Mount Whitney 2024 - What does it all mean?

 

Whitney 2024

 

Part One:  A chance of a lifetime? Or a chance that limits your lifetime?

Mount Whitney, a legend and a literal apex amongst hikers and outdoorsmen.  Mt Whitney is the highest mountain in the continental United States making it a coveted climb similar to the Boston Marathon for runners.  The most popular search about Whitney comes back with the Google Artificial Intelligence (AI) saying, “Yes it is possible to hike to the top of Mt Whitney but prepared for a challenging climb.”  I suppose after hiking Whitney the word “challenging” is indeed an understatement therefore the intelligence is indeed artificial.  The hike is so popular that only 100 passes are given per day by the Parks Service to climb Whitney.  There’s no hard data but it is said that only one in four will be able to complete the trip due to the rigorous conditions.  The summit tops out at a nose bleed elevation of 14,505 (4,421 m) for a net climb of 6,145 ft (1,873 m).  At this elevation, there is only 43% oxygen that is available for you to breathe compared to sea level.  Many hikers suffer from altitude sickness which is a kind way to say either fluid is filling up in their lungs or blood vessels are starting to leak in the brain.  (I make a mentally note that this is where the phrase, “Nose bleed seats.” comes from.)   The medical field always has to have a fancy different name for simple terms.  They say “hypoxia” or inadequate oxygenation which can lead to a bunch of fun stuff from not being able to catch your breath, dizziness, vomiting, blood leaking out where it shouldn’t and the permanent sleepy time called a coma.  None of this stuff is good for you, I suppose, but why focus only on the bummer things?  Instead, enjoy the view from the summit but don’t lay down and take a nap.  That didn’t work for Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz either. 

From the trail start, Whitney Portal, the trail is about 11 miles long.   Don’t let the numbers wash over you too quickly in case you aspire to reach this famous spire.  You will be climbing nearly five Empire State Buildings or six Eiffel Towers.  Even that is hard for my mind to put in perspective.  I like to think of it this way, it’s basically walking from sea level to Big Bear Lake but in 11 miles.  I’m not sure how else to think about the sheer height.  At one point we were looking nearly straight down at lakes on the Sequoia Park side about 2000 feet below.  Ah, but in my enthusiasm, I am getting ahead of the story.

Actually, we have to rewind this story to 2023, our first “fail to launch” effort. Our first trip didn’t even happen since in late August 2023, the snow was still deep enough that crampons and ice picks were necessary.  Why worry about a little snow?  If just one of those nasty little spikes on your crampons snag your pant leg, generally, it will launch you headfirst down the snow like a human toboggan only without the happy ending.

On March 21, 2024, we again won the Mt Whitney lottery to hike in August 2024. 

So if you had the chance, what would you say to go on a perilous…er….famous hike?  A chance of a lifetime for a hike that may limit your lifetime???  “The only difference between bravery and stupidity is in the outcome.” So out of ignorance I chose the former and said “Yes” after a few days of wrestling with my more reasonable conscious.

Whitney Summit Pass was valid for four people.  Dave Bretz, the organizer, Dr Ray, a real doctor.  Grant Freman a real person too, and myself, somewhat a poser.

Part Two:  Training

Two out of the four of us were retired.  But don’t take this statement as a lack of working.  By definition, I suppose, none of us are whatcha call, slackers.  Dave Bretz, a runner, hiker and all-around ombudsman (look it up).  Dr Ray, a real doctor, as previously conjectured, is still working seven days a week and saving people from their own misdirection.   Grant, a mild manner businessman by day yet a consummate runner having a shoebox full of Ultramarathon medals including the coveted Boston Marathon medal.  And myself, a recovering triathlete with activities running in parallel to the point that AI could not summarize the correlation to one person.  Our adventure resumes are all quite deep.  Three pagers if we do the editing properly.

Now where was I?  Ah.  Training.  Dave and Ray were injecting into their busy lives hikes at the ‘local’ high mountains.  San Jacinto, San Gorgonio.  10,000 and 11,000 ft elevation respectively.    Grant who lives in Indiana, had to find a somewhat steep slope and hike it repetitively before going on a run with his two sled-dog schnauzers.  My hiking training was admittedly disrespectful of the task ahead.  Albeit, I was still doing hours of biking, swimming, and some hiking consisting of an hour dog walk on Sunday. My longest hike was five hours when my dog ran off after a deer in the mountains.  Don’t become distracted with woe, the dog returned to the same place that she started the chase but that is a whole other story to itself. As me sometime on a run.

