Made it to the top on the second try. I definitely learned a lot of lessons on the first try along with lots of information from this forum that made it possible to reach the summit this time. Read along with the journey below:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo.php?pid=30254822&id=1239968411Sometime in early May, I was contacted by a high school classmate, John Dial, that he and his wife, Barbara, had four, four day wilderness permits for Mt. Whitney starting on July 9. My first inclination was to decline the offer, but I was considering on taking the CLMRG mountaineering course. The first hike during the class was up to the thumb of Five Fingers, so I decided if I was able to complete that hike I would consider it. I did complete the hike, so figured why not, and started to prepare for the hike. I continued with the classes, and there was so much valuable information that they presented that I felt so much more confident that I would be able to reach the Mt. Whitney summit this time around.
The trip began as we met Thursday morning at Whitney Portals, and began our hike at 8am. We went as far as Outpost Camp and set up camp, and get a good nights rest as the summit attempt would begin at 1am.
We pulled out of camp at 1:20am with lighter packs, and this time extra capacity for water. Because it was dark, with a well lit moon to guide us, we set out on a rather slow pace which was fine because there were several snow fields that we had to get across to pick up the trail again, and with it still going below freezing, the trail was covered with ice in several places.
Daybreak found us at Trail Camp, so we took a break before starting up the switchbacks. Again, there were several places where the trail was covered with ice making the pace a little slower and more deliberate. When we got to the cables, this area was still nearly completely covered with snow and the rest was covered with ice. I worked my way across and then helped Barbara and John cross. From there we continued up to Trail Crest still encountering more snow fields and narrow trails arriving at about 11am. At that time, John and Barb decided enough was enough, but encouraged me to continue on. I gave it a lot of thought and did decide to continue on because there were still plenty of other hikers to buddy up with. John and Barb met up with another hiker that was heading down, and started down around noon and reached camp around 6pm.
I continued on down over Trail Crest to the back side of the mountain and maintained the slow deliberate pace from the morning and covered the final 2 miles in a little over 2-1/2 hours arriving at the summit about 2:10pm. Reaching the summit was one of the most emotional things I have ever done, and the sight of the hut at the summit actually brought tears to my eyes.
After taking the obligatory pictures from the top, signing the log, and taking a much needed rest, I started back down a little after 3pm and reached camp a little after 8pm. Fortunately most of the ice on the trail had melted off, but there were still many of the snow fields to get across, and the cables were the hardest to complete because there was still only room on the granite for one foot width right on the outside edge. After the cables it was a smooth hike back into camp where I made up some an immunity and electrolyte building drink, and laid out some snacks for me to eat through the night, and collapsed.
Saturday morning we all got up and talked about the trip so far, broke camp and pulled out about 7:45am made our way back to the portals walking through the gateway at about 10:15am. Taking time to put up our packs away, and changing to flip flops was the only thing between us and the cheeseburger from paradise waiting at the Portal Store bringing to a conclusion my Mt. Whitney adventure.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo.php?pid=30254815&id=1239968411Again, thanks to the many of you on this board that provide great information and encouragement, and to the China Lake Mountain Rescue Group that put on a mountaineering course that also helped a lot in the preparation and planning of the hike.
Looking forward to next year
Dave
