Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Best trip?

Okay folks - just curious - what was your favorite hiking trip?

Mine was hiking Mt Hood, Mt Shasta, Mt Whitney and Halfdome in six days with three friends. We did Whitney and Halfdome back to back. Had blisters all over my feet but it was a small price to pay for such a great time!

Mount Hood is what's happening! That's my neck of the woods!
You must not have any gray hairs...............obviously!
Reminds me when I was a young kick ass hiker. Enjoy the
"three and foursome" while you can. 'fore ya know it, you'll be happy to make one summit capped off by a good home brew after
the descent.
HN

OK, since you started with a multi-peak experience I need to throw mine in, trying to keep a long story short. In 2007, at the age of 53 after colon cancer surgery and chemo therapy I decided it was time to take a real vacation. My 16 year old son suggested that we attempt to climb the west coast 14'ers. Not really knowing what we were getting into, we decided to try 7 on our first week (nine days). After nine days we had actually done it! It was much more incredulous looking back at what we had accomplishment than what we had expected. Day 1 - White Mt., Day 3 - Langley, Day 5 - Whitney and Muir via MR, Day 6 - Russell, Day 8 - Williamson, Day 9 - Tindall and home.
We are still working on completing the goal and we head for the Palisades on the 10th to go after Polemonium and Starlight, our final two.

ClimbSTRONG... nice to see you :-)

If only the U.S. government could set goals and accomplish them. What a great place this would be.

Congrats....that journey sounds fun and hard!

I echo the kudos on those 14er's. Thats pretty remarkable in such a short period of time, especially with your history !!!! Keep it up !!!

My favorite for the year was Aconcagua. Especially once off the mountain and back in Mendoza. OUTSTANDING food and Malbec wine

Great question.

I don't think I can narrow it down to one trip. Every year I hike the San Juans and Rockies in Colorado and many dozens of Sierra hikes. I have enjoyed 14 days hiking trips to the Whites in New Hampshire and the Cascades in WA. (Neither range compares remotely to the Sierras, IMO).

I still think my favorite and most challenging hiking is the Grand Canyon in the fall. Nothing comes close.

Our own backyard: Shepherd Pass - Upper Kern - Milestone Basin - down the Kern to Junction Meadow - Colby Pass Trail - Colby Lake - Roaring River - Elizabeth Pass - Hamilton Lakes - Little 5 Lakes - Chagoopa Plateau - back up the Kern - Bighorn Plateau and back out over Shepherd. 17 days solo. 52 lb pack to start- built a lot of character going over Shephersd

The last one; until the next one.

Favorite Hiking Trip?
1983 three friends and I rented a care and drove 7,000 miles in 28 days. We headed west from Maine to Canmore Alberta. We hiked in from Spray Lakes to do Assiniboine. That was a long day with huge 70pound plus packs to Magog Lake, we were carrying ice gear and boots. We failed on Assiniboine, got spooked by rockfall you know us flatlanders from New England! From there we drove north and hiked into the base of Robeson. I was too spooked to even consider the mountain but in the end no one was climbing as it was too hot and the snow too soft.
We then drove south to the Tetons. We hiked up to the Lower Saddle and camped. The weather was iffy so two of us climbed the Middle Teton and heard rumbling just as we peaked out and made it back to the tent before the rain came and hiked out the next day due to weather and one member needing to fly home.

Drove south and hiked into the Cirque of the Towers but did no climbing.

Drove south again to Boulder and climbed for two days on the Flatirons and Eldorado Canyon.

Drove east dropping one companion off in Chicago at college. and then drove straight through to Maine. Sadly one year later one of our group came down with a brain tumor and one year later passed away.

Some would call our experience in the mountains a failure to summit. No failures in my book, all great experiences but I was terrified on Assiniboine due to the exposure and rockfall. That is one pile of steep gravel! Oh and I was also spooked hiking into the base of Robeson due to signs and reports of Grizzly Bears.

Back in the day I never considered myself to be much of a technical climber but rather a technical hiker. Today you would say I did trad climbing. When my son goes to the climbing gym he wears my EB's. I lead rock up to 5.7 and ice that wasn't too sustained. I did some classic climbs such as over the forehead of the Old Man of the Mountain on Cannon Cliff, Ice Routes in Huntington Ravine and some minor ice on Mount Katahdin. I did some remote ice on the backside of Sugarloaf in Maine and in Grafton Notch, it is nice to be alone and remote even if it isn't too technical. My last rock lead on a rope was the Exum Route on the Grand in 1986. We made an early trip in June and we were one of only two parties on the Grand that day. I did tie in to practice on the snow at Mt. Ranier in 1990 but we got weathered off and drove up to Vancouver Island for three days on the west coast trail but that is another story.