Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board So, what brings you to Whitney?

I'll be making my second summit bid (my first attempt in 2001 was successful) and I "rediscovered" this board in my enthusiasm for all things Whitney again. As most of the people in my life view my passion for mountains at best as part of my eccentricity and at worst as a terrible disease that may possibly be catching, I was curious as to why others are climbing. What provokes someone to drive many miles to awaken in the wee hours of the morning and to spend countless hours trudging up the tallest mountain in the lower 48 enduring hurting feet, sore knees, blisters and just plain exhaustion all while eating that veritable feast of kings - trail mix and powerbars?

For me, it's fairly straight forward. I love mountains and I'm lucky enough to have a great friend who lives in Vail who introduced me to the joys of climbing 14'ers. I am also goal driven and do better when I have a challenge. You put the two together, and you have match made in heaven. But there has to be better stories out there. Does anyone have anything to share - inspirational or not...

I live in Washington State, and we certainly do have some beautiful country up here, but when I go down to the Sierra... well, it's like coming home.

I grew up in southern California. Some of my first memories growing up were camping at Sequoia, Lake Tenya, and Yosemite Valley. Later, when I was 7 years old I went on my first backpack trip (Mt. Whitney), and loved it since. When I'm in those mountains all those wonderful memories come back.

Now I take my sons on backpacking trips in the Sierra. For me, Mt. Whitney and the Sierra are my magic places that offers comfort, beauty, challenges, pure joy.... and wonderful memories.

I blame my dad :-) for introducing me to the outdoors at an early age.

Two friends were instrumental in re-igniting the passion when I became rebellious and didn't want to have anything to do with my parents: An older childhhood friend who needed a partner for a Whitney attempt back in '72 and highschool buddy who introduced me to technical climbing when I returned from the Whitney summit.

Now if I don't spend a couple of days a week in the mountains, whether it's a road/mountain bike ride in the local mountains, or a trip up to the Sierra, I start to feel like I'm missing something.

Why Mt. Whitney or any other mountain adventure? For me it is simply the magic of relying on my own power to move through the most amazing sights in the world. As our society continues to glorify sitting on your ass and watching a screen, work 60 hours a day to be "sucessful" and lower your carb intake to be in style, a walk in the mountains helps me center myself.

That's the big question isn't it? Everybody always asks that. Why do you climb?

For me I don't really have a simple answer. Sure a lot of us use the line "Because it's there", but there's usually more too it than that. For me there are a number of reasons. There's the challenge of it, the breathtaking views, the freedom, the building of confidence and character, as well as the feeling of accomplishment, etc.

I too have to mention my father and grandfather. They both loved the outdoors. After they died it forced me to look back at their lives and then at my own. I realized that our lives are defined by what we do in the short time we have. This forced a change in my simple, unchallenged life. Just over 2 years ago I hadn't climbed a single peak (nothing significant anyway). Since then I've hiked/climbed over 200. The more peaks I climb the more satisfied I am with my life knowing that I haven't just wasted it. At this point I feel like I can't slow down. I keep seeking ever increasingly difficult challenges. In some way I feel that my life should be a complement to my father and grandfather.

Having said this I am now surprised when I talk to people who just don't get it (climbing mountains). Some people (perhaps most) simply have no interest in any sort of challenge or anything outside the norm. I try to convince them, but they will have none of it. I guess I shouldn't get upset, for I too was once in that boat.

I am definitely inspired by the lives of others. Not long ago I saw an article about Hulda Crooks ("Grandma Whitney") that really inspired me. If you don't know who Hulda Crooks is then do read this article:

<a href="http://www.llu.edu/news/today/dec3/llu.htm">Grandma Whitney<a>

I could probably go on, but somehow I am never satisified with my answer to this question. It seems that words can only go so far. Beyond that one must journey to the top of a mountain to truly understand.

i love the outdoors and a good challenge. i had a miscarraige a few mths ago and wanted to do something that i wouldn't have been able to do if i were still pregnant, while i had the chance. i have friends who invited me to go on little hikes and stuff, but i always figured i could do that stuff with kids, easily, but this stuff would take more planning and be harder with kids. it was south america or this. i've travelled all central america. this just seemed better for now. this is part of the reason i really want to make it to the top. if i don't now, who knows when i'll get to go, again. we'll prob have kids... and man, i didn't train nearly this hard even for rim to rim to rim!!! kinda tired of getting up at 4am to drive to flag and do high elevation hikes!

i'm really looking forward to it and anxious that i'll be able to make it! something about being determined and doing it for a different sort of reason, too-like the women u hear about who have cancer and hike everest. something about it that's hard to explain. i'm hoping to have a great success story, though.

