The Continued Mountain Adventures of Grizzly Tim, Marmot Dave, Seb de la Coeur, Marissawea, Anna Oakley, Doc Nuwer, Sharpshooter, Soaring Eagle Meka, and Jeremiah Jamie
A couple days before the Whitney lottery, we decided that it'd be fun to get a group together to try Whitney. After a flurry of phone calls trying to figure out what times would work for everyone, we put in a permit request for twelve people, over a Friday to Monday range, for most of the summer. We thought that our chances were pretty slim because we were trying for twelve spots, but we got a permit for July 15 and 16, a Sunday and a Monday. Injuries (broken knees, bum backs, blood clots) winnowed the party down to nine. Tim even made his way out from New York. He stopped in San Diego for a couple days see the old haunts and to pick up some things.
A couple of weeks before the trip, Seb emailed us all some recent summit postings to point out that the snow was pretty much gone. By the time the rest of us got around to reading the posts, the lead post had changed into a horrific account of cerebral edema ruining someone's Whitney trip. The postee's summit day turned into a twenty three hour ordeal as they slowly escorted the adversly-affected member of their party down the mountain. This story made some of us reconsider our acclimation plans, so we planned a trip to Kearsarge Pass.
Seb reserved us all campsites at Onion Valley, the campground where we planned to stay/backpack from. A couple days before we were supposed to head to Kearsarge Pass, forest fires started and the Park Service closed Onion Valley. Entire sections of Highway 395 were closed. Not looking good. We all checked the fire reports daily. Things improved just in time, and Marissa, Seb, Tim, and Ashley drove up on Thursday to go backpacking. They were going to hike up towards Kearsarge Pass on Friday. The rest of us would show up late on Friday, and we would all meet on Saturday.
Meka, D-rock, and I left on Friday at 6:30 pm. We had hoped for an earlier start, but Meka had to take the MCAT that day. What can you do? I had been a little lax in packing, but we threw everything together after Meka was done. D-rock and I had done most of the food shopping the day before. We had tons of GORP fixings. The drive was pleasant. We missed the 215, and so got to see a new section of the 15. D-rock brought a couple of digital thermometers along and used them to monitor the car's internal temperature and the temperature outside. Using my GPS, we calculated the atmopsheric lapse rate as we climbed (in the car) up to Onion Valley. It was nearly dry. We looked for signs of the recent fires, but couldn't find any in the dark. We got to the campground around 1:00 am. Meka wasn't really a fan of the ''leave after work and drive until it's really late'' plan. We couldn't find our reserved spot in the dark, so we just took one that was open. It smelled like outhouse, but we were too tired to find another.
It's always cool to wake up in a new place after showing up during the blackness of night. We woke up to mountain delight, and not just because our brains were oxygen-starved. We were surrounded by beautiful mountains and the air smelled great. There'd been talk of meeting the rest of our crowd on the trail, but moving camp to our assigned spot took some time. After some breakfast and organizing we set out towards Kearsarge Pass. D-rock loaded up his pack with lots of water; Meka and I kept ours as light as possible. The air was a little thin (Onion Valley is at 9185 feet). Meka wasn't too sure how she would deal with the altitude. She'd had some trouble at Young Lakes the year before. This year she came prepared with multiple inhalers, which she would puff on whenever she needed an extra boost. The hike took us past numerous lovely lakes.
Here's a picture of our companions (Tim, Seb, Marissa, and Ashley in the middle photo) at Kearsarge Pass. They waited for us on the pass (so they claimed), but we didn't make it. They headed over the pass to some of the lakes beyond. We passed their camp along the trail. They weren't home, so we continued towards the pass, hoping to meet them along the way. The photo on the right, Heart Lake, is where we stopped for lunch. We found a good spot perched high above the lake and just off of the trail, and enjoyed our almond butter and honey sandwiches.
Here we're getting close to Kearsarge Pass. It's just behind Meka in the photo on the left. Meka wasn't feeling very well from the altitude, so there was talk of turning back. We were too close not to see the view over the other side, though, so she kept on. The photo on the right is looking back towards Onion Valley. The valley floor and Independence were a long ways off.
