Mount Whitney 2002
Detail
Tuesday Aug 27th - Day 1
The drive down: Mike and I stopped at Coco's for the $2.99 breakfast special.
I probably shouldn't have done that, having the sensitive stomach that I do.
We found out that Coco's and Carrow's are the same company.
We reached the Onion Valley campground and chose campsite #9. After setting
up, we decided to take a little hike to Robinson Lake. A map of Onion Valley
trails is here.
Unfortunately, the
trailhead wasn't well marked so we ended up reaching the lake by bushwhacking.
Returning we found that the trailhead was behind campsite #8. Do'oh!
Robinson Lake was my favorite lake. A beautiful mountain lake.
Wednesday Aug 28th - Day 2
Mike and I headed up the Kearsarge Pass trail at 9:00am. Traversing
the trail, we saw a string of lakes: Flower Lake, Gilbert Lake, Heart
Lake, and Big Pothole Lake. The trail was pretty easy. Eventually
we happened upon Kearsarge Pass, 11,760ft.
About 3.5 hours from our start, we stopped for lunch at the Kearsarge Lakes,
I think the middle one. As I was soaking my feet in the all-too-cold
water, I saw a fish in the lake, but Mike didn't believe me.
Thursday Aug 29th - Day 3
Today Mike and I got up earlier than the previous day: 6:00am. After coffee
and breakfast we decided to try Independence Peak near Robinson Lake. It was
our last day in Onion Valley, and I had hoped to bag a named peak above 10,000 ft.
As we set out, I told Mike "I have to evacuate, you go on ahead." When I was done
I headed up the path, and not seeing him, I started hiking double-time up the
trail trying to catch up. Eventually I realized that I didn't see his boot prints,
but by that point I was cold and decided he would figure that I was at the lake.
(Mike knew that Tone was in front of him because he saw his foot prints, but he
took his time anyway.) He met me there about a half hour later.
Our investigations of Independence Peak suggested it was pretty steep and
unnecessarily risky, so we sat near a boulder in the morning sun considering
our options. After about a half hour of munching pretzels, soaking rays, and looking at
the beautiful mountain lake, we decided to follow the stream up beyond the lake.
Eventually we reached a point where continuing would mean scrambling
through scree so we stopped. Mike started heading down while I
looked around to see if there was another lake; there wasn't.
On the way down we sat by a small pool off snow and tossed rocks
at a larger rock to see if we could hit it. Eventually we made
it back to Robinson Lake, then headed toward the camp. We had a
time commitment to leave by the 2:00pm checkout time. After we
cooked some hot dogs, we finally left around 2:20pm.
We made it to Lone Pine where Mike dropped me off at the ranger station to
get the permit while he picked up sun screen, ice, and other goodies. There
was a terribly long line at the ranger station and the gals at the counter
don't hustle much. I was tired, dirty, and I smelled terribly.
Mike and I headed to the Alabama Hills Inn where we, in turn,
used the shower and packed our gear for Mt. Whitney. The
Alabama Hills Inn has very spacious rooms, two double beds and
a full length couch. It also has a clean refrigerator and a
microwave. They also don't charge for adding extra people to
the room, not that we did.
Mike and I started walking to Lone Pine to get some dinner, but we horribly
underestimated the distance. We walked back to the truck and
drove the distance to PJ's restaurant. The food at PJ's is tasty,
Mike had the pasta and I had the split-pea soup.
Finally, Terri and Nancy arrived.
Friday Aug 30th - Day 4
Written by Terri
Tone and I stared in awe at the jagged peak of Mt. Whitney, brilliant in the
first light of dawn. Holy crap, I thought. We're climbing that today.
Six of us—me (Terri), Tone, Mike, Nancy, Tim, and Morgan—had decided
to tackle the highest peak in the continental United States months ago. For
the past month we had been getting ready, hiking twice a week up San Marcos
Road with weighted packs, in addition to our regular Wednesday night hikes.
But looking at Mt. Whitney from our hotel room, I felt a bit of apprehension
for the first time.
Tone and Mike had driven up to the Sierras some days earlier, on Tuesday, for
some camping and hiking at higher elevations around Onion Valley. Nancy had
just recently spent nine days backpacking elsewhere in the Sierras. The rest
of us came straight from our sea-level homes and climbed up to 12,000 feet
within 24 hours. Possibly not the best idea in the world, as we soon found
out.
Having arrived at different times in three separate cars, the six of us met
just before 8 a.m. on Friday morning at the Alabama Hills Motel in Lone
Pine, where Tone and I had shelled out for a good night's sleep (and free
oatmeal) the night before the hike. (Everyone else went the traditional
route and camped out at Lone Pine Campground.) It was about a half hour
drive up Whitney Portal Road to the trailhead; then we searched for
parking because the place was packed. The fates shined upon us as there
were three spots left, albeit off the street, not in the parking lots.
