It's hard to tell in February how much snow will still be around later in the year. When I sent in my lottery form I certainly wasn't expecting this much, although there has been a lot of melting in the last couple of weeks. June was my last choice but that made me 8-for-8 in lotteries....
I drove up on Friday night, leaving later than planned but got to the Alabama Hills around 11pm. Under a clear sky, the full moon lit up the Sierras in spectacular fashion. For my acclimation day on Saturday, I went up the Kearsage Pass trail out of Onion Valley - wow, what a great place to visit. I spent a few hours just sitting around at Gilbert Lake, reading "Around The World In 80 Days" on my iPod. Looking around there, it was nearly a perfect description of the Sierras - Incredible blue skies, stark mountains above treeline, amazing vistas, blue-green lakes and plenty of fresh air. Every new place I go makes me want to go back and see even more. After a tasty dinner of steak, stuffing and noodles I went to sleep in the Ranger somewhere else in the Hills. It was windy most of the night, which kept me waking up about every hour to alternate between more and less cover.
The alarm went off before I was ready, but I got up and made myself some breakfast of oatmeal and hot chocolate. Where does all the time go in the morning? I'm slow about packing up, even when I try to multi-task. I finally got to the portal about 4:45, and hit the trail 10 minutes later. My mantra this time was "pacing", which I repeated over and over. I have a tendency to hurry at the start of my hikes, of course leaving me staggering at the summits. It's even more so when I leave later than planned, but for Whitney I have always felt comfortable turning around. I had on my headlamp, but turned it off just after the first little water crossing. The combination of moonlight and sunrise enabled me to see just fine in that section.
I'm definitely not the fastest walker, I made it to Outpost Camp for my first break in a little over two hours, and another hour to Trailside Meadow and one more to Trail Camp. Consultation Lake was mostly frozen-looking, but the water was flowing out of it. Had to go through a few snowfields on the way, and the trail got a little lost just above Mirror Lake. Hmm, averaging 1.5mph, so take that all the way for 11 miles….Yeah, right.
At Trail Camp you can just see the cable section, and I could tell that people were taking their time through there. I did not see anyone going up the chute, but it was probably too late for that since the sun had been out for close to four hours. After a little break it was time to hit the switchers, so I started through more snow and then started up in earnest. Because of so much snow, we end up cutting a lot of the switchbacks, which only makes me have more respect for the actual trail. It's hard-pack, while the cut areas are loose dirt and mud. When I got to the cables, there was a guy in front of me, watching his companion go underneath them and walk outside on about the last third of the way before climbing back up the rocks. I didn't like that look, so I chose the boot track that went over the top of the snow. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the end of it - but that's because it ended a couple feet short of the trail on the other side. I tossed my hiking poles in front of me and screwed up the courage to leap all of three feet, landing safely on the rocks. From there it's just like a walk in the park, a couple of cut switchbacks and some more snow trail to negotiate. I passed a group of young (to me) folks below the 3-mile marker, and heard the best question ever: "Do we come back the same trail or is there an easier way down?" The last patch at Trail Crest was a little tricky, my choice was to go about halfway to a group of rocks and then straight up from there. That put me on dry ground, although there was a little down-climb to the trail on the Western side. Ahh, home free to the summit now. Except the last two miles takes me more than two hours. Yeah, that means close to five hours from the time I walked into Trail Camp. Did I mention that I'm slow? There is a big snowfield as the trail curves out toward the West, but not hard to walk through, and I only postholed a couple of times.
Once on the summit, I talked with a guy from Oregon (where I visited two weeks ago) and he mentioned how nice it was to be hiking on granite, rather than the dirt mountains near Portland. He also shared my enthusiasm for the views in the Sierras. I had the summit to myself for about 10 minutes, so I got to spend some time chasing away a persistent marmot. Finally headed back down the trail at 2:30, knowing I was not going to enjoy a burger or any food from the Portal Store. Oh well, there's always breakfast tomorrow. The return hike is pretty uneventful until Trail Crest, where I made the decision to go the "normal" way down. This involved a little route-finding through the snow, and I postholed pretty deep near the trail. That one left me with a hiking pole trapped beneath my right leg and my left hand supporting me on some rocks. Trying to get the pole unhooked from my wrist was interesting, but it finally happened. Unfortunately, I had about a 30-degree bend in the bottom section of pole, which I mostly straightened by using a couple of rocks as a vise.
Reaching the cables, I met up with another hiker evaluating the routes, and I agreed with his decision to put on the crampons to take the high path. This was my first time wearing them, and I was glad I brought them along. I know, should have practiced before but living in SoCal I don't often get the chance. Maybe next winter. After the cables, it's just a matter of following the water down, as the snow melt chases down the actual trail. I had run out of water about then, so I was glad to see the massive flow from the lower switchbacks. I stopped to chat with some folks at Trail Camp, and then just headed down. I passed a couple of backpacker groups above Mirror Lake, and then didn't see anyone until about the Muir Wilderness sign. By then it was dark, so I did the last mile by headlamp. Finished at 9:15, for a total time of 16:20. That's longer than before, but not by too much. Guess I'm not in as poor shape as I figured.
This was my 3rd successful summit, on the 8th attempt. 7th if you don't count the one after my back surgery, I wasn't expecting to summit that year but made it halfway up the switchbacks before hitting my time limit.
Couple of pictures:
Cables from below and above
Trail Crest snowfield, below and above
Lessons from this trip:
I definitely don't have the experience to feel confident in using winter gear - axe, crampons. That's on my list of things to do over the next couple of years, since I plan to go back to Mt Hood around then too.
Snickers with almonds is the best summit food. Eat plenty of almonds on the trail, too.
Check the water better! I was trying not to carry too much, but got into a situation where I was digging snow out to put into my Camelbak.
Take time to appreciate the sights.
It was OK to carry the little pocket Nikon camera rather than the big-lens Sony DSLR. For a regular summer trip (no snow) I would take the Sony.
If camping in the Alabama Hills find a spot where the sun will hit you later than 5:30am.
Stanza is a great iPod app, carried lots of classic books in my pocket. Maybe should have brought it for the lower part of the hike down, some Stones might have given me a little more energy.
The wag bag is still unpleasant to carry for six hours.
