Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Let's hear your most exciting,frightening, magical b-packing experience ever.

So, here are the ground rules for this thread: Let's hear about your most exciting, frightening, magical,religious,beautiful,backpacking/hiking/climbing experience you ever had. It doesn't have to be on Mt. Whitney or anywhere near the mountain. It could of happened in any wilderness, on any trail, on any mountain, in any state. But, since this is the Mt. Whitney Message Board,points are awarded for sharing experiences that occured on Whitney( not really, though.)

As an example,I will go first with my frightening experience.
About 12 years ago while climbing Mts. Ritter and Banner I heard a crackling popping sound in the air. The storm clouds were rolling in late in the afternoon like they always do in the summer but, the day was still nice. While signing the summit register on MT. Ritter the crackling and popping grew louder and stronger, the wind was picking up and the sun was replaced by dark,ominous clouds. As I stood up to shoulder my pack a shivering pulse ran up my back, to my ears and up to the top of my head. A little voice came into my head and said " you better move now". Well, move now I did. About ten minutes later,as I was descending, a lightening bolt came thundering out of the sky and struck the top of Mt. Ritter. I couldn't believe it, I felt lucky to be alive. As I descended further another bolt struck Ritter and then another on top of Mt. Banner.I hauled my little self back to camp to the relative safety of my tent and thought of "what-ifs" until I fell asleep.
I haven't been back since.

Second time (but not the last) on top of Half Dome. We were camping atop (when it was still legal)

Others will have to decide if it was magical or religious.

They warn you about being up there during electrical storms. But once you are up there, you are up there.

There was a metal pole up near the overhanging lip. I was told it was used to measure movement but that was a long time ago.

There is also a cave or crack near it. Well, when it started to look threatening we retreated to that depression (yes, I have since learned that such places are no safer or maybe even less safe).

While tucked in there, the metal pole started humming. Being curious I peeked out. It definitely was the pole humming. While peeking out it released a small charge, I guess. It gently ruffled my hair and I felt as if the "hand of G0D" had mussed my hair. It was wonderful.

It then started humming again. Being young (this was in the early 70's) I got out of the crack and ran over, moistened my finger with my tongue and tapped the pole - it was like walking across a rug and get a zap from the tv or other metal.

Yup, crazy, but I just had to do it.

Oh, yes, later that night there was little sleep as it was during the Perseid Meteor showers and they zoomed from horizon to horizon.

Memorable for others reasons - the trip down Goddard Creek - a he11ish bushwack we thought would never end or be the end of us.

There have been countless magical moments in the mountains and I hope for countless more.

I was already willing to concese that I was not going to top VeloMan's story. Bob R would be the guy to give that a go!

Here are links to Bob R's story. I hope it gets published somewhere.

http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001225

http://www.ridgenet.net/~rockwell/Climbing/AbombStory.doc

This wasn't very long ago but I remember every second of it.

I hadn't been camping since I was in the Cub Scouts so I forgot many rules, this time the rule was "Proper Food Storage Required by Law."

So I'm tent camping at Minaret Falls and I put my cooler in the tent, figuring as long as the food was in the cooler, it was proper. Didn't leave it on the picnic table, after all. In the cooler was a fresh Subway BMT with all the trimmings.

Woke up about 4 a.m. next morning and was a bit groggy. I turned over to continue a snooze and all of a sudden I hear deep, heavy breathing by my head. I thought it was a joke by my cousin, who was camping nearby, he said bears prefer a certain color of tent. Then I realized....

Well my first night in this tent, I couldn't get to the zipper very fast, and I didn't want to start yelling at 4:05 a.m., so instead I balled up my fist and punched the bear in the nose, through the tent fabric.

The tent survived, and so did I. And I learned the meaning of the word "proper."

I told the story to fellow campers that day and they all said they wouldn't have felt very sorry for me if I had been mauled. Anyway, live...and learn!

