The Adventures of Lori and Monty

Mt. Whitney is the highest summit in the contiguous United States with an elevation of 14,505 feet. The peak lies within the John Muir Wilderness and the Sequoia National Park Wilderness. The western slope of the mountain lies within Sequoia National Park and the summit is the southern terminus of the John Muir Trail which runs 211.9 miles from Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley.

The peak was named after Josiah Whitney, the State Geologist of California. It was first climbed in 1873 by Charles Begole, A. H. Johnson, and John Lucas; fishermen who lived in Lone Pine, California.

What's really cool about Mt. Whitney, is that it is just 76 miles west of the lowest point in North America at Badwater in Death Valley National Park (282 feet below sea level).

The granite that forms Mt. Whitney is part of the Sierra Nevada batholith. In Cretaceous time, masses of molten rocks that originated from subduction rose underneath what is now Whitney and solidified underground to form large expanses of granite. In the last few million years, the Sierra started to rise enabling glacial and river erosion to strip the upper layers of rock to reveal the resistant granite that makes Mt. Whitney today.

The steep eastern side of the mountain offers a variety of climbing challenges. We climbed the "Mountaineer's Route." The Mountaineer's Route is a gully on the north side of the east face. In 1872, John Muir was the first person to climb Mt. Whitney from the east, via what is now known as the Mountaineer's Route. The route is considered a mostly Class 3 scramble and is about 12 miles round-trip.

The most popular way up Mt. Whitney is the hiking trail, called the Mt. Whitney Trail, built in 1904. It is a Class 1 route (an easy, well-maintained trail) and is 22 miles round-trip. We didn't think that the long round-trip distance, fighting the crowds, and dealing with a permit lottery would be too much fun, so we decided to challenge ourselves with the Mountaineer's Route.

On Tuesday, we drove from Thousand Oaks to the town of Lone Pine. The elevation in Lone Pine is only 3733 feet. It was sunny and hot. We spent the first half of the day walking around the town. We discovered that the Alabama Hills, just west of Lone Pine, are/were frequently used as a location of Westerns and other movies. In the afternoon, we decided to gain some time at altitude, so we drove up to the trailhead location - at the Whitney Portal - 13 miles west of Lone Pine. The trailhead elevation is 8,365 feet. As a reprieve from the heat and to loosen our muscles, we swam that evening at our hotel (the Best Western in Lone Pine), and had dinner at a nearby diner. At the diner, we composed a postcard to Rich (words of which some of us thought would be our last ha ha).

We got up early on Wednesday (at 5:00 am) and after a not-so-great breakfast at the hotel, we met one of our guides, Chris, at the Mt. Whitney trailhead at around 7 am. We divvied up the supplies, reorganized our packs, and not to be forgotten, received information about the Pack it Out Program: WAG Bags. WAG stands for Waste Alleviation and Gelling. You can figure out the rest! After a final weigh-in of our packs, we started the hike. Our destination for that day was Iceberg Lake, where we would camp that night, and wake up the next day for our summit bid.

We began the hike on the main Mt. Whitney Trial, for about 30 minutes. We first crossed Carillon creek, and continued on the trail to the second stream crossing, the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek. At the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek, we left the main Mt. Whitney Trail for the relative solitude of the Mountaineer's Route. We took a right turn onto a trail leading up the wooded slope to a willow-choked valley.

The trail crossed the stream at the bottom of the valley, tunneled through dense aspen, and then wound its way above the willows on the south side of the valley. As the valley narrowed and steepened, the trail cut through the willows, crossed the stream, and ran along the base of the cliffs on the north side. From there, we could see the third class chute leading up to the famed Ebersbacher Ledges. Just before the ledges, we met up with our other guide, Braden.

We climbed up the chute and then traversed the ledges until their end, where the trail switch-backed steeply up the last couple hundred feet to Lower Boyscout Lake. On the hike up, the ledges seemed pretty straight forward, and none of us were too phased. However, on the way down, as we looked toward the slope to the valley below us, the ledges seemed more menacing and scary. Either way, up or down, route finding was key, as was cautious stepping with a backpack, and a little wall-hugging thrown in for good measure. Awards went to Andy and Cathy for conquering the ledges and making it across despite a bit of trepidation.

From Lower Boyscout Lake (10,348 feet), our route crossed the stream near where the trail emerged from the willows and contoured around the south side of the meadow/lake, eventually winding its way up talus and large blocks toward low-angle slabs west of the lake. We soon arrived at Upper Boyscout Lake (11,339 feet). Our path stayed right, and below, a huge boulder. A couple hundred feet past the boulder we found passage through the willows that guarded the entrance to the slabs. After emerging from the willows, we headed up and left, across low angle slabs. We took a break for lunch on the slabs and enjoyed the turkey, avocado, and tomato sandwiches prepared by Chris. This was also our first opportunity to fill up on water. Chris and Braden used their water filter to top off our Camelbacks. There was a considerable amount of water running down the granite slabs in a series of falls that looked like big slip-n-slides. Scott won the award for the most water consumed. He drank (and sweated out) over 6 liters of water on this hot hike.

