Summiting Mt Whitney

This memorial day weekend Sara and I and our friends Marnie and Eric from Wisconsin went to Mt Whitney to camp and climb to the summit.

We drove to Whitney Portal and managed to score a camping spot on Saturday morning just a mile below the trail head.

We met up with our old neighbor and friend Grant who was gracious enough to fish some trout out of the nearby stream for us to have for dinner the first night camping. The fish seemed to really like the fresh crickets Grant was offering them. Just caught fish cooked over the fire tasted so good with the spinach salad we picked up at the store on the way through town.

We slept well that night and broke camp early to head up the trail the next morning. We all set out with our packs loaded up with stuff for the next couple of night camping on the mountain and equipment for the climb to the summit. The weather was great and it was a slow go up to camp 1 at about 10,000 feet.

We stopped on the way up at lake to do some fishing thinking we might have another opportunity for Grant and Eric to score us another great fish dinner. Alas we were not in luck today as only the small trout were biting and there we dogs and lots of people around to scare away the older more experienced fish. It was however a beautiful mountain spot for a rest and to eat lunch. Yea that water is COLD.

Camp 1 was beautiful with a waterfall at one end falling down from the cliff side and a stream running out of it along side the camping area. Two things we were not accustomed to on this trip 1. Bear canisters – these are plastic enclosures with screw on tops where you store all of our food and medications so animals cannot get to your food (keep them wild) 2.Poop bags – to keep the land wild the national park service hands our Poop bags for to each person with their permit to carry it out. Both of these items were the topic of many conversations and laughter along the way, why does the word “poop” always make us laugh?

After a not so great nights sleep (except Marnie who can sleep anywhere – literally) we started for the summit at about 7 AM. Eric decided to stay behind and take pictures around the neighboring lakes so with out light packs we started our climb. The first part was normal trail and went well up to trail camp, however the next part was over a snow field and up the snow field to 13,500 feet. We put on our cramp-ons and grabbed our ice axes and worked our way up the hill climbing in a zig-zack pattern.

After climbing the snow field we were at 13,500 feet we were 2 miles from the summit. We climbed and climbed until we reached the summit and the weather started getting colder and the clouds rolled in and it started to hail and snow.

Climbing down was much quicker however the snow started coming down harder. When we reached the snow field the fun began because now we could slide down the snow fields on our butts.

One more night sleeping at 10,000 ft dead tired and then the 2+ hour hike down to the trail head and our lonely car alone in the parking lot. We went straight to town and a lunch of burgers which taste oh so good after eating dried stuff out of your pack for several days.

Click here to see all of the pictures from our trip

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