Hi all
I've been reading this board carefully in preparation for our Whitney day hike, which we just finished yesterday.
It was my first time up, my husband's second time up, and the first time for our friend who also joined us.
We drove up late on Monday night (really, we should've left sooner, but somehow I underestimated the time it would take us to get there). We got to the permit lockbox in Lone Pine at 11pm. I tried to open it using the combination I had been given when I called to confirm Monday morning, but the damn thing wouldn't open. We tried every related combination we could think of, but it wouldn't give. We reluctantly gave up.
We set up camp at Whitney Portal and got a lousy 4 hours of sleep (I was really concerned about the permit situation, so I hardly slept at all). We got up at 4am and packed up camp. I thought we might be able to start by 4:30, but we weren't on the trail until 5:15.
The first hour of our hike was in the dark, but the full moon provided us so much light that we hardly needed our head lamps. By 6:15, we were at the log bridge crossing of Lone Pine creek. By 7:15, we were at Mirror Lake. We got to Trail Camp by 8:25, and took our first long rest while we ate a bit and filled up all our water containers. None of us had much of a problem with altitude sickness, but none of us were feeling particularly hungry. We kind of had to force down our food.
The switchbacks seemed rather endless. I was trying to count carefully (I counted 97, but I'm sure I made a mistake or two). Counting actually made things worse, in some ways, because the last few switchbacks were so long. I think we stopped at Trail Crest for our next snack around 10am. The wind was picking up, and we put on every piece of clothing that we brought.
The sky was getting more cloudy as we continued past Trail Camp. Because there had been a 20% chance of thunderstorms in the forecast, I was a bit nervous going on, but there were no immediate signs of problems.
After we got within sight of the summit (maybe a mile away?) it started to snow a bit. I expressed my concern about this, but my husband convinced me there wasn't any lightning yet so we continued. A bit later (maybe half a mile from the summit) we heard thunder. I immediately stated my intention of turning back. My husband resisted. A second rumble and I started walking down. He resisted again. We debated for 10 minutes or so, and then he convinced me to continue. I probably wouldn't have except that the storm appeared to be moving away from the summit. We heard only two more rumbles on our way to the summit, and both of them were further away.
We got to the summit just before noon. While we were there, the weather was quite sunny and nice to the east and south, but I refused to stay long on the top. As we started down, another storm started to move in, and before long it was snowing quite heavily.
It snowed on and off all the way down to Trail Camp. I decided I rather enjoyed the snow, especially since it wasn't really accumulating. We were well-dressed for such conditions, and I was glad to not have to worry about sunburn. And we decided it was definitely better than rain. Trail Camp seemed like a blizzard while we were there, but the snow let up a bit beyond that.
The last 4 miles of the trail seemed absolutely endless. It seemed so much shorter on the way up! We finished just before 6pm, tired, sore, and so glad to be done!
Oh yeah... we were hiking the whole time without our permits... which were still in the lockbox. I was concerned that a ranger would turn us back, but I had my confirmation number and was prepared to plead. I felt guilty seeing everyone else on the trail with their permits, and hoped they didn't despise us for sneaking in (which we weren't, really). We didn't encounter a ranger until halfway down. We explained ourselves when he asked about the permits, and he said that we did have the right combination, but that sometimes the lock sticks! All I can say is we were yanking on that thing so hard I thought it would break. Ah well, it all turned out ok in the end.
