Myself and my two comrades just got back from a fun-filled few days in Whitney Portal attempting the Mt. Whitney trail on a day-hike permit for June 5th. I thought I'd break our adventure down into bite sized chunks for y'all's enjoyment. The weather rained on our parade a bit, but good times were had by all regardless.
Fitness Preparation:
Fitness-wise, we didn't do much outside of our normal routine of hiking circuits up and down a 100-foot flight of stairs once or twice a week. We hike regularly in Yosemite and Big Sur and are all bicycle commuters, so I feel like we had a pretty solid cardio base for the MMWT.
Skills Perparation:
Of our group of three, I was the only one with significant mountaineering experience. I'd done a good deal of climbing on glaciated peaks in the Cascades, and was confident with self-arrest and general snow skills. My other two partners, while lacking mountaineering skills, were in good shape and were eager to learn. We showed up at Whitney Portal on Thursday the 2nd, and spent all day on Friday the 3rd over at Kearsage Pass practicing all different forms and positions of self-arrest along with how to move on steeper snow and how to glissade safely. It was definitely time well-spent and also aided in our acclimatization strategy. The next day (Saturday the 4th), we did a "dry run" up to Lone Pine Lake with all our gear to gain familiarity with as much of the stretch of trail we were going to do in the dark. I also used the time to scout out a nice line up on the snow slopes to help us take a more direct path up towards trail camp.
June 5th, The BIG DAY:
We got up at 2am and were at the trailhead parking lot by ~2:55am although we didn't actually start until 3:10. We kept a nice and steady pace up the first section of the trail and arrived at the sandy open area near Lone Pine Lake at around 4:35am. There were two speedy people who at that time were already cresting the first big ridge overlooking Lone Pine Lake, and that was actually the last we saw of them. They were absolutely flying! We stopped to top off our water and nibble on some food before starting up the snow slopes at around 4:50am. From that point on, we continued winding our way up the snow slopes with stops every 35-45 minutes for water breaks and checking the map. By around 5:20am we were starting to get enough sunlight to move around without headlamps, but the weather kept the sun hidden from us and our visibility was quite restricted. As we started to get up to the snowfields just south of Wotan's Throne, the winds really started to kick up and pound on us.
We reached the switchbacks up through the rock band below Wotan's Throne at around 6:30am and, as I was having trouble getting a bearing on reference points due the limited visibility, I decided that we should take the easily recognizable switchbacks up to the snow slope that leads to Trail Camp. However, after hiking up them for 30 minutes, the trail ended up dead-ending into a very steep and frozen-over snow gully at around 11700(?) feet. I assume during better conditions that the trail cuts across the gully unencumbered by snow, but it looked pretty treacherous given the rocky surroundings and the increasingly powerful wind gusts. I decided to turn us back around and return to the snow field below the switchbacks to snack and hydrate and ponder what to do next.
When we got back to the bottom we took shelter in between a boulder and its neighboring snowdrift and discussed our next course of action. I felt like we were capable of cutting up the snowfield to the far south of Wotan's Throne that winds up to Consultation lake but the driving wind and cold were starting to sap at my friends' energy. Their gloves and boots were soaked and I wasn't entirely sure how much further they could safely go, so we turned around at around 7:30am. We had a blast glissading back down and thoughts of the Portal Store's Moose Burgers kept us moving at a brisk clip down the trail. We eventually made it back down around 10:00am and returned to our campsite to pack up our camp. After packing up and returning to the Portal Store, we got our three Moose Burgers and chomped down on them in their cheesy-burger-bacon glory. One thing led to another and we eventually ended up sprawled down on the boulders near our car and napped for a while. Thus ends every wonderful mountain adventure.
Post-trip thoughts:
-I felt like our skills session at Kearsage along with our recon trip up to Lone Pine Lake were both very helpful, but they definitely could have been combined. There were perfect snowfields in the Lone Pine Lake area to go back over self-arrest and get those skills dialed back in. Granted, not everyone can take one or two days prior to their given summit day, but it was definitely helpful.
-Given the snow cover, I felt like it was damn helpful to have a nice topo on hand(I had the Tom Harrison Whitney Zone one) and to know how to read it and orient yourself properly. This probably sounds like a "well, duh" comment but with the popularity of GPS these days, it is easy to forget that GPS can fail you in adverse circumstances and leave you stranded.
-I think if I would do one thing differently, I would have decided to take us up the snowfield instead of winding up the switchbacks below Wotan's Throne. Moving on open snowfields is much less complicated and much quicker if the angle is right and you know where you are going. Additionally, the switchbacks were pretty sketchy and hard to follow in the snow.
-I'd like to think our acclimatization schedule was great as we all were feeling fine at around 11.7k, but we never got any higher to put that theory to rest.
We were pretty bummed back down at Whitney Portal when we saw the skies clear up considerably and the winds seemed to die down. We had a few twinges of regret that we turned around before the weather got better but, alas, such is hindsight. There is always next year!
(No pics due to my phone's fickle memory card.)