We stowed our extra food and toiletries in a bear box. So when all
was said and done, we began our climb at the crack of 9. Our late start did
allow us to avoid the majority of the crowds that first day, though.
Our permits allowed us an overnight stay at Trail Camp, elevation 12,000 feet,
and the Whitney Portal trailhead was at 8,365 feet, so our
first day's agenda consisted of climbing 3,600 feet over six miles with full
gear. In the humble Santa Ynez Mountains where we usually hike, this
would've been simple, the trail being wide and well-maintained. But the
altitude had other plans for us, making this a different ball game
entirely. A map of the Whitney Trail suitable for printing is here.
On our way up, we crossed a few small creeks and walked across a series of
wide logs carved flat on top and placed there just for hikers. The weather
was absolutely perfect: blue skies and warm, but not too warm. Apparently
there had been a brief hail storm at Trail Camp the preceding day, but we saw
none of that. The skies cooperated, making our entire trip blissfully storm-free.
After 2.8 miles we reached the turnoff for Lone Pine Lake. It was
only a couple hundred yards off the main trail, so Tone, Tim, Morgan, and I
headed down. The lake was extraordinarily beautiful, small but deep, and
smooth as glass on the surface. It was surrounded by boulders and looked
like something you might see on the moon, if the moon had water. Very cool,
and the water was quite cool as well. We didn't hang around too long, because we'd left Nancy
and Mike guarding our packs from bears and marmots. The next interesting
attraction was Swampy Though Meadow, which is actually called "Big Horn Park"
for some dumb reason. Our name for it was far better. Swampy Though
Meadow was, as you'd expect, swampy and bog-like, with lots of thick green
vegetation and pools of water. It looked even better as we
reached higher elevations.
We stopped for lunch around noon at Mirror Lake, which was also incorrectly
named, since Lone Pine Lake clearly was more mirror-like than Mirror Lake.
This second lake wasn't nearly as interesting, but it was a very nice
spot to have lunch. Tone, Nancy, and I soaked our feet in the cool water.
There were lots of tiny fish in the water, and they tried to nibble Tone's
toes. There were also bigger fish, which, luckily, weren't interested in
toes. The hierarchy of the food chain would be:
So, as you can see, Tone eats his toes.
After lunch we ascended to over 10,000 feet. It was there that the altitude
started affecting some of us severely. Tone, Mike, and
Nancy, who'd all been at high altitudes in recent days, were fine. Tim,
Morgan, and I, on the other hand, started to feel not so hot. Tim got
full-on altitude sickness—headache, nausea, etc. Morgan and I just got a
little sick-feeling and dizzy. I slowed way down and had to keep stopping to
get rid of the light-headed, woozy feeling I got every time I ascended.
But we all made it to Trail Camp before 3:00pm, earlier than we'd
expected. The camp was fairly crowded, but there were spots available
up in the rocks. Tim and Morgan pitched their tent in a nice big spot, surrounded by a
human-made rock wall. The rest of us opted for smaller sites higher up. My tent
was surrounded on three sides by a rock wall and large boulders which blocked
the wind very nicely. Our location offered a grand view of the peak and the valley
below. Trail Camp has one large, solar outhouse, and does it stink! Luckily we pitched
camp far enough away to avoid most of the deleterious odors. The camp sits along a
small lake that resembles a cesspool filled with algae. The creek that filled
this cesspool provided us with ample water for our filtration needs.
We all rested for a while before dinner, and I felt better just to be not
climbing for a while. For dinner, Nancy and Mike made potato soup and tons
of bow tie pasta. Tim finally joined us for some dinner, but he just
didn't seem to have acquired an appetite. Afterward we played two hands of
Hearts using our head lamps, but we were all in bed by 9:00pm. Apparently
everyone else in the camp was wiped out too, because by 8:00pm the place was
pretty much silent. We'd left all our food and toiletries stuffed into three
bear canisters, but we never did see any bears. There were quite a few marmots,
though, so I suppose the canisters were worth the hassle.
Saturday Aug 31th - Day 5
Written by Terri
We woke up around 6:00am the next morning, and Tone and I caught a beautiful
sunrise out over the mountains on the other side of Lone Pine; lots of
pinks and reds streaked through the clouds. We didn't get back on the trail
until 9:00am, and by then dozens of day hikers had already passed us as
they ascended to the summit. The peak was another five miles away and more than 2,000
feet up, so altitude continued to slow us down, but at least this time our loads
were lighter since we were sporting only day packs. I was slowest of all, and
the last two miles or so were brutal; I stopped every five to 10 minutes so my
dizzy brain wouldn't send me tripping over the edge. Tone very patiently stayed
back with me. Of course, there was no way in hell I was going to get that close
only to quit. I imagine others in our group felt the same way.
