Day One: Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Whitney Portal to Trail Camp. 6.1 miles, 3700’ elevation gain. Sleep at 12,025’ elevation.

To begin this grand adventure I was traveling in a party of 4: myself, and dear friends Kathy and Richard Rodrigue, and Paalaka Dewey. I’ve always wanted to climb Mount Whitney, and this year presented itself with a unique opportunity to do it. I got fortunate enough to get a permit for four, and then subsequently decided to start my own solo backpacking trip on the heels of the Whitney Climb, without leaving the wilderness.

Coveted Whitney Permit, now my prized souvenir!

Paalaka is unable to carry much backpacking weight because of a serious back injury, so we three wanted to make this trip possible for him by carrying a portion of his weight, allowing him to also fulfill a life-long dream to climb the great mountain. On the morning of the hike, we had carefully made all the preparations for food (today’s, food that goes in the bear canisters, and food that goes in protected boxes outside of the car to await their return), gear, parking, etc, and began our hike on the Whitney Portal trail at about 8:30am. The weather forecast was disappointingly calling for a wind storm with gusts up to 65mph. It seemed a horrific prediction, but after all the planning and anticipation we had done, we didn’t want to give up our precious climb to the top of the tallest peak in the Continental USA.

This first day went well, calm and beautiful. We arrived in the late afternoon to our camp at Trail Camp, with about 6.1 miles hiking and 3700’ of elevation gain. This sort of elevation gain is a fair climb: consider Half Dome is 4800’ up in 8.2 trail miles, which makes the Mt Whitney trail more elevation gain per mile than Half Dome. Plus this hike is nearly all at high elevation, starting at 8316’ and ending at 12,025’ to camp just for today! (In contrast, Half Dome peak elevation is about 8800’, all below the oxygen change in the atmosphere.)

Arriving by late afternoon after a splendid hike up, we set our camp and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings. It was interesting how there were so many rock walls that had been built here! This must be a windy place. There was a beautiful little no-name lake here also, and it was sadly littered with too much (fairly disgusting) backpacker garbage. We stretched out in the tiny patch of alpine tuft by the lake and had a short, sunny powernap. As the evening progressed, so did the wind velocity. By bedtime we were hiding behind those rocks walls!

Paalaka in the far distance near his tent, Me in the middle distance near my white tent, Richard in the near view (Rodrigue tent in the bottom left). Behind us all is the snowfield and the notch that we will climb tomorrow with the famous 99 switchbacks. Photo taken by Kathy with her camera.

Kathy at Trail camp with all our tents showing. Photo taken by me on Kathy's camera.

I went to bed, listening to the Snap! Snap! Snap! of Paalaka’s and the Rodrigue’s tent, not to mention my own tent snapping violently. The tiny tent pole in my ultra-light tent was bending over in an impressive arc and appeared to be in danger of snapping, too. I gave it additional support with my two hiking poles propped from the floor to the apex of the tent; then after an hour I put them all down next to me and let the tent rest on my sleeping bag like a bivy, holding on tight to the fabric to keep it from lifting violently. I got some sleep that way, but I doubt anyone else did, especially Paalaka inside his drum tent that popped every 2-3 seconds.  It was a miserable night.

Whitney Climb, We stayed at #4 Trail Camp the first night, then climbed the famous 99 switchbacks to Trail Crest #5 on Day 2. I left my pack at the trail junction shown for the insert called "West Side" and went down that way, while the other three returned down the East Side to camp at Outpost Camp #3 the second night.