Early Tuesday afternoon my wife and I were driving up Whitney Portal Rd passing participants in the Badwater Ultramarathon who were on their last legs on the last leg of their journey from Death Valley. When we arrived at Whitney Portal, finishers were being interviewed by the press. We set up our tent at a nice site by the creek. I strolled over to the Portal Store for a snack and drink and ended up talking for a couple of hours with a man who was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail to Canada.
We planned to have a relatively leisurely hike: camping at Outpost Camp, Trail Camp, summitting then camping at Trail Camp again, then home. We anticipated thunderstorms in the afternoon so we tried to limit our hiking to the mornings, which we did except for summit day.
Wednesday morning we arrived at Outpost Camp and chose a nice site with a log bench, tree shelter from rain, above the dry creek that runs down the center of the camp. Although close to the trail, the early morning dayhikers turned out to be considerately quiet. It rained on and off from 2-5 PM. It was sunny after 6 PM. That seemed to be the pattern during the trip: clear nice weather all day and night except in the afternoon. After dinner, I explored the left side of the fine looking waterfall at Outpost Camp. There was a steady strong wind coming from the falls in one place. Got me thinking how the wind came about and where the air for the wind came from. I climbed up to the top part of the falls that is visible from the camp and I appreciated not having a tight hiking schedule.
Thursday morning, onward to Trail Camp. On the way there, I talked to a man who was camped with a group at a site near the trail, overlooking and high above Mirror Lake as I recall. He mentioned that they were awakened by a loud rumbling in the middle of the night that he first thought was an earthquake. He said he looked up and saw sparks on the mountainside and then realized it was a huge landslide of boulders, sparking when they collided with each other I suppose.
We were mostly in our tent at Trail Camp that afternoon, waiting out the storm which didn’t seem too bad that day. (Afternoon storms on our trip were as dependable as sunrises.) Afterwards I got the urge to squander the energy that I built up from lying around so I boulder hopped the wet meadow above the lake and climbed up alongside the cascade that fed the lake. I was curious if there was a nontechnical direct route between the Mountaineer's Route and Trail Camp.
At Trail Camp Thursday evening I asked a man who had come down about the lightning. He said it knocked him off his feet. He had a bloody knee. Okaaaaaay. We planned to leave by 5am next morning for the summit.
We left Friday morning at 5:09am for the summit. It was the beginning of morning twilight and we didn’t need lights.
As we reached the cables, the alpenglow was in full bloom.
There was a snow patch just below Trail Crest that I thought was dangerous. We went around and above it on the steep dirt and rocks which wasn’t too safe either. I might have turned around if I gave it more thought. Not sure.
We reached Trail Crest at 8AM and thought we would go as far as we could before turning around at 9:30AM in order to avoid the thunderstorms. At 9:30AM we still had a long ways to go but the sky was clear so we continued. That week there seemed to be a trend towards milder and milder storms so I thought we might not have a storm that day. A couple of puffy white cumulus clouds appeared which we kept an eye on. Summit 10:45AM. After we were on the summit for a few minutes we noticed that one of the clouds had grown taller. A sign that the puffy white cumulus was beginning to turn into a cumulonimbus storm cloud. As we moved away from the summit, the cloud got darker and headed straight for the summit, like it had a mission. Maybe it just wanted to summit too and sign the register with an electric pen.
At Trail Crest I donned my rain pants and jacket. A few drops. We came to that tricky snow patch again. With my rain gear on I just realized it would be an even faster slide down the snow slope if I slipped. Oh well. A group of four guys ahead of us walked across the snow patch easily except for the third guy who slipped and may have headed down to the great unknown if his buddy behind him hadn’t caught him by the elbow after he was on the snow covered slope. We crossed again on the steep dirt and rock above.
I felt that the most difficult part was behind us and we were low enough that the risk from lightning was relatively low. There was some thunder and light rain and light hail as we went down the switchbacks. We reached our tent at 3PM and 5 minutes later the worst downpour of our stay began. Lucky.
The next day, Saturday, down to the Portal Store, hamburger, fries, shower and we’re heading home.
