First of all, let me thank all of you who post to this site. It has been a valuable source of information as I prepared for my first summit attempt of Mt. Whitney. At times some of the posts seem alarmist, but they are clearly well intentioned. This is a serious hike and people should know what they’re getting into before they set foot on the mountain.
A few years ago, I got the wild idea to summit Mt. Whitney on my 50th birthday. It was a goal I set for myself and I quietly began preparing and training for it. I assumed none of my friends or family would be able to or want to accompany me and it wasn’t until late last year that I even told my wife I was going to do it. Before long, everyone knew and to my surprise my good friend from the east coast, his son stationed at Ft. Bragg and my two daughters all wanted to go. Over the last several months, I encouraged them to get into shape and made final plans.
Not knowing how well the others had trained or their susceptibility to altitude sickness I planned to spend June 1 – 3 in the mountains west of Bishop. Here we did small day hikes, practiced self arrests and otherwise just acclimated to the altitude. (We were at 9000-10,000ft). During this time the weather was not great, with snow, hail and graupel (my new word of the day) most of the time. Wednesday I took a very pleasant hike in the snow until I could no longer make out the trail. All the way I was thinking I’d have to call off the Whitney attempt due to the weather.
Thursday morning I decided that since we already had our permits, we might as well drive out to the portal and see how it looked. Good call! The weather was perfect; a nice cool day, little wind and not a cloud in the sky. We started out about an hour behind schedule at 9:00am heading for Trail Camp. We soon settled into groups based on our hiking pace; my youngest and my god son in the lead, followed by myself and my oldest. The big man brought up the rear, way behind us. In fact, we didn’t see him again until evening.
It was a pleasant hike. We started seeing some snow patches on the side of the trail starting around 9500ft, but it was nothing to be concerned with. The log bridge was covered in ice and snow which made for an interesting but uneventful crossing. We ran into the lead group again just above Outpost Camp where they had stopped for lunch. We too had lunch and doctored some blisters that my oldest had gotten. We probably spent 45 minutes here before heading back up the trail.
Above Mirror Lake we hit our first snow field crossing the trail. It was fairly narrow, ~20yds and we passed it with no problems. We continued up, soon passing the tree line and eventually reached Trailside Meadow. Up to here the trail had been fairly dry and snow free. Here however we saw two paths, one to the left heading up the snow field and another to the right covered in slush. My daughter made it quite clear she was not going up the snow field so we proceeded to the right. As we went up, the slush and snow got deeper. We had both put on our gaiters at the first snow field, which was good. Several hundred yards up we came to the first of two more snow fields crossing the trail. These two were quite narrow, maybe 10-15yds, but a slip here would have resulted in a long slide and a painful stop, so we got out our ice axes and proceeded carefully. The snow was soft so it proved to be an easy crossing.
Just below Trail Camp the two paths reconverged and it was solid snow the rest of the way except for occasional granite outcroppings. The first group made Trail Camp around 2:30pm, we came in around 3:00pm. Again, it was a beautiful day. We sat for a while and relaxed. We met a day hiker who had gotten to the cables before deciding to turn around and wait for his buddy at Trail Camp. We later learned his buddy came down about 10pm and they both headed back down. I don’t know if his buddy made it to the summit. Trail Camp was covered in snow. There were only one or two dry gravel areas to set up tents and we didn’t get either of these. We pitched our tents on the rocks and waited for the big man. Around 6:30pm he radioed that he was a few hundred feet below Trail Camp and asked for someone to come down and take some of his gear. I have to say, he has a good son. There’s no way I was going down to carry his stuff up. About 7:30pm, the big man finally made it. He shouldn’t have been up there. He was way overweight, out of shape and carrying way too much. Gear-wise though, he was the best prepared of all of us as he had done a lot of snow hiking and camping back east.
The night was cold and the wind was howling down the mountain. I don’t think any of us slept much. At 5:00am, my alarm went off, but no way was I getting out of my bag. Around 6:00am, the issue was forced when I accidentally rolled off the ledge next to my tent dropping about two feet into the snow below. When I got up it was clear but there was a dark cloud over the mountain. I saw another group heading up the switchbacks and decided if I was going to do this, I had to get going. As a packed my gear, the graupel started falling, I should say blowing, harder and harder. By the time I got my gear packed the group on the switchbacks had turned around and were heading back. I woke up the others and told them it was time to get out of Dodge.
I packed up the girl’s tent and gear as fast as my frozen fingers would move and soon set off down the mountain. It was probably around 7:00-7:30am but I didn’t check. The big man and his son, I gather, followed about 30 minutes after. I was concerned about finding the trail, but fortunately, someone had blazed it for us. Between Trail Camp and Trailside Meadows, the slush on the trail had frozen over and was now covered with the newly fallen graupel. This made for a slippery trip down. We probably should have put on our crampons but we were all cold and anxious to get down and nobody wanted to take the time or effort to do so. As it was, I slipped twice on relatively flat trail sections. The snow field crossings were again soft and easily traversed, but we were also ready with our ice axes.
The trail remained icy down to just above Mirror Lake. The graupel continued down past Outpost Camp and then suddenly it was clear and pleasant hiking once again. The remainder of the hike down was uneventful. We passed several groups on their way up. We talked or said hi to most and tried to relay the conditions up there. Most were prepared, some were not. I apologize if we offended anyone by laughing at them. Like us the day before, they were not going to turn around and laughing just seemed to be the best way to get the point across. We made it down about 11:30am and had one of the famous Portal burgers. Man it was good! The big man finally drug in around 2:00pm.
So I didn’t make it to the summit for my birthday. Someone on the board said the first priority should be to get down safely off the mountain. The second priority should be to summit. I couldn’t agree more. I know we made the right decision. But I must say I’m hooked, I WILL make it to the summit. If I can stay in shape, I think I can do it as a day hike. I know what to expect now. The trick will be to get a permit, preferably sometime in July or August.
Here’s a picture showing my friend and his son at Trail Camp that morning to give you an idea of the conditions. If you go be prepared, be safe and live to tell the tale.
Morning of June 5 
