Here is a day hike report from Saturday, July 10. I have an unusual perspective in that while I did not coordinate our trip, I was the only person in our group of seven hikers who had gone on (and organized) day hikes before. Even though our group had a wide age range (late 20s to early 60s), this is a story of people making wise choices in knowing when and where to turn back.
On three previous day hikes trips (in July 1994, 1999, and 2000) I had run into situations where people in our group had not come down in daylight hours, so I made a point to emphasize a “play it safe” attitude when I talked to members of the group. On my first trip to the summit, two experienced hikers led a loosely coupled group of over 10 people up to the summit, but I ended up accompanying a woman down from Mirror Lake in the dark after she pushed herself to go above Trail Camp. Since she was the slowest member of the group in our training hikes, I had encouraged her to stop at Trail Camp if she was having trouble keeping up with the rest of us. Nonetheless, I drove her over to the trailhead 45 minutes early since she had carpooled with me (and had told me about the group). It became interesting when her legs became painfully stiff on the way down around Trail Crest and the rest of the group was already on their way toward Trail Camp. Only one of the leaders was at the lake in Trail Camp when we arrived in the shadows of a setting sun (and he ran down from there to catch up with the rest of the group since I was with her). We arrived at the Portal after midnight (but somebody hanging around the Whitney Portal Store voluntarily came up to check on us).
Five years after the first hike, I organized a fifth anniversary hike for a few friends who had never been to the summit before (but who knew that I had gone). I was hoping that a smaller group would be a success story. Instead a couple of the people who had trouble going up the 97 switchbacks pushed themselves to go past Trail Crest when they probably should have turned back (I asked them if they really wanted to continue, and they said that wanted to go on). We were on the final traverse over to the base when one of the people had problems without my knowledge. I was waiting at the base when the youngest member of the group caught up with me to tell me that the rest of the group had turned back. I told her that she was almost at the summit, and asked her if there was a reason why she should not continue on to the summit if we did not spend much time there. I was encouraged when she told me that an experienced hiker (on vacation in the USA) that they met on the trail had come to the rescue, so the two of us continued on to the summit. We eventually rendezvoused with the rest of the group around Trail Crest and saw the group talking her way down the trail (she was disoriented). One of the members needed medication so I eventually escorted him down to Whitney Portal in the dark. Without going into all the gory details, she developed a heart problem, workers stationed at Trail Camp escorted her down to their camp, the other group members stayed to keep talking with her, and she was airlifted out from Trail Camp the next morning. The other members of our group then left Trail Camp and arrived at our campsite around noon the next day.
The next year I finally got to make it down the trail in daylight. One of the people invited an experienced hiker friend to join our group (when somebody else cancelled out), and he escorted her back down in the dark. Two younger people had no trouble going on ahead of the rest of us. That left me with one of the hikers who turned back before the summit the previous year, and he made it to the summit this time. It was nice to have two other people in the group with previous experience on the trail. It was also easier for the person who went the previous year to go back a second time. As they say, “The Mountain will still be there next year.”
