bpope’s blog

Background info:  At 14, 505′ Mt Whitney is the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States.  We chose to take the Mountaineer’s Route up the mountain, a less popular, more strenuous, and in my opinion wayyyy more beautiful way up the mountain.  For more details about the route, check it out here.

I didn’t do my homework last summer.  In years and years of school I probably missed one homework assignment, maybe two at most, so it figures that not doing my homework would start to catch up with me outside of school.  Having not done my research, I had no idea what an early deadline there is to get permits for Whitney!  This year, though, I was prepared, I was going to get a permit!  Funny thing about a lottery, though…sometimes you don’t win.  Undeterred, my two coworkers and I had noticed that earlier in the season there were always lots and lots of no-shows.  So, we (Chris, Ethan and myself) took off on a likely seeming Friday afternoon, hoping that there would be a few less enthusiastic permit holders.

We drove a few hours from Cupertino to crash with a friend of mine in Fresno (thank you @teaganita).  The next morning, we awoke bright and early in order to get to the Lone Pine Ranger Station in time for the 11 o’clock lottery.  As it turned out, there weren’t any suitable permits for us available at 11, only overnight permits beginning the following day.  So, we decided to pick up some gear (crampons and axes at Lone Pine Sporting Goods…not too expensive and they did the job) and took a trip up to Whitney Portal to set up our tent at the Whitney Portal before returning later in the afternoon, hoping that there would be some no-shows.  As luck would have it, there were and we became the proud owners of three day-use permits for the Whitney Zone on Sunday.

Chris points out sea-level

We had time to kill, though.  It occurred to me that we weren’t far from the lowest point in the contiguous US and that we would be hiking to the highest point the next day.  So, naturally, we took off for Death Canyon National Park (which happened to be free that weekend!) and visited Badwater Basin and played on some sand dunes.  We made it back to the Portal, cooked dinner and sorted our gear, ready for a 3am departure.

Sand dunes in Death Valley

We hit the trail at 3:30 (who ever actually leaves on time?).  The trailhead is at about 8000′ and on the main trail takes its time winding up interminable switchbacks.  After making the turn off the main trail without issue, we discovered that the Mountaineer’s Route was not quite the same and headed uphill.  About half an hour or 45 minutes in, we ran into a little bit of trouble.  After missing a creek crossing, we headed up some steep granite.  At that point, all of us wished that we had actually read a description of the route more carefully…oops.  We eventually made our way back to the right route, but only after losing about 30 minutes.  Mis-step number 2 came at the base of the ledges.  We were split on the right way to go, and ended up taking the variation to the south of the creek instead of going up.  As the day grew lighter, I spied the more traveled route on the other side of the canyon, so we dropped back across the stream and bushwhacked across.  Finally we were on the right track!  Soon after crossing over, we ran into a pair of climbers coming down from the East Buttress who had been forced to bivy because they couldn’t find the ledges.  I shook my head at the bad luck these guys were having, but at least we weren’t the only ones who didn’t find the ledges in the dark.  Little did I know that they looked in good shape compared to what our party would deal with.

Sunrise from Lower Boy Scout Lake

As dawn broke, we found ourselves at Lower Boy Scout Lake, with plenty of trail left to go.  For the most part, the route was clear and easy to follow with cairns every once in a while  It was also easy to avoid snow all the way up to Iceberg Lake (at 12,000′).  After we passed Upper Boy Scout Lake, and approached Iceberg Lake, we angled to the right and stayed high, scrambling up a short class 3 section near a frozen waterfall that was actually pretty slick (It was a good boulder problem, I thought, but my partners found it a little unnerving).  Had we gone low, we wouldn’t have had the same obstacle to climb, but it would’ve taken longer to slog through a big snowfield.  In any case, the scramble deposited us on the lake’s plateau, where we took some time to rest and try to eat.  It was at this point that each of us began feeling the altitude at least a little, with some headaches and food tasting like sawdust in our mouths.

