My son and I had an interesting couple of days that started when we left the Central Valley and headed through Yosemite, over Tioga Pass, and on into Bishop where we spent the evening. This would be my seventh trip to Mt. Whitney, and my grown sons' first time. On the way over I was mentioning to him that several years ago I ran into the infamous Bob R on the main trail and how nice that was. Well our first stop on Sunday was Onion Valley to hike up to Kearserge Pass to acclimate. Well who do we run into on the trail but Bob R! WE now have a picture of the three of us! Monday we headed up to Whitney Portal where we hiked up to Lone Pine Lake so my son could get a feel for the trail was like, to help acclimate and to fish a bit. All went well, catching a few fish, relaxing and in general have a father/son adventure. Got down to the Dow Villa, had dinner and got some rest for the big adventure that started Tuesday, around 1:30am. It was great weather, we made good time, met the seven year old climber, whos' final words to us to "to the top of the mountain"!! We continued on until Trail Camp where the smoke from the fire in Kings Canyon/Sequoia started taking a toll on me. I am 64 years and have summited 6 times. I had enough at Train Camp but my son decided to tackle the switchbacks. I was so proud of him, watching him carefull make his way up, keeping in contact with an old pair of walkie talkies we had around the house. When he completed the last switchback wanting to know how much more to the summit, where I told him it's not the distance but the time it takes at that elevaltion. He then radioed he had no more water! Several seconds later he called to say he was coming back down, didn't want to take that chance by getting into trouble up there. That had to be a really tough decision but again, I am so proud that he made the right decision. We rested up a bit, then began the journey down. Earlies in the day we met Albert and his wife from San Diego, who we played tag with at times both up and down. Just before we came to Lone Pine Lake, we rounded a corner on the trail to see a hiker on the ground with someone doing CPR on him. The mans' son was standing near by in shock. A SAR helio came in and landed in a clearing just above the lake, packed the hiker into the helio and flew off. It was just a horrible thing to observe, when my son and I were doing just that same thing-hiking along, when things went horrible wrong for that family. We left to continue our hike down to the portal in silence. I said more than a few prayers for both those folks. Had a great pizza at the pizza place in town, met RandyS from this board and some great conversations about hiking acclimating, what to eat on the trail, ect. We also ran into Tyler Armstrong, the little guy showed he was really a big guy, after summited Whitney. Funny how he looked so much better than I did after doing the same thing! A great ending to a father/son adventure. By the way, the trail was almost entirly clear of snow. The was one patch coming into Trail Crest but the trail was pounded into the snow so no big deal. During my six summits, I have never seen the water in Lone Pine Creek so high. The crossings were no problem but with all that water, the flowers were just awesome.
Safe hiking!
Bob d