Tragic Intermission

The more people that go on a trip, the higher the odds that something befalls one of us.   Dave contacted us a week before our hike with the terrible news of his knee going on strike.  Thus a surrogate hiker was found.  A somewhat younger, yet very enthusiastic, gentleman named Ryan Friesen.  A high school and collegiate football player.

Part Three  The Appointment with Destiny

Destiny, fate, tribulation, whatever you call it, the outcome is not what you would particularly call “fun”.  Although fun is exactly what we were trying to convince ourselves as we were setting off on the five hour long drive from San Diego to the trail head at Whitney portal.  Here is some not so sneaky foreshadowing in the event that the reader is unaware, San Diego is indeed at Sea Level for all intents and arguments alike.  Whitney Portal is at 8,374 feet plus minus.  Shadowy or not, our bodies were used to the oxygen at sea level and not at the top of most mountains which is exactly where our hike was suppose to start.

With heavy hearts, our fallen comrade Dave met us to wish us well and say a prayer for our hike.  Part of us did wish we could hold off yet the trip’s momentum had already started before we could pump the brakes.

To pass the time during the drive, we had some good guy talk.  I was amazed to the level of detail these guys could talk about football and both the current and historic players of said sport.  I snuck into the lull a few stories of my previous disasters.  Successes make for only mildly entertainment but disasters, now the world loves a good trainwreck.

Thanks to the conversation, we arrived in Lone Pine just in time for our hunger to meet us there.  Four hungry men trying to decide where to eat could be a good story in itself.  Dr Ray poked his head into a Mexican food place that was supposed to be open yet they advised Dr Ray we would have to wait twenty minutes.  Grant, laser beamed in on a sign that proudly proclaimed “Best Burgers” so we set off at a jay-walker’s pace to the restaurant.  Lone Pine was the city closest to the Portal but also steeped in old western movie history.  The restaurant was a bit of a museum.  Their “Best Burger” was nearly all that was on the menu so I was thinking they’ve had time to get it right.  The hungriest of us did say it was a good burger but “Best Burger”??? I suppose the other restaurants in town were really off their burger game (and this is coming from a guy who worked at MacDonalds when I was a kid)

After the best they could offer, we headed up to Whitney Portal.  The guys were touting that the 8,000 feet elevation was exactly what we needed to acclimatize. However, a good approach would have been at least three days, we were going to come up shy in our acclimatization time by a decent 33% perhaps more.  For better or worse, we all were taking a drug that should help with the altitude. Better living though modern chemistry as they say. (I don’t know who the “they” are but perhaps they are the “scientists” that everyone likes to quote for solving everything.  You ever notice you never see a commercial that says “8 out of 10 engineers think this will work?” You can write a comment about that.)

Part Four  Going Up!

The campground was nestled in the pines with a gurgling stream running through it. 

The weather was short sleeve temps even into the night which is when we woke up to start our hike. Our permit became valid at midnight so we woke around 01:15ish.  Frankly, my brain wasn’t working at that point so the time was rather irrelevant.  After some fussing, breaking down camp, and packing, we flicked on our headlights and started off in search of the trailhead.

It’s odd how in the dark, navigation changes.  Hours before when it was daylight, we walked right up to a little sign with an unpresumptuous indication, ‘Mt Whitney Trailhead’  In the dark, the sign became shy and was playing hard to see.  Why do they paint them flat brown?  So my first suggestion in the comment box would be, ‘Have reflective stickers on both sides of the sign.’ Since most people start their trek before sunrise.  The trailhead finally appeared in the darkness, right where they left it the day before which was next to the free poo-poo bags so you could “Leave no trace”. 

02:30 start time.  The trail showed no mercy and immediately ascended towards heaven.  Normally, the first ten minutes of exercise allows the heart to get up to speed pumping blood to the legs where it is needed.  At 8,000 ft, it wasn’t the heart that we needed in the game, it was our lungs.

Right off the bat, we were huffing and puffing.  In the dark, there was no distraction of seeing the natural beauty.  Everyone was quiet.  I am sure that we were thinking the same thing, “Boy, I’m already breathing hard.  Need to conserve energy. Going to be a long day.”

So I asked Grant a question as we hiked, fully realizing that even a few sentence answer was going to be an exertion.  The conversation took our minds off the climb.  Soon our hearts and our lungs were in the game, stoking the legs as we powered uphill.  Looking at the stats was interesting, my maximum heart rate occurred 60 minutes into the hike.  168 beats per minute!  As we climbed all the way to the summit, our heart rate continued to diminish.  There’s no stat that measures Level of Exertion.  If there was, it would be inverse of our heart rate.  Perhaps I am being redundant to say the higher we went, the tougher it became to generate energy.  At no time did I feel we were redlining it but the heart rate tells a different story.