My name is Jim and I'm a peakaholic.....

Posters above are right, it is addictive. Not just Whitney, but climbing any of the great peaks in the high Sierra. It is a form of therapy I suppose as day to day worries become almost trivial as you challenge yourself to climb peaks, try new routes, bag new peaks, or bag the same peaks repeatedly. You return to civilization physically tired yet refreshed in a spiritual way. Keeps things in perspective.

sierragator, must you peak? Hm?

So here is a piece of climbing lore: Rich mentioned the famous line from George Mallory when asked why he was attempting Everest for the third time: "Because it is there". This has commonly become understood to mean that he and other mountaineers were climbing because of the pure challenge of the mountain. Actually, what Mallory was saying was "because IT is there"; he believed that there was something spiritual or other-worldly to be found on the summit. For example Mallory wrote: "For it depended entirely on me as to whether the myth of the mountain was to be transformed and the path found between the supernatural and reality."

For me, climbing is about rising to the many physical and mental challenges needed to make it safely, and with style, to the summit and back, the camaradery of spending several days in the wilderness with good people and, like Mallory, because there is something good for the soul up there. I'll never forget my first time up Whitney, the first big mountain I ever climbed, when I hated almost every step. When I got back, however, I couldn't wait to go again and have enjoyed (almost) every moment in the mountains ever since.

My Dad was in the Army and we lived in Japan for three years. When I was nine, and again at ten, we climbed and summitted Mt. Fuji.

Fast forward forty years and one day my son & I were talking about all our past camping trips when he was a child. I told him that I regretted not being able to take him to Japan to climb Mt. Fuji. One thing led to another and we discovered Mt. Whitney.

This year will be our third consecutive trip with the past trips both successful. Our crew will be six, as others have caught my love of Mt. Whitney, the store at the Portal, the campground and the great people on the trail.

Wishing you all good hiking and good weather!!

This is great - it's this kind of discussion I was hoping to generate. My first trip up Whitney was a last minute thing. I had climbed 14'ers before and friends of mine thought I would be a good add-on to a trip - experience you know - but each 14'er is unique. I had been planning to do a metric century bike ride instead, but as others have stated, peak fever predominated, and I gave up that persuit in order to climb Whitney. I had a month to prepare, and even managed a flight out to Colorado (I live in the Bay Area) to climb Yale, which I ended up not summiting due to snow and ice over a talus field with a 500 foot drop - decided I liked my life too much! But I did make it to 14000 feet. My trip up Whitney was sheer torture to be honest. My quads were not in the condition they needed to be in, and my knees hurt the entire way up and down. We had a guy in our group who got altitude sickness, and we had to wait for an hour and a half for him to figure out how to tie his shoes on the section that goes back up after you summit. He finally started to be coherent at trail camp, but even then he was not okay. That trip actually turned me on to Search and Rescue and wilderness medical training, both of which have already come in handy. This trip I'm better prepared, and I'm really excited about being able to climb again. The mountains have changed my life in so many fabulous ways, that I thank the heavens every day that my friend in Vail helped me to discover them.

My nomination for one of the greatest bits of wisdom ever posted on this great Board:

"As our society continues to glorify sitting on your ass and watching a screen, work 60 hours a day to be "sucessful" and lower your carb intake to be in style, a walk in the mountains helps me center myself."

Thank you for this pithy yet oh-so-accurate quote. I love it! If these Bozo's chowing down on the Atkins diet would get off their duffs and physically exert themselves, they wouldn't need to eat 5 steaks a day and limit themselves to .01 grams of carbs a day.

P.S. Has anyone ever told these Atkins buffs that they're basically eating an all-Elvis diet? (pound of bacon a day, 22 pats of butter, 57 Jimmy Dean pork links per hour, etc). And the King died at 42.

I hike and bag peaks because it's a rich man's lifestyle on a poor man's budget. When you hike long and hard, you live life to its fullest in all its many shades of despair and glory. Let no one tell me that someone who thru hikes the Appalachian Trail, PCT, the Long Trail in Vermont or the JMT isn't a fuller, deeper, wiser person that someone in Beverly Hills who drives a Ferrari makes a ton of dough but doesn't have a clue about what life is all about. They're empty inside and will never find the true fulfillment we find in bagging peaks like Whitney.