The scenery became more beautiful as we climbed higher. Elevation unraveled
a half dozen lakes nested within the hills including an enormous one
embedded at the top of a cliff. They were mostly deep blue—paling the
Trail Camp cesspool—and shimmered in the sunlight. Tone and I also saw
incredible rock spires, several very narrow and precarious-looking, and the rest of the Sierra Nevada
range spread out below us as far as we could see. As we got closer to the
summit, Whitney looked more and more like a giant pile of rocks. It was
almost disappointing, until we actually reached the summit, and saw the
offering of splendid views. As tired and dizzy as I was, it was
amazing just to have made it. The views, 360 degrees of mountains and the
Lone Pine valley below, were incredible. All six of our group took pictures
and checked out the old cabin up there, which apparently was carried to the top
piece by piece. There were tons of people at the top, some on cell phones, but
I barely noticed them. I was happy just to be there.
As an aside, it is necessary to talk of the old man who nearly killed Tone.
Some old buffoon, who kept neck in neck with us past Trail Crest, decided
to sit down just as Tone was passing him. As he sat down, his walking poles jutted out,
one going behind Tone's right leg, the other going neatly in front of Tone's left
leg. A few more inches and Tone would have tripped, a rather terrifying
prospect if you saw the scant precipice upon which we trod. Had Tone tripped,
he probably would have gone forward, but the alternative is unthinkable.
From that point on, Tone kept telling me that he didn't want this geezer
to pass us again. That seemed to keep us going.
But the trip wasn't yet over, of course—in fact it was only half over!
The vehicles were 3.03 miles away as the crow flies, but this number inflated
to just over 11 miles for our purposes. Stupid almost winged people.
As the adage suggests, what comes up must go down. The doofus, who
had mentioned he was from San Diego, was arriving his destination just
as we were heading down. Tone kept a wide berth of the fool fearing
an explosive situation.
Tone and I made it back to the campsite, broke camp and stocked up on water one
last time before getting going for the last leg of our hike around 5:15 p.m.
I'm pretty sure we all expected to be finishing our descent in the dark,
but we raced down that mountain as though Mercury's wings were on our boots.
Perhaps it was fatigue, or the desperation to be finished and to
breathe nice, thick air again, but we flew down the mountain at about
3 miles per hour. Knees and toes complained, but their pains were warranted
as we reached the trailhead just after 7:30 p.m. I flopped down on the ground and
thought I'd never get up. We'd made it.
Nancy convinced us to drive into Lone Pine for dinner rather than cook at
camp. A late dinner at PJ's! Cruising down Whitney Portal Road with Nancy's
windows down and the moon roof open, I
just kept sucking in the air, feeling how thick and warm it felt. At the
restaurant, we ordered a cornucopia of food, including blueberry muffins that
would be our breakfast in the morning. After downing our feast, we limped out
of the restaurant on stiff legs, beset by the light jeer of the waitress who
said, "Somebody climbed the mountain today."
Back at the Lone Pine Campground, we pulled our gear out and went straight to
bed; none of us bothered to put up a tent. This was actually a wonderful
idea not only for the time it saved, but because then we could gaze at the
amazing night sky. We could see more stars than I could ever remember seeing,
and when the crescent moon came out, it was huge and bright.
Sunday Sep 1st - Day 6
Written by Terri
The light before dawn woke all of us up around 6 a.m. (Well, actually, Tone
woke me up, as I was in death-sleep mode; then I think we woke everyone else
up.) We saw the early-morning light on Mt. Whitney one more time, only this
time it was even more spectacular, not only because we were much closer to
it than we'd been two days before in the hotel room, but also because we had
actually been there, up on the peak. We were all more than ready to head
home, so we didn't bother cooking breakfast or making coffee. We just
ate some muffins and granola bars and got the heck out of there, all by
7:15 a.m. Although I reserved the campsite for another day, we left
today (Sunday) so as not to hit the returning Labor Day traffic, and I
think we were all more than ready to be home.
Back to Tone's Writing
We left Lone Pine Campground around 7:30am and headed to the ranger
station to relieve ourselves of rented bear canisters. Santa Barbara
was next on our agenda. The previous night was the best night of sleep I had
since arriving in the area six days prior. The campground was spacious,
but as Mike pointed out, there isn't much to do there except for Whitney.
Mike said the camp host was in an ornery mood last night, swearing up
a storm about Nancy moving her car, bear boxes being full, etc. We
finally stored one cooler in a bathroom overnight.
Dinner last night was at PJ's again. Mike dined at PJ's in some
form four times over the duration of our six day trip.
He's become a regular. I had the bacon burger which was really
quite good, much better than the garlic bread that came w/ Mike's
spaghetti. That "free" garlic bread has me praising the porcelain
prince when I should have been sleeping.
Anyway, the trip is done. I suppose there is some theory that
every event of your life changes you, but to tell the truth, this
climb was a lot simpler than I had thought.
See some images of the trip.
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