There were lots of people stopped at Kearsarge Pass (11845 feet). We didn't stop there for long, as headaches were setting in and we wanted to get back to camp. On the left is Big Pothole Lake, which lies just to the east of the Pass. The view of us three (me, Meka, and D-rock) is looking west from Kearsarge. Behind us are the Kearsarge Lakes. The Kearsarge Pinnacles rise behind the lakes. On the right, Meka and I are standing in front of appropriately named University Peak.
Meka started off cruising on the descent. She wanted to get to thicker air to ease her pounding head. D-rock and I eventually caught up, and then Meka and I slowly got ahead of D-rock. We stopped on a big flat rock above Pothole Lake to wait. We watched a huge family (at least six kids and four adults) unload their stuff at the lake. The dad crested the far ridge carrying an absolutely humongous pack. We later found that our companions had also seen him carrying a towering load, so I imagine that he had to make a couple trips. While their dad's spine was crumbling, the kids walked along excitedly carrying their pillows. One of the things he unloaded from the pack was an inflatable raft. The kids weren't the greatest rowers, and made quite a few circles. I could see some nice fish swimming along the lake edge. D-rock caught up, but on the final descent we again gained ground on him because he stopped to hydrate every three hundred feet.
Meka and I met our fellow travelers in camp. There was much discussion about how we had missed each other on the trail. They claimed to have waited forever for us on the trail. We made similar claims. In the end, we decided that they had passed us while we were on our lunch break. Meka had heard some noise on the trail, but at the time we figured that we would have been able to recognize their trail noise. People started to wonder where D-rock was, as it was taking him a while. We jollied ourselves talking about D-rock's hydration policy when hiking, and his mantra of "clear and copious." We figured that he had just hydrated too much and had to pee every few hundred feet. Contrary to our imaginings, when he got down he told us that his head pounded with every step. He crawled into his tent to take a nap. Pretty soon, Jamie and Anna, Meka's friends from LA, showed up. They had come from San Francisco and had driven through Yosemite. We helped them unload and then started on dinner prep. We had an Irish-Mexican meal: fajitas with corned beef, beans, tons of rice, and the typical fixings. Just the kind of solid meal one needs before a big climb. Tim got out his computer at one point-no wireless, but he did transfer some photos. In the photo on the left we have, from left to right: Anna, Ashley's head, Seb, Tim looking heroic with his computer, Marissa, and Meka. There was lots of sitting around and chatting. Ashley told us all about Tim's snoring. We eventually did some planning and food organizing for the next day and packed up our four bear cannisters. Ashley is posing with one on the right. Her's was loaded down with a massive amount of GORP. We wanted to be off promptly in the morning to get our permit and start hiking up Whitney. We had to pick up our permit by 9:00 am.
We rose with the sun the next day and packed up camp. We had a few things to get in town, so Seb's car headed down early to go to the grocery store. Meka had forgotten to bring a bowl. We also needed some other odds and ends. We planned to meet at the Ranger station in Lone Pine. We headed down not long after, with Jamie and Tim in their cars just behind us. I think that the valley between Lone Pine and Independence is spectacular, so I had to stop for some pictures coming out of Onion Valley. Jamie and Tim passed us. Driving down the 395 to Lone Pine, we thought we saw Tim pass us going the other way. We were the first ones to the Ranger station. I dug out my phone to find that I had multiple missed messages. Tim's car had overheated, and he had returned to Independence to get some coolant. Seb's brakes had been smoking, and he stopped in Independence to let them rest.
We picked up the permits while the others struggled with their cars. The ranger told us that bad weather was forcast for the next two days. The clouds were already pretty dark, and it was only 9:00 in the morning. Next to us a day hiker picked up his permit for Whitney. The ranger told him that day hikers usually start at 3:00 in the morning, not 9:00. We also got our poop bags, one for each of us. The NPS removed the toilets from the Whitney campgrounds because they got so much use, and now campers have to pack out their shit. The directions were kind of cryptic, and we hoped we would be able to figure it out when we cracked them open. Everyone else showed up after a while. Seb and Tim weren't too keen on driving their cars up to Whitney Portal, so we abandoned their cars in a parking lot in Lone Pine.
Here we are stuffing our packs at Whitney Portal. Our general plan was to stop at Outpost Camp. With our late start because of the car hassles and the potential for ugly weather, Outpost Camp was looking more and more likely.
