When four of us drove to Lone Pine, CA to attempt Mount Whitney last weekend, we thought we had this in the bag. The highest peak in the contiguous US is known for having an easy 11-mile trail which you can basically roller skate up. The hard part is supposedly getting a permit, which we got suspiciously easily. Why didn't anyone want to try casually walking up the summit with their kids, grandma, and a picnic basket on a nice weekend in May? Because it's still covered in snow and ice. Oh.
The locals told us that no one had summited for two weeks, due to waist-high snow hiding a narrow ridge beneath. Everyone seemed to think that a more reasonable goal was to turn around at Trail Crest at 13,700 feet. Under less snowy conditions, this is where you would walk the final ridge up to Whitney summit, at 14,508 feet.
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| Base camp with the Sierras in the background |
After base camping in the Alabama Hills (of California), we started on the Whitney Trail toward Trail Camp, where we would spend the night before our summit attempt. The peak looked intimidating in the distance, as if it didn't want to be climbed. Everyone who passed us on their way out had different stories of why they hadn't made it: too cold, didn't have the right equipment, ran out of food, etc. Soon we foresaw what might be our own excuse. Everyone started to get headaches from the altitude, and we had to stop and take a nap before continuing on. We took off our packs and attempted to find comfy spots on a rock. I found a nice inclined rock and tried not to hate on the putrid smell wafting around. There were some cute marmots peeking out from behind a rock, and we must have been resting near their adorable marmot bathroom. I tried to appreciate nature and go to sleep, when I noticed a piece of toilet paper next to my arm. Oh crap, I had been lying in people crap. Everyone who gets a Whitney permit is assigned a potty bag and instructed to carry their poo back out with them! This made me feel extra lame, knowing that altitude sickness had barely allowed me to hobble up to a point where some jerkface had arrived with enough energy to poop everywhere. Not feeling refreshed from the attempt at napping, we slogged up to Trail Camp at 12,000 feet, eating ramen and pop tarts for dinner. A snow storm during the night pounded our tents, and we had to take turns knocking the snow off lest we suffocate.
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| Trail Camp in the morning |
In the morning we left our camp set up in order to get an early start. My first use of ice axe and crampons was tenuous on the way up the steep snow chute to Trail Crest. At one point I lost traction and started skidding down the chute, almost taking another climber with me.
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| The chute where I slipped |
Motivated by the disappointment of a
previous failure in the Sierras, I made it to the crest last, with everyone else cheering me on. We beheld the breathtaking and terrifying views for a minute, then decided that we were satisfied enough with the level of accomplishment and/or danger to not go any farther. We descended in a similar fashion to that of the ascent, with me far behind everyone else. Eventually my meager pace put us in danger, as we were hoping to hike out and get a shower the same day (and when your gear smells like human feces in the middle of bear country, a shower might be more of a safety concern than just a comfort issue).
Little avalanches started to scatter down the chute as the day got warmer, and I was still inching feet first downward, as if descending a ladder. My face felt like it was melting off from the sun's reflection in the snow, and my crampons kept falling off. It seemed like the appropriate time to do something stupid, so I took off the crampons and tried glissading down on my butt. Dave was forced to do the same thing after losing a crampon. Using my ice axe as a rudder, I tried to slide in a controlled fashion. This worked well for about 5 seconds, then I lost control but miraculously pulled off a self-arrest with my axe. I repeated this process over and over, completing the bottom half of the chute in a fraction of the time it took me to descend the top half.
We reached the tents exhausted, soaked, and hours behind schedule. I was resigned to spend another night until we noticed that the tents were floating in snowmelt, and our stuff inside was getting wet. That's what we get for camping in a
cirque. We knew we'd have to hike out that night, so we made some coffee and food, and attempted to lighten our loads by giving some stuff to other hikers. By the time we got down to 10,000 feet, the trail got easier with less snow. We made it to the trailhead just before sunset and ordered all the food and beer
at our favorite diner in Lone Pine. Unfortunately no one had the appetite to eat much of it.
Even though we didn't summit, it was an awesome experience. I hope there will be another attempt, as soon as we learn how to keep our crampons on, and maybe get an extra day off to acclimatize.
