Way to go! On July 3rd this year, Whitney became my first summit attempted (and gained!, on the main trail). By the time I got home on the 4th, I was itching to do the MR! Now your report has gone and made that itch a full blown rash! Thanks for posting the great photos.
The breath within my lungs was so exhausted
from climbing, I could not go on; in fact,
as soon as I had reached that stone, I sat.
"Now you must cast aside your laziness",
my master said, "for he who rests on down
or under covers cannot come to fame;
and he who spends his life without renown
leaves such a vestige of himself on earth
as smoke bequeaths to air or foam to water.
Therefore, get up; defeat your breathlessness
with spirit that can win all battles if
the body's heaviness does not deter it.
A longer ladder still is to be climbed;
it's not enough to have left them behind;
if you have understood, now profit from it."
Then I arose and showed myself far better
equipped with breath than I had been before:
"Go on, for I am strong and confident."
We took our upward way upon the ridge,
with crags more jagged, narrow, difficult,
and much more steep than we had crossed before.
-Dante Alighieri
"The Divine Comedy"
Inferno,
Canto XXIV, Lines 43-63
I was thinking of this on my way up. Wanted to put it in the book but, well...a little long.
Happy Trails!