We took turns leading the dark.  The climbing never let up.  Occasionally, we could see other head lights bobbing around in the dark.  We passed one group at mile four that already had one of their team complaining of his knee.  We could hear a stream attacking boulders down the hill but couldn’t see its struggles.  In fact, for many parts of the trail, I remember thinking, there could be a 1000 ft drop off right next to me but in the dark, there’s no telling. 

After crossing a balancing beam of Lincoln Logs going over a river, we emerged into one of the first campgrounds. Only one person was awake, their red colored headlight occasionally shining our way.  All the new camping tents have tiny little reflectors on their stake lines.  In the dark, the reflectors catch your eyes causing you to turn towards them.  I realized that camping near the trail would make it impossible to sleep because every light that came by would dance across your tent lured to the reflectors. 

In the camping meadow, the trail was difficult to follow because of all the other paths intersecting it.  Adding to the challenge, the stream broke up into several brooks crisscrossing the camp.  In the dark, had to hopscotch across little rocks to stay dry. As we found our way to the trail on the other side, the trail again wasted no time resuming its mad climb. 

In the dark, we played the game “Where will the sunrise?”  Everyone pointed a bit differently to a virtual East.  Our compass proved itself important and more accurate then guesstimation.  At 04:00 the moon peeked out behind the clouds.  Obviously, it was too early for even the moon to keep up with us.  Somewhere around 05:00, a faint red glow started to chase us. 

We stopped for our first break at 05:30.  Unknowingly, we were already close to 12,000 feet.  In 3.5 hours, we had climbed about 4,000 feet.  We shut off our head lamps and watch the purple sky reveal the mountains’ majesty to borrow the phrase.  Sharing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, we could start to see that our trail was passing along the side of a great valley with steep sides.  I didn’t really see the valley named Shadow of Death, it was always there but the light was winning the battle.  The river below spent quite a few years persistently carving its way into the rock.  The cool wind was persistently stealing our warmth so we returned our journey skyward.

Within thirty minutes, we reached one of the only two flat spots on the trail.  About a dozen tents were nestled on the flats.  We found humor that one tent was defiantly placed behind a little sign “No camping beyond this point”  Two alpine lakes were also behind the sign so I suspect it was just a guideline.

Our eyes scanned the rock scree field that climbed precipitously above our heads.  We were at the infamous ’99 switchbacks’ in the trail.  In 1904, the trail was created.  They must’ve been part engineers, part mountain goat.  Each switchback was built into the face of the mountain by stacking rocks to create the path above.  At a certain treacherous point, they had drilled into the rock metal pipes to support guide cables.  The mountain, being patient, cold, and indifferent to the foibles of man, has over time bent over the metal pipes and snapped the cables. The mountain flexing its muscle with the message clear to mere mortals, “Don’t underestimate my power.”

There was some discussion during our stops for air if there were really 99 switchbacks.

  A young man hiking solo zoomed by us and proclaimed we were only at 23.  Looking skyward to see the trail, we were thankful to only have 76 more to go.  Looking below, the snow patches all had an eerie pink dusting.  Any ambition to count the switchbacks was tenderized by the thin air.  So without counting, we soldiered on back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, well….. I will spare you but you get the idea.

Somewhere in those 99,  we crossed the 13,000 ft elevation.  I will confess the aspiration of climbing to 14,505 was waning.  Similarly, at many marathons, there is a point that the effort seems ridiculous compared to the ideological thought of achievement.  In plain English, I may have said out loud, “This is stupid.”  But then there is a mental pinnacle that happens at no particular point. Crossing that pinnacle becomes easier as my mind starts saying, “Well, every step gets us a little bit closer.”

Many times in the past, I’ve driven down Highway CA 395, peering into the mountains looking for grandaddy of them all, Mt Whitney.  Due to perspective from below, Whitney doesn’t look like the highest point.  Next to Whitney are a set of spires like the cathedrals of old.  Perhaps at one time, there was a continuous ridgeline from Whitney going West but the winds, snow, and gravity have cut three slots between them.  From below, the ridge has an immense cliff face making the trek appear impossible.  The rock scree field climbed to the knee of these cliffs. 
The switchbacks delivered us to the point called Trail Crest at 13,600 feet. 