Here we are starting out at 8365 feet. There was a scale at the trailhead. Ashley's pack weighed in at 43 lbs, Meka's was 33 lbs. I didn't want to know how much mine weighed. The trail started climbing right away. In the middle-left photo you can see the road winding up to Whitney Portal. We climbed up through a pretty narrow valley, with lots of switchbacks. We stopped for lunch at Lone Pine Lake.
Entering the meadow that terminates at Outpost Camp, Meka and I startled a deer. It jumped off the trail just in front of us. We also saw a grouse. D-rock wore some compass bling. The hike was surprisingly short. We were at camp in no time.
On the left is the Outpost Camp meadow. Camp is just to the right of the meadow. There was a stream flowing near our tents. We were told to get water above camp, hence avoiding the sewage outfall. In the middle Tim is showing off his lovely dirt tan. He'd built up a nice one after a few days on the trail. D-rock crawled into his tent for a nap. Others just lazed around camp. We played some Hearts with Marissa's mini cards. We decided that the loser would have to streak at the summit. Ashely lost. While sitting in camp we watched lots of ragged day hikers gingerly walking through camp. They looked, for the most part, tired and unhappy. Ashley tried to go to bed before dinner. As she explained, she is not a morning person. The rest of us started cooking dinner. We had mac and cheese, various freeze dried packets from REI (Black bean hummus was really good) and couscous. An excited robber-jay landed in the tree above us, hoping for some leftovers. It started squawking to its buddies and woke Ashley up. She got out of the tent in her pajamas to yell at the bird to shut up. She picked up a rock to throw, and all of us scattered to get out of the firing range. According to Jamie, Ashley had a very girly throw, which surprised her. It didn't come close. Resignedly, she crawled back into her tent. After dinner the rest of us milled around some and got our things ready. Some of us tried out our WAG (poop) bags so that we wouldn't have to figure out how to use them at 3:30 in the morning.
I didn't sleep particularly well because I was anxious for the climb. I kept waking up, thinking Marissa was coming to wake everyone up. On one occasion, I heard her talking outside, but she didn't come by our tent. In the morning, walking over to breakfast, I passed some guy sleeping outside next to a log. He was wearing jeans. Apparently he wandered into camp in the middle of the night and woke Marissa up to figure out where he was. He had gotten lost and had been wandering around for the past three hours by the light of his cellphone. He was kind of out of it. D-rock kindly let him use his tent and sleeping bag. We all scarffed down some cold, unappealing food, mostly cold, dry bagels, before starting up the trail. Ashley downed some caffeine-laden drink that she had carried up. Meka had instant coffee in cold water.
We headed up the trail at 4:06, headlamps ablaze. It was pretty warm, so we didn't start with many layers. Even so, we quickly stopped to strip down. Looking back down the trail, we could see other headlamps bobbing below us. We think that we started before most of our Outpost Camp companions, so we were seeing dayhikers. We took a few wrong turns in the dark and missed some switchbacks. It looked kind of overcast at first (not many stars), so we started mentally preparing ourselves to turn around when the terrible weather set in. The top left photo is everyone walking up the trail towards me. Some of us had never started a hike by headlamp. It certainly is a cool way to go. In the upper middle-left are D-rock and Tim during one of Marissa's early puke breaks. She wasn't feeling well, and never actually puked, but stopped and thought about it a few times. Lower right is D-rock. He's easily identified by his noisy, bamboo hiking staffs. We all enjoyed watching the sky brighten and the sun rise as our view gradually expanded. It was pretty spectacular looking down the valley.
Here we are approaching Trail Camp, which is just above a handstanding Meka in the photo on the left. Mt Muir is in the background behind her. The middle photo shows the ridge between Mt Muir and Mt Whitney. In the right photo is Whitney's summit. Only three thousand more feet to go. The alpine-glow and the weather was looking great.
We stopped at the lake at Trail Camp to fill up on water. Jamie filtered water on a sloped rock, and as she was done and getting up, she slipped both feet into the water, up to mid shin. She didn't have extra socks. Yeah, that sucked. Jamie is a trooper and fashioned up some comfy socks out of athletic tape and plastic bags. We passed around the GORP and Marissa mentioned that she didn't want to eat any nuts. Tim and I immediately recollected Marissa's comments from Langley and started laughing. Tim almost couldn't keep going, he laughed so much.