Just past the willows and slabs, we arrived at Upper Boyscout Lake (11,339 feet). This was where we exited the land of vegetation and entered a rocky Patagonia-like environment. The sun was intense and the sweat really began to pour. We hiked past Upper Boyscout Lake and headed south, climbing steeply through slabs and talus near the right side of the upper valley. Eventually the trail turned west, and we slogged over seemingly endless moraines. Finally, we reached Iceberg Lake (12,600 feet) - what a sight! - an ice-cold crystal clear lake formed by the melting snow just above it, surrounded on all sides by granite. And there it was, the east face of Mt. Whitney, staring right at us.

It had been a hard, physically challenging day ... over 4000 feet of elevation gain, with packs, in just under 5 miles ... 6 hours of hiking, the sun beating-down on us, with rocks, rocks, and more rocks - under us, around us, everywhere!

We immediately dropped our packs. Everyone laid down for a nap, or knee icing. We made camp, snacked, read Jack Kerouac (not just Lori, really), and rested until dinner time. Cathy and Scott had their own tent, so did the boys, and so did Lori and Monty. The guides would sleep under the stars. The guides made a pasta dinner, and while we ate, they described the details about the summit climb. Afterward, we munched on cookies and ibuprofen, played travel-scrabble, reflected on the day, and looked forward to the day to come. After turning in early (very early) that night ... there was (what we now refer to as) the throwing up incident. Pretty cool that despite throwing up that night, Matt had a smile on his face the next morning, and climbed like an ultra-fast mountain goat during the whole trip.

On Thursday, we were awake before the sun. We ate a breakfast of oatmeal, and sang happy birthday to Lori in the dark. With climbing helmets on our heads and climbing harnesses in our summit packs, we made a predawn start. From Iceberg Lake, we headed towards the obvious main gully to the west, leading to a deep notch in Whitney's north ridge. As the sunrise greeted us, our spirits swelled. We ascended the route, scrambling up loose talus (scree/broken rock) and sand. This was the main reason for the helmets. They were there to protect us from falling debris created by climbers above. To avoid as much of the loose stuff as possible, we stuck to the East Buttress approach. The first ~1000 feet of this approach ascended the talus and third class terrain to the right of a prominent buttress above Iceberg Lake. We followed this approach to a shoulder below the East Buttress where we rejoined the standard Mountaineer's Route the rest of the way to the main notch just below the summit pitch. The next ~500 feet of the approach followed the gully to the prominent notch between a large tower and the summit. Scott's helmet was slightly small, so he asked Matt to trade him helmets. Poor Matt. Poor, poor, poor Matt. Do you know how much Scott sweats? Also, Nick had a bad stomach ache but continued on, showing the same toughness and athleticism that helped him be at the lead of the trip the whole way up and down.

We put on our harnesses and prepared for the final pitch to the summit. From this point on, we were "roped up" in three groups, with Chris and Braden climbing ahead to establish protection for our ascent. The last 500 feet of the climb was all exposed third class terrain. The use of ropes and harnesses was mainly for safety, but it also gave us some experience with mountaineering skills and was fun to boot! The initial 20 feet was the hardest part of the ascent. Once we were past that we "short-roped" most of the rest of the way to the summit. Short-roping is when the leader and the rest of the climbers move together over terrain that is subjectively or objectively hazardous, joined by a rope for the protection of the climbers. The purpose of the rope is not to catch a fall but to prevent a slip becoming a fall. This part of the climb was mainly using our hands to pull up as we scrambled over large rocks. The final section included squeezing through a narrow chimney to the summit plateau. We made the final 500 feet in just under one hour and headed across the plateau to the true summit of Mt. Whitney!

The summit was a moonscape of flat granite slabs; a summit that's much more expansive when your on it, than when your looking up toward it. And there we were, in the center of blue sky and a circle of awe-inspiring mountain ranges everywhere we looked.

We rested and felt good inside. We sang HBD to Lori again, and she made her birthday wishes when she blew out some matches we stuck in a Clif Bar. She also got to open one of her gifts ... what a way to celebrate your birthday!

Before heading back down, we had one last thing to do. We had made some stickers at home with various messages and brought them to the top, because we heard there was a place that everyone put stickers. Anyway, we used the "Hello My Name Is" stickers. Other people had stuck theirs inside the the metal box that held the registry, so that's what we did. Pretty awesome sayings, we must admit - like "My Name Is Nick, What's Yours?", and Scott's "My Name Is We Beat You Here", or Andy's simple yet powerful "VOTE," and Lori's "Every Being," or Matt's drawing of some mountains with with the words "You Are Here", and Monty's "Climb."

The trip back down followed the reverse of our climb up, but with one super cool perk -- rappelling! We got to rappel for a bit near the bottom of the summit pitch. We all did well, but Andy, especially, showed professional form. Scott, deserved accolades, too, because he was the first down, and was using a rope harness!

After rappelling, we unroped and scrambled down the rest of the way to the camp at Iceberg Lake. There were several slips and falls, but we all made it back down quickly, without breaking anything.

Our roundtrip summit adventure (of just over two miles) ended up taking us roughly 7 hours.

We packed up camp straightaway, ate some lunch, strapped on our packs, and started the long journey out. On the way down, we only took one break in 6 hours. What a day! The cheeseburgers, fries and diet cokes at the Whitney Portal tasted mighty good after all of our hard work. Our quads and calves were burning.

Congratulations to all of us. Really. Cathy, Scott, Andy, Nick, and Matt: not many people can do what you did. And Andy, Nick and Matt -- you were the definite jackrabbits of the trip -- quite an accomplishment. Super congratulations to Lori who made the long recovery from her knee injury and climbed like a champ!