Two days later momma bear and two cubs raided another campsite and made a mess of everything in broad daylight, tore up a tent, broke into the cooler on the picnic table, even ripped up a camera bag. One of the campers from that site said, "How could I have been so stupid?"

Umm, wellllll......

Late summer in Yosemite. The big falls were dry and I decided to take a look at the base of the upper falls. I climbed to within 40 feet of the cliff and decided to camp for the night. Because of the close proximity to the wall, I did not see a storm was brewing..coming from the north... and it hit, right after I had gone to bed. I was camped under a big rock. I thought I was safe, until the falls came to life. The cascade got stronger and moved out from the wall- striking directly on top of the rocks I was sleeping under. I was trapped with thousands of gallons pounding right on top of the boulder I was using for shelter. The only saving grace was that I had a new polarguard-thinsulite bag and not my old down mummy. I curled up under that rock and the water rose....I had nowhere to go. I scrunched up and tried to stay dry, but nothing worked. It was a long and wet night. At first light I hauled my now 20 pound bag and my gear out of that cave--squeezed out as much water as I could, and got the heck out of there. I was thankful to be alive.

Back in 1991, I was on the expedition with goal to climb Peak Khan Tengri in Kyrgistan (North border of China with former Soviet Union). I was in a group of four climbers, we came late to camp one at 15000 ft. It was already dark when we put tents, my friend started making diner. I went to bring some clean snow to melt for the soup. The camp was on the upper flat part of the glacier and you hear everywhere running water. So, I did very "smart" move and decided to spare time and instead of use of snow I want real water. I made just one step off the used path (in the snow) and I fell into huge ice crevasse, it was covered with tin ice and snow. Lucky I was, and fell just 15 feet on the ice bridge in the middle of the crack. I had my lamp on the head and the pot still in one hand. Only crampons on my boots. No ice pick. Just few feet from the tent. For a few minutes I didn't move. First I checked my position and myself for injuries. I was OK. On both sides of me were deep abyss without the bottom, dark blue-green in the darkness. I tried to yell, but the deep hole and the snow just kill my voice. Still sitting on the ice I decided to use my head lamp to signal through the opening above me. After the while I heard some voices. Because I was too long out, my friend crawl out off the tent to see what is going on with the soup and notice that I am not cooking anything. He explain me later that they follow the tracks in the snow around the tent and they saw the light coming out from the snow. They brought the rope and I made safe out still having my pot. They first joke with me, then yell and gave me a lesson about my stupidity.
Late that night, I woke up thinking what can happened to me if I missed the "rescue" bridge. Thanks to my friends and luck I am still in the mountains.
Happy climb to all and be carefull.

My wife and I were heading up the Mountaineer's Route very early this year. There was a lot of snow still on the route, and it was melting fast. There were avalanche warnings all over but "no," I said, "We'll be fine." About 1/4 mile short of the Ebersbacher ledges, where the trail traverses below the cliffs, we heard a slipping-sliding sound behind us. As we turned around, the entire snow cornice capping the cliff tops came down. It covered about 100 feet of trail with 5 feet of snow and ice and launched ice chunks across the valley. The edge of this pile of snow landed about 10 feet from my wife and I, the air pressure of which fall blew off my hat.

Well, we hiked up to Lower Boyscout. Found a nice safe place to pitch the tent and hiked out the next morning...

1972 - Mike Callahan and I were sleeping in tube tents; as a lot of people did back then, we threw a rock tied to a rope over a tree branch about 30 feet high - then tied one end to our backpacks (with food), hoisted them up, and tied the other end to a tree. As the campfire dimmed, we crawled to our tube tents (tired from hiking Tuolumne Meadows to Merced Lake with 60lb. packs - weren't too many minimalists back then either); I was roused from sleep by a noise - some scratching sounds at the tree where the rope was tied made by a black bear trying to cut through the rope - always being prepared, I grabbed the P. E. teacher's whistle I wore around my neck and gave it my all. There were horrendous noises like some several hundred pound animal in a panic running in the pitch black night - I heard the crumpling sound of a tube tent being totally destroyed ... and then, absolute silence. Mike? I whispered. Then I shouted, MIKE!? I heard a shaky "yeah?"
"You okay?"
"Yeah."
I fell back to sleep, feeling just fine. And when the sun rose, Mike and I got up and were amazed at how little was left of his tube tent, and how he was totally unharmed.

