Due to a series of cancelations and changed trip ideas, my group finally left Claremont with only three guys, including myself. The original plan was to drive out Friday morning, wrangle a permit somehow out of the Rangers, and then summit on Saturday. When we arrived, (not counting how we drove all the way to Whitney Portal before realizing that the Station for permits was south of Lone Pine 13 miles back) at the Station, they had just received a cancelation for an overnight pass for that night, Friday. Remembering what the lovely guys of this board said before, I suggested we climb up that night, camp up high, and do the summit later (acclimitization FTW).
We left Whitney Portal after a quick pasta dinner at 4:15 PM and a little bit. We headed up the Whitney Trail (we were going the Backpackers trail, not the Mountaineers route). Lots of fun, and we made great time, making Outpost Camp (about 10,000 ft. and 3.7 miles) around 5:30PM. We decided to continue on to Trail Camp (about 12,000 ft and 6 miles). We were in high spirits and kept on pushing hard, though we took a lot of photos, and made up the distance just in time for nightfall at 7:30ish.
We set up our two person tent, stuffed ourselves in after a meal of cold tortilla wrapped around cheese and turkey, and fell into a restless sleep at about 8:30 PM. Unfortunately for me, I had a bit of dehydration, and a splitting headache only helped by the altitude so I didn’t get that much rest. At 3:00 AM we all woke up, packed our day packs, had breakfast, bombproofed our “base” camp, and left at 4:30 AM for the summit of Mt. Whitney!
It was actually a tough hike, and the first time I’ve ever had to use my headlamp so extensively, on past hikes that I’ve gone on (in the summer) the headlamps were only necessary for an hour or so at the beginning. We used our headlamps on this trip all the way to the Trail Crest, and then for quite a bit along the traverse on the backside of the neighboring peaks.
We reached the peak at 8:16:34 (wrote it down!) and spent an hour and fifteen minutes hanging out with a group of four that had summated just behind us. Both groups had brought some celebratory refreshments, and we watched the end of the sunrise (we missed the beginning because were on the western side of the peaks as we traversed towards Mt. Whitney) while drinking a Sierra Nevada, which we thought was appropriate. It was a non-alcoholic version of course.
We left the peak at 9:30 AM and headed down to trail camp, getting back at 11:25 AM. An hour of warm sun-baked rest later, we left at 12:30 PM for home. We got back at 3:45 PM, making our trip a 24 hour summit of Mt. Whitney (technically one day
) Weather: Beautiful, sunny, no clouds, not too windy up high, in fact, we picked the perfect weekend to do this summit. AMAZING weather.
Photos:
Packing up for the Hike.
Lone Pine Lake (1 mile along the trail, and BEAUTIFUL)
Trail Crest in the AM
Group in front of Whitney
Now, questions, comments? I’m not quite sure what else a good Trip Report should have.