Mt. Whitney: There And Back Again

Kurt and I got back late last night after taking a short trip to Mt. Whitney which started last Friday.

Day 1. At first it seemed cosmic forces were stacked against us. Kurt's dad was sick about two hours into the hike and decided to turn back, which was going to make our car to car shuttle tricky (we were going to start at one car and end up at another car at another trailhead). Kurt and I soldiered on, but realized that we'd forgotten a necessary piece of equipment to make the backcountry stove work (the pump for the white gas). It was looking like we weren't going to have hot meals until we turned MacGyver and made a crude stove out of rocks. Then we didn't have a spoon, but a piece of Kurt's camera equipment did the trick there. And I later found not one, but two spoons along the trail. Thank goodness for sloppy, irresponsible hikers.

Day 2. The next day we went over a grueling steep pass (Old Army Pass) and I later saw what looked like a fat waddling squirrel; it done be a marmot! We were following not a trail, but a cross-country route suggested by a book. Without topo maps, we rambled past some beautiful alpine terrain trying to follow the route, and maybe went over the wrong pass now and then, but we ended up where we wanted to, set for the hike to the top of Whitney the next day. That night our stove got more elaborate as we incorporated an old sardine can we found into our scheme.

Day 3. The day started with another grueling, trailless climb over an immensely high ridge. Kurt took a low route and I took a high route which took me past some dangerous cliffs. I viewed my route as a gravity puzzle which finesse and wits could solve. A couple of times I heard rattle snakes and went around them -- or maybe the altitude was making me hallucinate. It was slow going, but we both managed, and met up at the top. We were then in a position to ditch our packs and go the last 2.5 miles to the Mt. Whitney peak, starting with less than a quart of water between the two of us. The view from the top was pretty cool. From the 14,497 ft summit, I could see several mountain ranges to the east, as well as the town of Lone Pine far below. The view to the west and south was obscured by the smoke of a fire that raged several miles away.

At that point, we needed to make a decision. Were we going to camp another night, or hightail it back to the car by sundown? It was 3 pm and the car was 11 miles away and 1.2 miles down. We had already gone 4 miles, gaining about 0.5 miles in elevation. One of us needed to get to the trailhead before the store there closed. We needed to return a bear can to the store and Kurt's dad said he was going to leave the key to my car at the store. (Before he turned back on Day 1, he agreed that he would drive it from where we started to the trailhead, Whitney Portal.) It was decided that I would haul butt down the mountain and get the key, leaving our remaining water with Kurt, who was suffering from dehydration. And I totally hauled, and didn't have any water for about 4 miles. In my relentless haste, I remember passing several groups. About 7 miles from the top, I met up with a guy named Wally, a newspaper publisher from Mammoth in his mid-40s. We talked about religion, physics, dancing, and why everyone had those walking sticks (I guess they take the strain off the knees and ankles). If it weren't for the conversation with Wally, that last 4 miles would have seemed even more endless. But end it did, about 4 hours from when I was on the summit. Which means I went about 2.7 MPH down an average grade of more than 10%.

Fortunately the store was still open and I got the key. And the car was easy to find. But I was worried about Kurt. Was he going to make it back? The sky was quickly getting dark. And as the old despair saying goes, It's always darkest... just before it goes pitch black. And I didn't wish that upon Kurt. Just as I was getting prepared to sleep in the car, thinking Kurt had found some place to sleep in the wilds, he showed up with some people. There was much rejoicing and we gave the people a ride down to Lone Pine. We all ate pizza and then I took the people to their airplane. Yes, their airplane! I drove right onto the Lone Pine Airport runway and left them to fly home to San Jose in a friggin' airplane. I wanted to do some donuts on the runway, but thought better of it and then we drove home.

At Kurt's place we talked about how our feet hurt and watched some cartoons from the Home Star Runner site.

The End.