On Saturday, four people made it to the summit and three people turned back at Trail Crest. We started on the trail just after 3 AM (after we learned that the Whitney Portal Store grill would be closing at 6:45 PM) and made it to the fringe of Trail Camp (before the toilets) just after 7 AM. The two youngest members of the group continued on their own up to the summit as the rest of us tried to stay connected in the 97 switchbacks. Fortunately we had a few FRS (“Talkabout”) radios and they were very beneficial as we kept track of our progress as the oldest member of our group got behind. I also had a printed copy of Wayne Pyle’s Excel based map of the 97 switchbacks and it was helpful for me to anticipate the cables and the final traverse at the top. I also heard a member of another group who passed us at the start of the 97 switchbacks miscount aloud two turns in the trail that were not true switchbacks (They were around switchback #8. Is that where 99 originally came from ???). After four of us made it to Trail Crest around 11 AM we took a lunch break as we monitored the progress of the final hiker. The four of us eventually decided to continue, but as we started down the backside there were several discussions between the three other first time hikers. One person asked about the steep side slope and decided to turn back when I told him that most of the remaining trail was similar terrain. Then there was discussion among the husband and wife team who coordinated the hike about the terrain and she turned back shortly thereafter. Fortunately her father was near Trail Crest when we called him on the radio and both of them went back down together (and took lots of pictures). Her husband and I ran into the first two hikers in the final traverse on their way down and we made it to the summit around 1:30 PM. We left the summit around 2:15 PM, made it to Trail Camp around 5PM, and arrived at the Portal around 7:30 PM (after hustling down from Trail Camp). The people who turned back at Trail Crest arrived back at the Portal around 5 PM. The two of us still on the trail kept radio contact with each other (I am not a good boulder hopper, but I can move fast on a fairly smooth trail. I like the trail below Lone Pine Lake) and around 7 PM the wife and her father paged us on our radios from the WPS. We kept in touch as the two of us converged to wrapped grill meals that were waiting for us in front of the store (the WPS grill had closed at 6:45). We all made it down before dark this time.
So what went right this time? We had a more cohesive group. We had a team approach (a husband and wife team had the passion to organize their first trip and I served as a consultant making a lot of reminders and suggestions). I made an orientation presentation to the other members of the group about three weeks before the trip. Key people had radios. People were more prepared for a variety of scenarios. People turned back when they should have (and as a result some people had time to take more pictures for the rest of the group).
So what did not work as well this time? When we acclimated at Whitney Portal for two nights (vice two nights at Onion Valley and the final night at the Portal like the previous trip) we ran into all sorts of distractions in the campground. On Thursday night a site next to us had a bear problem all night and apparently one attack on the food locker was successful. (The lockers had a quarter nut to turn 90 degrees with a separate handle mounted on a chain. If you grabbed the nut in the closed orientation when it was actually open the chain would prevent you from latching it all the way, so that may have been the cause). The group eventually left early that morning. Then the next night there was a group with a lot of children running around at the same site so we did not get to sleep as early as possible for our early wake up time on Saturday. It would have been nice if the WPS grill had closed at 7:45 PM (like my last visit), but considering all that that happened on our hike, it was still good that we left at 3 AM vice 4 AM. We were able to work around that.
As for the environment on the trail, it was windy in a number of areas on Saturday. On Thursday we had some high clouds over the trail in the afternoon but the hikers that I talked to only reported that there was wind at the summit. Friday was a clear day but there still was wind. On the trail there was not much wind up to about Lone Pine Lake but there was a lot of wind when we reached Bighorn Meadow/Park. I ended up putting on my gloves and windbreaker there (over a long sleeve wicking top) and kept them on for the rest of the trip to the summit. The wind died down as we approached the summit area but there was wind as we approached the cliff. There were a number of places with thin layers of ice on the 97 switchbacks (as well as a couple of places with snow next to the trail), but they were not a problem with our trekking poles. I also was surprised to see the final path to the summit going through the waist high snowfield past the final needle/window. In [late] July 1999 and 2000 I remember people climbing up the rocks between the window and the snowfield but the route was not well marked (so at least the longer route was well marked, and I assume that it is the official trail).
I am thankful for all the tips that have been posted on this bulletin board. (I encouraged most of our group to read this board and I occasionally sent out key postings to people). I ran across the board a year ago when a person in our informal hiking group had a passion to do the trail but had nobody willing to hike with him. I copied several postings to key people in the group as I told them that it was not practical to plan for a 2003 hike. Ironically, it turned out that the original person had some recent changes in his lifestyle that prevented him from going (that is why we did not have eight people in the group). While I tell people that the trip is a "get close to God experience" the exact scenario depends a lot on the "choices that we make." I hope that all the day hikers this summer make wise choices. "The Mountain will still be there next year."
Fred