All of our lips are blue.  Since it wasn’t cold, the bluish tint is an indicator of cyanosis (there’s that fancy word) and the very low oxygen levels our bodies were absorbing.  The trail skirts along a wall transitioning us to the north side of the mountain face.  While the south is sheer cliff, the north is somewhat less I suppose.  Focusing on the trail is better than looking into the valley below.  Less vertigo of looking over the sheer drop off.  As we weasel down this scrawny trail it starts to mellow some to allow a full appreciation that we are now looking into the Sequioa National Park sprawling some 3000 feet below.  Across the valley, ten miles as the windswept bird flies is another proud set of mountains with several aqua blue lakes worshiping their feet.  I snap a picture knowing that the picture won’t have any integrity to the actual experience. 

As a harbinger warning, most living vegetation gave up at this altitude except this little purple flower that grew in the smallest of perches protected by the rocks.  The rocks themselves seemed to be very healthy.  I suppose the rocks really could be categorized as boulders yet I don’t think there is a geological differentiation.  I was just thankful that someone with some very long steel bars had moved the boulders slightly so that our little trail could progress forward. 

We plodded in the sunlight along the backside of the mountain ridge.  The ridge with the cliff on the other side.  Every once in a while, someone would squint to spy the rock hut built near the Whitney summit.  However, the trail first has to precariously pass by the notches carved in the ridgeline.  Chancing a glance from the trail into the notch produces some primal reaction in your guts indicating a life changing event exists a few meters from where you stand.  It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

Part Five  The Summit

For some reason, I always pictured the summit as a pinnacle with barely enough room for two people to stand.  Whitney’s pinnacle is a gradual top like an egg but sprinkled with boulders everywhere.  The joy was rekindled as we walked and could see the rock hut near the summit.  The trail introduced us to the front of this ancient hut but the sign nearby was hardly a welcome mat: “Extreme Danger.  Lightning strikes.” 

We stood at the highest point for the obligatory selfie enjoying the sunshine and accomplishment.
  Everyone seemed to be feeling good without any ill-effects of the altitude.  Someone laser cut a metal sign for just the purpose. “Mt Whitney   14,505”   After the photo, we wandered over to the hut looking for a place out of the wind but the wind was sneaky and torturing all sides of the hut so we ate our second peanut butter and jelly sandwich inside the tiny hut room.

Part Six  We are in a tight spot!

The wind wasn’t the only thing that was sneaky.  We were so high that the clouds were below us and coming fast out of the east.  When the clouds hit the cliff face, the low pressure created all the wind but also caused the moisture to start to drop out of the air.  These weren’t the warm monsoon lightning clouds but cold rain clouds.  We packed up quickly and set out for the trail.  The temperature dropped over ten degrees into the 40’s.  The wind doubled its efforts. We could see the cloud trying to whisp their way over the cliff face of the summit.

Leaving the hut with the wind blowing in our faces, the top of the hill all looked the same.  Barren and littered with boulders.  Where’s the trail?  The trail was visible if you were standing in it and sighting down the cleared rocks.  30 feet away from it and the trail disappeared.  Under normal conditions, we would have used dead reckoning to bump back into the trail as it curved up to the top.  We spread out and in 100 meters located the path back to more reasonable environments.  Note I would say the path to safety but that would be premature as we were a long distance from safety.

Again, we followed the trail down that took us past the three slots in the mountain.  You could see the clouds pouring like water through the slots.  Our grouping on the trail was tight.  Once Grant crossed in front of the first slot, his hat was shot off by a strong gust and flung another 30 meters way from him into the rocks.  There was a hesitation, a quick evaluation, Grant errored on the side of safety and shouted over the wind, “Leave the hat!” 

Fortunately, one of the few other solo hikers was trying to get off the mountain behind us and saw where the hat went.  He was able to get it and we passed it forward to Grant.  No one said anything but perhaps we were all thinking, “Wow, the wind was going through the slot with a vengeance.  I suppose it could easily push a person through.  Hate to think how far down it is just a few meters away!”  The next two slots we held our hats tightly and braced for more wind.

If the cold wind wasn’t enough, the rain started.  In hindsight, it was poor preparation on our parts not to have a cheepo plastic poncho.  With some hope, we wished the ‘on and off’ sprinkles to subside as we moved away from the ridgeline.  Hope succumbed to inevitability as the rain switched to ‘on’.  The ground got wet with indifference and we grew wet with distain.  Jackets and sweatshirts were no match to the 40 degree wind that licked at the wet material, stealing precious body heat.  The only heat we had was from walking so we had to keep moving. 

To add injury to insult, the constant stepping-down on wet granite was starting to irritate a tendon on the inside of my knee.  I had to stop to put some KT tape to support the joint.  I had enough tape for blisters but not a long strip.  Fortunately, Dr Ray had a longer strip that worked.  We lost valuable body heat stopping.  Once we started moving again, this generated just enough heat.

