MJ and I dayhiked Whitney and Muir on Monday 7/07. We spent Friday and Saturday at Horseshoe Meadows, hiking to Chicken Spring Lake. Saturday evening we checked into room 7 at the Dow Villa. Sunday we drove to the Portal and found the start of the old trail recommended by Don M.
We arose at 2 am on Monday morning in room 7 on 7/07. With that many sevens going for us we felt confident. We left the portal at 3:20 am. There was quite a traffic jam at first, but soon we were pretty much hiking alone with the exception of two guys from Costa Mesa who we orbited all day.
We made Outpost Camp at 5 am. We pumped water at Trail Camp. We made a liter of Cytomax and guzzled that and headed for the summit with 2 liters each. The trail above Trail Camp was clear of snow. There is some snow clinging to the mountainside at the cables, but the trail itself was clear.
We made Trail Crest at 9:30. Along the way to the top we looked for the route to Muir. MJ found a duck which marked the start, which I discounted. RJ Secor described the route as starting at a point marked by a magnetic bearing to the neck of Guitar Lake. I blame hypoxia for my failure to register the word "magnetic" and took a map bearing. Later down the trail was another duck which matched the incorrect bearing. We summited what I believe to be Aiguille Junior and Aiguille du Paquoir. Oops, shoulda listened to MJ.
We summited Whitney at 11:30 am. The weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky. The view was vast. We signed the register, which only went back to July 6. We spent about 15 minutes on top and then departed for Muir.
We left the trail at the correct place this time. We went too far right up the shallow chute described by RJ and got into some precariously balanced huge talus that I didn't like. We corrected and made it to the base of Muir. We poked around here and there and found a fairly easy third class route to the small summit. It had a great view of the main trail, especially the switchbacks from trail Camp.
It took us an hour to climb Muir, then we started the long trudge home. We made it back to the portal at 7:30 pm. By the time we stowed our packs and cleaned up a bit, the kitchen at the store was closed. No burger and beer for us! A 16 hour roundtrip to bag two 14ers, three if you count Aiguille du Paquoir. It was a tough day but we had a great time.