The ribbon in the center is the gully we ascended (approx 35 degree snow)

From the lake up was still covered in snow (and we had to chip ice before collecting our water), so we strapped on crampons and headed up the steep gully.  Since we were a little late in the day, the snow slope was a little soft, making the going a bit difficult.  When we reached the notch, we were informed by a guided group that had just descended that the traditional route was very icy.  Since Ethan was feeling weak, and Chris was new to crampons, we decided to take the less strenuous, and more straightforward, traverse to gain the summit plateau.  Once on the plateau, we each started moving at our own pace, since the path was clear and the worst of the hiking was behind us.  In retrospect, I really should have known better and we shouldn’t have spread out at all.  I reached the summit at about 2:30.  It was a beautiful day, and despite having a small headache, I couldn’t stop marveling at the views (Iceberg lake below, Lone Pine and the Whites in the distance, and the Sierra stretching out behind)

About 10 minutes later, Chris joined me on the summit, but Ethan didn’t arrive at the top until just past 3:00.  When he did arrive, he wasn’t in great shape…exhausted, with a headache, and feeling cold.  After a couple very quick photos, I got Ethan inside the summit shelter to try and warm up.  It was here I learned that he was a bit underprepared, at least part of his headache came from the fact that he hadn’t been wearing sunglasses all day.  Also, he had no hat or heavy jacket so he thought he didn’t have a way to get warm.  Fortunately, I wasn’t going for light and fast that day and I bundled him up in most of my layers until he started to perk up a bit.  I wasn’t sure if he was suffering from hypothermia or from the altitude, since they conveniently have the same symptoms, so I figured we ought to descend as quickly as possible.  Given the condition of our crew, we all decided the Main Trail was our most prudent route (and that’s what we had listed on our trip plan).

Chillin' at the summit.

As we moved slowly towards Trail Crest, I became more and more worried that we would have to negotiate the icy switchbacks in the dark.  To make things worse, Ethan became increasingly listless, continued to be unable to eat anything without vomiting (though he did try a few of my Clif bars), and had run through his own 3 liters of water in addition to one of mine.  Every step of the way I was keeping up a running chatter, wishing I could send Ethan more energy and willing him to concentrate.

Night fell as we hit the 99 switchbacks, and keeping Ethan conscious between steps was becoming increasingly difficult.  My patience was being severely tested, since he was completely incapable of focusing, which in addition to annoying me a little bit, was also making me more worried.  Once again, I bundled Ethan up in all of my layers (despite his insistence that he was not cold), which seemed to help a lot confirming at least a little hypothermia.  Finally, we made it to Trail Camp (where one resident had been following our headlamps’ progress down the mountain, wondering if we needed help).  There, we finally got more water and managed to get Ethan and Chris to eat something, which perked them both up (Chris had a small headache and nausea).

Since the trail was still partially covered in snow, and I was unfamiliar with the route, route finding was quite difficult for a few sections.  I figured it out, though, and the only challenge for the rest of the return was keeping one exhausted Ethan awake enough to continue the hike down.  Finally, at 4:30 on Monday morning, 25 hours after departing, we stumbled back to the car and promptly fell asleep in the seats.  Needless to say, we arrived at work a bit late on Monday (read: we created our own three day weekend), but at least we all returned safely.

I would like to highlight that this trip could easily have gone very wrong, and nearly did.  Fortunately, as a group, we were prepared enough for the situation, but even experienced hikers (like Ethan, who has extensive winter hiking experience, too) can make mistakes that put themselves and their partners at risk (i.e. not enough layers) because they think nothing will go wrong.  It’s also easy for the stronger members of the party (i.e. me) to miss signs that indicate turning back would be prudent.  It would’ve cost me a summit, but it probably would have been best for Ethan to turn around after we had reached the summit plateau. It is always helpful to remember those lessons.

On that note…awesome trip, amazing views, and fun to have gone from the lowest low to the highest high in the lower 48 in less than 24 hours.  I don’t think I’ll ever do the Whitney Trail up, and am looking forward to trying the East Buttress or East Face someday!

Tags: hiking, mountains, outdoors, trip report

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.