Not much compared to the previous stories! But...last February doing a Winter climb of Humphreys Peak (Arizona) in hip-deep unevenly settled powder...as we approached the last line of trees on a broad ridge at 11,400 feet, blind to the slope above, a loud "BANG!" echoed from the slope somewhere above us. We froze for about 15 seconds, straining to hear the rumble of sliding snow descending toward us. Thankfully that sound never came; we continued on our way to a successful summit, but those 15 seconds were certainly on the scary side.

okay... great thread.... tough to pick the best story...

here goes:

Orizaba in Mexico last January 2003. We had already topped out Ixta and were in place to go for Orizaba. First haauled MONDO wieght to 16,000 feet for high camp. We didn't want to go for it right out of the hut and thought we needed a butload of pro. That was hard enough, there is some class V scrambling and with heavy packs it was brutal.

Okay, then I spend the COLDEST night of my life until the sun came out. all of our water froze except 1 16 oz. bottle that I had to keep on my chest to keep from freezing. so now the 2 of us a getting big time dehydrated.

Then at about 17,800 ft. literally standing where
REI had their major accident a month previous we run out of usable pro!! The screws were worthless and idiot boys had left the pickets behind!!

Now comes the RELIGOUS part. My partner who has 4 times my esperience tells me "I'm scared" I say "why" he says"look down" and I look straight down 2000 feet of real slick ice and we are totally exposed on rope and not one piece of pro holding us to the mountain!!

so I have a flash of brillance and decide to drive our short axes in for some limited protection. This was not going to stop any bigtime fall, but at least it allowed us to continue.

anyway, we topped out and survived but then we are so late that we are gonna miss our ride. Then miss our flight in Mexico City and so on. So I whip out my CELL PHONE!! Believe it or not I get a connection to Louis Reye's brother in Mexico City. We had a phone number off one of the route descrips we had with us. CELL PHONE CALL AT 16,000 feet!!! He calls bro and driver waits 6 hours for us.

By the time we made it down the whole base camp appauded..... an absolute epic.

Most hardcore thing I have ever done.

I like Talus Scree's story. I saw one of those tube tents for sale recently for something like $4.99, much less expensive AND lighter than my current tent! I used one for years even though it rained more inside than out due to condensation -- like sleeping in a big garbage bag. I laugh every time I think about my old tube tent!

I guess my most frightening experience was on a trip I took in 1998 to Tanzania. We had about 8-9 days on safari, 6 days to climb Kilimanjaro, and then a few days in Zanzibar. It was a magical trip overall. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

On the 2nd to last day of safari, we camped in the Ngorongoro highlands and took a day hike up Mt. Lemagrut (A.K.A. Makarot), a volcanic hill that still has about half of a crater rim; the rest is eroded away. The hike was a warm-up for Kili.

We were making our way up on animal trails, not following a well-used path. Just a few hundred feet short of the peak, we saw five cape buffalo, the meanest, most agressive animal in Africa.

The five animals meandered up and off to our right. Once they were out of sight, our guide (also our safari cook) suggested that we go up to the left to avoid them. I said I was afraid they would come after us; I wanted to descend. The guide replied that we didn't need to fear the five who wandered off together, we should worry about the singleton who was hiding in the bushes watching us. Solitary animals are the most agressive.

So up we went, moving in a direction opposite of the buffalo. The four of us were wading through chest-high grasses, and we were spaced about 30 feet apart, when a creature jumped up in between us and ran downhill. One companion shouted. I felt speechless with fear. It turned out to be a bush buck, but it took a few moments to register, and it was a while after that before my heart rate returned to normal.