Here we are heading up the 99 switchbacks from Trail Camp to Trail Crest. D-rock later commented that he had a white hot searing hatred for the switchbacks. In the photo on the right, Whitney is the flat summit in the background. D-rock was a little slow heading up the switchbacks. He said that his head was pounding. Ashley vanished in the distance at ahead this point. She didn't want to miss out on the summit. Not that we were worried about the weather anymore, as it was turning into a beautiful day.
Trail Crest at 13650 feet was a relief. The air was a little thin up here, but the worst was over. In the middle left photo is Meka with Mt Hitchcock behind. Meka and Jamie are in the middle right phot. In the right photo are the Hitchcock Lakes.
Occasionally we could see down to Trail Camp. The photo on the left gives an idea of the elevation we gained over the 99 switchbacks, nearly 2500 feet. At this point the trail curved around to the West side of the Muir/Whitney ridge. We lost a little bit of elevation coming past Trail Crest. On the right is the path to the summit. Only another 500 or so feet to gain. Jamie, Meka, and I wandered along this section, bringing up the rear. Meka felt like she was about to black out a couple times, so we had to take a lot of breaks.
We got to the top, 14495 feet, sometime around 9:00. Here's the view, looking down towards Lone Pine.
Here we are on top. We sat around eating lunch right at the edge, enjoying the views, and breathing in the air. We got into a geoglogy discussion about whether Whitney was gaining or losing height. I had a worm in my apple and Ashley accused me of puking when I spit it out. In the photo on the left we have the original Langley crowd; Marissa, D-rock, Tim, and me, with Langley in the background. Middle left is the entire crowd: Ashley, Meka, me, D-rock, Seb, Marissa, Tim, Anna, and Jamie.
We had a great view of Langley from the summit. The other people on the summit (maybe 30 or so people when we got there) were admiring how nice Langley looked. In the photo on the left, the thin lake just right of center is next to Trail Camp. That's where Jamie dunked her feet. Thor Peak is the mound next to Trail camp. The trial climbed into the basin from around the other side of Thor Peak. The ridge rising up in the photo foreground is Keeler Needle.
We stayed on top for 45 minutes or so, and then headed down. Here's Marissa and Ashley at Trail Crest. Ashley had on quite the climbing outfit. Conveniently, she forgot to streak at the summit. The other photo is of Meka and Tim in front of some needles.
Here's the view looking down the unending switchbacks. The descent really brought out D-rock's white hot searing hatred.
Tim didn't like the switchbacks much either. The first photo is Tim collapsed at the base of the 99 switchbacks. The second photo kind of sets the scene. The third photo is at the lake near Trail Camp (the lake in the second photo). Tim rolled around on the ground, complained about not being able to get his pack off, and talked about how his feet hurt. Everyone had been feeling kind of energized for the descent, but the switchbacks beat it out of us. When Meka stopped at the lake, her head started pouding. She stretched out on the ground and tried not to move. She quickly decided that it would be better to just hustle down. She started practically running down the trail and even Ashley and I couldn't keep up with her.
In this photo Marissa is descending to Mirror Lake, just above our camp. We had passed it in the morning and totally missed it in the dark. We didn't dally in packing up camp. Everyone was really excited to strap the equivalent of plastic outhouses onto their packs. Ashley, who had vowed not to use her bag, even relented and had to use it. She was a little rushed in the end and didn't have time to read the instructions, so she used the wrong bag. I won't go into the details, but lets just say that that is an impressive feat.
It was a quick trip down, with very few stops. Nice not to be eaten by bugs. We were giddy at the end.
We drove back down to Lone Pine and picked up the abandoned cars. The heat coming off of the blacktop in Lone Pine was oppressive. I've never felt heat like that. It was sweltering. Tim had left a stick of deoderant in his car, and it had melted. We went to a mexican restaurant in Lone Pine before going our separate ways. Anna ordered a veggie burrito, in which she happened to find a raw shrimp. Us carnivores were more satisfied with our meals. Tim realized that he had left his journal on top. A few days later he got an email from some guy who had found it, telling him that it was already in the mail. We all set off on our long drives (except Tim, lucky, who was getting a hotel room).
