When 2008 hit I made it my personal goal this year to hike Mt. Whitney. I told Mark I was in no matter what, and to save a spot for me. I began training in February mainly just by trying to get in good physical shape. At this point I've been working out 3-4x a week and dropped nearly ten pounds in my quest to live a healthier lifestyle.
Two weeks before our trip, people were hanging out on the summit of Mt Whitney in tank tops and sports bras. I was excited the trail would be summer time conditions and I would not need winter mountaineering gear. But the week before our scheduled trip (Memorial Day Weekend), it snowed 4 feet in the Sierras. D'oh!
After four trips to REI, and a last minute decision to purchase an ice axe and crampons, I was ready to go but a nervous wreck. Word on the street was that no one had broken the trail since the storm. And I definitely didn't want to be the first.
I met the crew in Ontario on Friday night. We had a delicious meal at Red Lobster and our waiter was awesome. It was the first time I'd seen James since December so it was great to catch up. After that we drove to Lone Pine and camped at Diaz Lake Campground. We got there at one in the morning, laid out a tarp and our sleeping bags on the ground, and fell asleep under the stars. It was a gorgeous night and I was able to see the big dipper and the milky way for the first time ever. The sky was so clear it was almost magical.
Saturday morning we woke up, went through our gear, and got our packs ready for the hike. We stopped at the visitor's center, picked up our permit and wag bags, and set off to breakfast at High Sierra cafe. We were so funny at breakfast, all of us secretly hoping we'd be able to make one last meaningful stop at the restroom before heading out into the wild for the next 2 and a half days. We then drove up to Whitney Portal, which sits at around 8,000 ft. We emptied our cars of all things smellable and put them in the bear lockers. We got ready and weighed our packs on the scale. Mine weighed in at 36 lbs, not too shabby.
The first part of the hike up to Lone Pine Lake was chill. I caught up with Mark on what's been going on for the past couple months and got to know his cousin, Brandon. We stopped at the lake for lunch and the water was just amazing. It was pure dark blue. Mark busted out the salami and we had salami, cheese, and crackers for lunch. But I just ate the cheese and crackers. Mmm... Ritz. After lunch the boys played on the slope and used a thermarest chair to glissade down the hill. We then set off for Trail Camp. It was a pretty strenuous hike to get up there, walking consisently uphill up what we deemed the "spiral staircase." After hiking for about 7 hours or so, we reached Trail Camp, which was where we were going to set up camp for 2 nights. Trail Camp sits at over 12,000 ft. It definitely took some getting used to being up there. Justin and I set up our tent, the "V.I.P.," and we cleared the snow off the ground by cutting up the chunks of snow with our ice axe. It was pretty hilarious.
Once camp was set up, Michelle and I went out to the frozen lake and pumped water for our group. By then it was nighttime and we had noodles and dried blueberry cobbler for dinner. It was FREEZING out which made us all very cold and miserable and unwilling to hang out. But then these guys came over and brought us a 30 dollar bottle of cabarnet. He poured it into a nalgene for us and we passed it around until it warmed us up. The guy who gave us the wine told us he was the first group to break the trail that day. He went all the way to the summit and paved the way for the future groups to come. He said he even had a guy in his group who summitted and had never worn crampons or an ice axe before, which was encouraging for me.
(Part 2 to come later. Going to bed now. Tired.)
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