Oh, well, it's more like my most gnarly incident ... while descending Rainier with RMI, along a steep section I slipped, lost hold of my ice axe (which thankfully just stuck into the ice safely and stayed there for me to happily retrieve) ... anyhow, I went sliding feet first, on my belly down towards this mondo crevasse ... I was roped, and team went into arrest, I was okay, ... but the worst thing was, my arms were outstretched (sleeves rolled up) and I skid along the sharp ice as I slid ... and the skin got all shaved and scraped and cut really nasty .... man, it was like getting rubbed against one of those cheese graters ... I was all bloddy ... Crimony, ice is really sharp stuff.

Of course, the giude had to march back to me and chew me out for ignoring his "orders" to ALWAYS KEEP SLEEVES ROLLED DOWN AT ALL TIMES!!!!

best, no question, was climbing the mountaineers route and standing on the summit of Whitney with my 12 year old son on his first big climb. I'm not sure whether he or his old man was more proud.

worst was a vertical ice climb in Colorado. It was very cold and the ice very brittle. About halfway up a pitch I put my ax into the ice and the ice just shattered in my face. Thousands of tiny shards of ice hit my face hard (fortunately I was wearing glasses) and made an equal number of small cuts. Fortunately my face was frozen so I didn't feel much pain immediately, but it totally *****ed out my climbing partner when he saw me come over the lip of the ice shelf.

In 2002, we started to plan for our July 2003 JMT trip from Tuolumne to Whitney Portal. We could hardy wait for the day to come. We had spent the last 3 years doing week long trips in Yosemite so we were excited and prepared for this wonderful challange.
The evening before we left, my mom severely smashed her thumb in the door of the RV in Lee Vining. It was all UP hill from there. We could not find the keys to the jeep so we had to get the spare keys out so we could get to the trailhead, left one of our jackets on top of the car as we were pulling out of the RV park morning of the hike; heard something scratching the door of the jeep as we drove to Tuolumne only to find out it was the missing keys hanging from the door lock, left our camera on the tire of the car as we started off hiking; my husband fell in the creek 3 times the first day (same crossing); lost his socks while they were drying off the back of his pack, along with his drinking mug; our one piece super expensive stove turned into two pieces trying to cook our lunch the first day; mosquitoes, mosquitoes, mosquitoes,mosquitoes within the first few hours of being on the trail; hiking over Donahue pass we were hit with millions of them as they hung over a small lake at the top... as we were packing up the following morning just past Donahue pass a wind came and caught our tent. It looked like a large pumpkin sailing over the valley spilling it's contents as it swirled in the air; smashed my coffee mug, head lamp and GPS chasing after the tent; mosquitoes, mosquitoes, mosquitoes; Stopped to try and cook and fix stove at 1000 Islands Lake the next day, walked over to a tree to see why it was black and it was more mosquitoes just swirling in groups of billions...it looked like the tree was moving; By now our deet was gone; we had nosquitoes in our mouth, nose, ears,hair,and food! Our faces (and we wore nets when they were really thick) were swollen from all the bites; My husband had a horse shoe shape halo of mosquitoes over him as he was filtering water in a stream.
We were miserable. We finally exited at Angew Meadows only to find 8 other backpackers and numerous dayhikers trying to get off of the trail too for the same reason.
We hitched a ride into Mammouth and got a room at what we thought was an "American Icon", Travel Lodge, only to find the guy behind the counter chanting is some foreign language for several minutes before he even looked up at us. My husband had over 250 bites on his legs and I was in bad shape myself. We layed in the hotel with flu symtoms for the next day or two and then, to top off our wonderful trip off, it was there in the awful hotel that I noticed I had lost the diamond from my wedding band somewhere between Tuolumne or Angew Meadows. I am sure I launched it while flinging my arms around trying to get rid of the mosquitoes!
Have no fear! We are doing it again July 2005. And we can hardly wait!!!!!!!!!