at a little past 8pm.  We camped at Horseshoe Meadows (10,000 ft elevation) to start acclimatizing.  It was a bit windy that night, and didn't get a great night sleep.

[caption id="attachment_420" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Starting at Whitney Portal"][/caption]

In the morning we headed over to Whitney Portal to begin the hike.  Fortunately in the first hour or so my boots seemed to stretch and fit my feet.  That was a miracle I needed.  The hike up was OK, except the wind made it cold.  While hiking, it was warm enough to hike in a short-sleeve shirt, but if you stopped, you had to wear something heavier.  As we kept going up, it kept getting worse:  more wind and more cold.  Eventually, at Trailside Meadow we hit a lot of snow and decided to start taking the snow instead of the trail as the trail was becoming difficult to find as so much of it was buried in snow.

[caption id="attachment_421" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Trailside Meadow where we switched from trail to snow"][/caption]

The remaining section up to Trail Camp was entirely over snow, but somewhat miserable due to the high gusty winds.  At times I would turn around and wait for the gust to go down, since the wind was going against us.  We talked to everyone who was coming down the mountain, and everyone kept telling us about the super-high winds (60 mph estimates) up at Trail Camp and above.  Most said is was so high, that they turned around at or before Trail Crest.  This wasn't good news if the weather were to stay this way, but we kept pressing on.  I was a bit concerned about having another sleepless night at Trail Camp due to cold high winds.

We did arrive at Trail Camp and found the best sheltered place we could find.  Brent and I shared a tent which was a low-profile 2-man tent.  The others shared a high-profile 4-man tent that was having trouble staying up.  They put a lot of effort (in vain) to build some rock walls to get some shelter from the wind.  After a while they even moved the tent to what would hopefully have more shelter.



The second miracle happened at about 6 or 7pm that evening when the winds died down completely!  It was so nice that we weren't allowed to say "wind" anymore.  At about 8pm when the sun set, we set out for bed only to find it starting to snow!

[caption id="attachment_423" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Evidence that it did snow on us"][/caption]

I slept well that night in my new down sleeping bag.  Even though temperatures were certainly sub-freezing, I stayed plenty warm all night long.  We woke up at 4:30am to get an early tackle on the snow chute while it was still iced over.  We started up the slope at 6am after a hearty oatmeal breakfast.

[caption id="attachment_425" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="The climb from Trail Camp to Trail Crest (12,000ft-13,600ft)"][/caption]

There is a trail that heads up this slope to Trail Crest, but you can't take it due to the snow.  So instead we strapped on the crampons and grabbed the ice axes for a thrilling ascent up 50-degree angled snow & ice.

[caption id="attachment_426" align="alignnone" width="463" caption="It was a long arduous climb up this snow chute!"][/caption]

It is actually much more awesome being there than the pictures make it look.  And the crampons seem to allow you to defy gravity.







[caption id="attachment_430" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Trail Crest (13,600 ft)... finally!"][/caption]

I made it to Trail Crest in what I thought was pretty awesome time:  1 hr 25 minute.  That is ascending vertically at 19 feet per minute, including rests!  Conquering this part made the rest of the trip feel pretty easy.

On the other side (west side) of the Sierra crest, there is clearly still a lot of snow.

[caption id="attachment_431" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Looking west at Guitar Lake"][/caption]

The trail to the summit was almost entirely free of snow from Trail Crest until the last 500 ft or so of elevation climb to the summit, where we strapped the crampons back on for another short climb up.



The summit was finally reached and we took our time despite the cold wind up there.  The views were awesome!  I made a short call home to my wife on my cell phone that had a clear line of sight to Lone Pine and some cell tower 10,000 ft below us.

[caption id="attachment_433" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Summit of Mt Whitney"][/caption]

This ascent was my 7th time to the top of Mt. Whitney!  I have made it up on every attempt, which I think is a mix of determination and a certain amount of luck having sufficiently good weather conditions each time.

We hurried down the mountain just in time to get a nice juicy burger from the Whitney Portal Store.

Happy Trails!