Other than an overnight in 2005 (we were stormed off the mountain), I hadn't done any hiking/climbing with my nephew since Christmas 2000.
He contacted me a few weeks ago stating that he wanted to head up the Main Trail to see how quickly he could get to the summit. Of course, I agreed.
Matt and his dad picked me up on Friday afternoon and we headed up to Onion Valley. Arriving fairly late, I decided we'd head up the Robinson Lake Trail. 52 minutes later (about 5 minutes ahead of out turn around time) we were there.
Photos:
http://piotrowski.smugmug.com/gallery/5551363_npKCfSaturday morning we headed up the Kearsarge Pass Trail. Considering what I had gone through a week earler, I was wondering if I was going to go through some tramatic experience on the way up. Matt pulled me up in 1:56. Pretty impressive considering how many times we stopped for photo ops.
Photos:
http://piotrowski.smugmug.com/gallery/5551767_C2uGAWe couldn't get a space in any of the campgrounds up at Whitney Portal, so we spent the night at the Hostile. Cool place! We got up at 4:00am and were on the trail at about 5:30am. Within about 15 seconds, I took a look at my HR monitor and noticed that I was already above 150bpm. Those who know me know that I don't like to redline any more, so I knew I was going to be in for a lot of hours of pain. It finally started to get easier for me as we passed through 13,000' (full acclimitization has it's advantages). We reached Trail Crest in 3:24, a personal best for me. I asked Matt whether he wanted to jog to the summit and probably beat 4:00, or cruise up. He selected cruise mode. As we saw the chimney stack on the Summit Hut, I realized that if we got up to the summit in around a minute, we'd tie my personal best of 4:18. Matt agreed that he wanted that, so we jogged up and managed to do it. We spent almost an hour on the summit. After a nice long break we took a bunch of summit photos, signed the register and then headed over to have a look at the Mountaineer's Route. (Matt had climbed it when he was 9.) He thought that his age, it wouldn't seem scary and was surprised to discover that he still thought it was.
Photos:
http://piotrowski.smugmug.com/gallery/5552213_jjjHhThe hike down was very interesting:
Rain, hail and thunder.
Mark (Met him last winter when they were heading down from having spent a night at the Portal during one of the big, early storms of the season.) was heading up with the same group of companions from a trip last winter.
Bob Rockwell, Chuck Faris and a companion whose name I can't remember were heading up for Whitney and Muir.
We spent nearly an hour talking with Ranger Brian. He's got to be one of the coolest people you'll meet in the back country. We had a great conversation about the NF situation and it'll be interesting to see what happens in the future in this regard. He also did a very good job of making Matt feel special concerning his time up Whitney.
And, probably the highlight of the day: I was walking across the pond area towards our car and thought I saw Kurt Wedberg through my foggy sunglasses. It didn't take long to realize it wasn't Kurt, but it was someone who recognized me. I recognized the face and voice, but couldn't place a name. Not wanting to embarrass myself, I didn't admit that I couldn't put a name to the person I was talking to. After a while he mentioned that we had met a number of years ago on the Mountaineer's Route and that his dad was none other than Wayne Pyle! What a pleasant experience. We had been talking about Wayne and Mike while looking at the top of the MR. I still point to Wayne's Chimney any time anyone asks me about an easy exit off of the MR. Both Matt and Vince were very excited to see Mike again. I've got tentative plans to have Mike on our August trip to the Palisades!
A good weekend, with Onion Valley and Whitney/Whitney Portal as bookends. No tramatic flashbacks to last week - only real pleasant memories!