Hiking is a great leveler, it challenges the mental and physical parts of a person in equal measure. Life has become so easy now that the difficulties of life in 1900 have vanished today. This has made us a weaker, duller, less interesting lot of people. Hiking re-introduces a certain rigor into your life and the hiker becomes a richer person because of it.

Americans seem to view success in these ridiculously narrow confines: money, fancy cars, opulent house, nifty clothes. But if you don't have peace of mind, good health and a zest for something aside from chasing the almighty dollar, you have nothing.

With hiking you have everything: the smell of Deet and sunscreen in the pre-dawn morning, lacing up your boots, throwing on your backpack, checking your fluids, food and gear and putting one foot in front of the other ofr ten or twelve hours. That's self-discovery at its apex and something non-hikers can spend their whole life looking for and never finding it.

Candace,

While we have a lot of "dull and less interesting" people today, we had many more in 1900. At the turn of the 20th century, most people worked on the land or in Dickensian factories. Only the very fortunate few, people like John Muir and TR, even contemplated climbing mountains. For most others work was simply too exhausting and adventures were too costly to contemplate taking.

Today we live in a golden age when most Americans can afford to hike mountains like Whitney. What is lacking is their desire and interest to do so.

It is up to the hiking community to persuade couch potatoes of the wonders and joys of getting out into the back country.

Exactly 30 years ago this 4th of July,my family was driving home down the 395 coming home from vacation we I first saw the Sierra.My first trip back was when I got my drivers license at 16 and I've been coming back ever since.
Fishing for trout became a passion and I got pretty good at it over the years but only recently began enjoying backpacking and am hooked on it.
I've camped and backpacked overnight before but nothing ever too deep into the wild.Since I lost a lot of weight and train almost daily,the mountains have been calling me.I did my first Mt.Whitney hike 3 weeks ago,solo,and made it all the way.This coming weekend I'm going to Cottonwood Lakes with a shot at Langley.Three weeks from now I'm planning a 4 day adventure,not sure where yet but hopefully get another 14er.
Mt.Whitney will always be tops on my list.The experience and the great people I met while there will always be with me.I hope this doesn't sound too corny and I'm run out of here.

I HAVE to see what's on the other side!

Been driving up 395 to go fisihng for 40 years. I still stare at the mountains and wonder what's on the other side. Now I'm seeing what's there, one mountain and one valley at a time.

Whitney 2001.

The answer, if there is one, is complex. I guess some of it has to do with a kid's coloring book many years ago - National Parks, including Yosemite Falls. Got a chance to see the real thing while in college and some friends were going to do the west coast (from NYC).

We did visit and do some small, touristy day hikes, Vernal Falls, Sentinel Dome. Watched the then Fire Fall. Moved on to Yellowstone. But I fell in love with the Sierra. The granite and Range of Light experience.

Fast forward another 3 or 4 years and I was driving from Tucson to San Francisco. Darn but if one of those FREE gasoline service station maps did not show this dotted line, labeling it the High Sierra Trail. Yes, a road map. I stopped at Kings Canyon/Sequoia and inquired. I had done only a limited amount of backpacking but had enough.

It was suppose to be an out and back. It took longer than I expected and I had to hitch back to my car. It was a grand nine day trip. I was alone but met some fantastic people. Whitney was on the way. I slept on top. Exited at the portal. I have done quite a large number of trips to the Sierra since, first from NYC, then Chicago and now from the Seattle area. I have been up Whitney two more times after that first journey, last year being the most recent.

I would hope to do it again and maybe yet again. Time will tell....

Hiking has not always been easy. There have been difficult and tiring trips. But most of the difficulties fade leaving wonderful memories.

The mountains are my temple.

My reasons are quite simple - I think. I like the outdoors; I love being in high places; the views from the tops of mountains and along trails are great motivators. The physical challenge is also very satisfying. I find that hiking is a great way to stay fit - it beats doing something indoors in a gym.

I don't know if I am necessarily a better person than someone who lives in an expensive house and drives expensive cars just because he/she does not hike. Each of us has our own way of finding fulfilment and that is what makes the world interesting, perhaps ... After all, some of the characteristics that are required to complete a long hike such as Whitney - motivation, dedication, planning and perserverance - can be applied to pretty much anything: for example, some indoor type who tinkers with electronics stuff and builds cool things ...

To witness my wife's and daughter's smile when they reached the summit - their first summit climb ever.

Congrats to them! And to you for taking them there. What an accomplishment!