Everyone was slipping on the wet rocks.  Fortunately, no one slipped and fell.  We were all using walking poles which helps tremendously.  Going downhill should have made the exertion easier but the constant locking up brakes to prevent a slip was challenging. 

We made it through the narrow section and back to the switchbacks.  The vast view back into the alpine valley was spectacular but everyone had lost the desire to sight see.  We collectively were thinking the same thing: get off the ridge and try to warm up.  Off and on, the rain started to slow.  The lower we went, the warmer the wind grew.  Every time I would lower my jacket zipper to let drying air in, it would start to rain again so I stopped trying to anticipate the weather. 

The switchbacks traversed through the scree field which essentially is a rock slide.  There were sections of the trail that crossed a stream.  Not any ordinary stream.  While the trail itself was wet enough to cause us to skip across the protruding rocks, the stream itself was somewhere below the surface.  “How did I know there was a stream there?”  Glad you asked!  As we walked, you could hear a full size stream rushing under our feet but you could not see it.  And if you were geologically curious, you would also ponder, “Where is all the water coming from if you were nearly at the top of the ridge?”  Glad you asked that one too.  I don’t know is the answer but I was ‘damn-sure’ it was a subterranean stream.

By the time we got done with the 99 (or so) switchbacks, we were dry.  The trail was dry too. 

The subterranean stream somehow was filling up the lake but the stream didn’t come out of hiding.  Surely, being warm and dry again was a blessing.  Our moods and our conversation had returned.  The blue in our lips had gone too so 12,000 feet elevation was sharing its oxygen with us now.

We also started to see more people.  Casual greetings and short conversations were appropriate since we were now official ambassadors of ‘The Summit’.  After greeting three different groups, we agreed to stop asking if they made it to the summit because no one had and just asking made them bummed out.

Since we were warm, we had the luxury of stopping for the last peanut butter and jelly sandwich in nearly the same location as the first 05:30 sandwich.  In the afternoon light, we could see so many more features than the faint sunrise light.  In fact, for the last six miles, every sight was new because we had hiked the trail in the dark only seeing as far as the little cone of light shining off our heads.  Amazingly, we could now see that the trail was steep.  The river had carved its way down the canyon creating beautiful valley peppered with waterfalls here and there.  In the lower campsite, there were now humans meandering around. 

Maybe it was my imagination but they seemed to stare slightly as if trying to determine if we were successful at summiting.

Some hiking websites list Mt Whitney as a “Very Difficult” hike. The mountain would not yield its reputation easily for even walking down hill was difficult.  My second suggestion to drop in the Suggestion Box:  “Please don’t use big rocks in the trail for erosion control.”  I am kidding of course but it was no joke.  The human knee ( I would hate to be corrected to: “The human knee of a 63 year old”) was not designed to step down more than the length of the shin or let’s say 15+inches.  The tall downward steps required my uphill knee to rotate slightly outward.  Picture a hurdler’s trailing leg.  When misfortune would have it, that would be my right knee putting a lot of strain on the injured area.  There were very few places the trail would level out but I found that my right leg now started to refuse to lift over any rock 12 inches or higher.

The last three miles seemed to go forever.  Our group got very quiet.  They were probably thinking of hamburgers and beer.  To lift the mood, I started to sing a few songs.  Grant, in good harmony, would pipe in.  No one clapped at the end of “America The Beautiful” so I started just humming to myself until that too dwindled.

Finally, we could see the end of the trail.  A few last switch backs and we were standing in the middle of hopeful hikers asking us for tips.  Not to lose our venerated status, we tried to give some positive tips yet our tired minds kept being pragmatic.  I wanted to say, “You have no idea when they say ‘Very Hard’ how that means not only 12 hours of walking but nearly the same in challenges.”  All good things come with a price of admission so I had to stop mentioning the cost.  As they say, you can’t tell a rich man from a poor man.  Perhaps they too will dig deep and scratch together what it takes.

The Final Chapter:  The Meaning of Everything

As the food and drink, allowed our bodies to recover and our humanity to return, we started to appreciate all that we were fortunate to have experienced.  What does all this accomplishment mean? As Solomon, the wisest man ever, wrote (maybe he did Whitney), “To the place the streams come from, there they return again.” And similarly, “The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.”  If I can in humility explain:  The summit is a place.  Being able to say you reached the summit is mostly vanity.  The deepest accomplishment is to build friendships with the bonds of an experience that is somehow extraordinary.  Extraordinary indeed both the friends and the experience.