I climbed Mt. Whitney in July with a coworker and his friend. This is how NOT to climb Mt. Whitney:
I had just gotten back from a week long scout camp at Camp Chawanakee. It was Monday, July 19. Due to scout camp I had missed my second anniversary, sorry Jacquie. My coworker and I had talked about our interests in the outdoors; hiking, camping, rock climbing and the like. As I walk into my office he asks, "Would you want to climb Mt. Whitney?" I believe my first response was, "Yeah man, I'll climb anything!" And then I began telling him how difficult it would be to get a permit and that it was way too late in the season to even think about getting a permit. We would have to wait until February or so to even enter the lottery for the next summer. But yeah, I would love to climb the mountain.
In order to climb Mt. Whitney (The highest point in the 48 states at 14,497 ft) you need a permit. There are two permits available for the main trail which is 22 miles round trip with 6100 feet of net elevation gain. You can get a day permit which allows you access to the trail for 24 hours. You can also get an overnight permit which gives you access to the trail for 48 hours.
Well he cut me off in the middle of my rant to tell me that he had gotten 3 'day' permits. Awesome! And then he went on, "Oh and the thing is the permits are for Saturday, July 24. We are leaving Thursday after work."
Tip #1
Do not give yourself only 3 days to prepare for the hike.
The first thing that I needed to do was to get permission to go on the trip. So I needed to take Friday off, I wasn't too worried about that one. Since I had missed our anniversary, I promised that we would make it up the next weekend. Oops.
Have I ever told you how much I love my wife? She is the best, hands down.
With minimal begging, and the best puppy dog eyes I could conjure up, Jacquie said that it was ok with her, but that I owed her big. Dinner, dessert, and my first born I think was the deal.
I hadn't really been too lazy in the months leading up to July. I had been playing soccer a couple times a week, ultimate frisbee on Fridays, and volleyball on Tuesdays, but I wouldn't really have counted it as training for Whitney. All things considered, it was probably those activities that got me up to the summit.
The short work week went by very quickly. I was able to obtain a pair of trekking poles (I am very glad that I swallowed me pride and used them during the hike) and a water purifier.
Tip #2
Do not assume that the hike to the top of Mt. Whitney is "just like a long walk."
We left for Lone Pine after work on Thursday. The three of us had met up on Wednesday to gather together and divide up our group gear. Our plan was to get up early on Friday so that we could be first in line at the ranger station. We wanted to see if we could get overnight permits which would give us a better shot at making the summit. With an overnight permit we would be able to start our hike on Friday, sleep on the mountain about halfway up, and have that much less to hike on Saturday. After a couple hours of waiting around and even getting two permits (we needed three) we gave it up. It turned out that just after we turned our two overnight permits back in and redeemed our day permits another overnight permit was made available. Bummer. Looking back now I don't know how much it would have helped us due to the fact that it was already past noon and we still had to get to the trailhead.
Tip #3
Do not go from sea level to 14,497 feet in 36 hours.
I live in Goleta where there is a lot of air. I never realized how thick the air actually is. We left Goleta at about 7pm on Thursday and got to lone pine after midnight. Lone pine is at about 3700 feet. We got to our 'base camp' (8400 feet) at around 4pm on Friday. We made it to the summit (14497 feet) at about 1pm on Saturday. My head was not happy, my lungs were not happy, my stomach was very upset, and my muscles were seemingly nonexistent. What I didn't realize (or didn't bother to look into because I "knew" it wouldn't affect me) was that there is about half as much oxygen at 14000 feet as there is at sea level. My body really likes oxygen. They are great friends. I felt pretty good up until about 10500 feet. Until this point the hike had been a fairly consistent moderate grade and we had taken it really slow. After this point we left one of our members behind and continued on at an increased pace (thunderstorms are common in the afternoon). The next 2000 feet of elevation gain are accomplished by navigating 100 or so switchbacks which get you to the ridge. The entire path is exposed and consists of fairly loose rock. I made it up the switchbacks with no problem. It was when I got to the top that my body said, "Wait a minute, where did my dear friend oxygen go?" I felt like I had the flu during the hike from the ridge to the summit. My head ached and I could not eat or drink. I felt absolutely drained of energy.
Tip #4
You have a water purifier. USE IT!
In my infinite wisdom I had decided that I would bring all the water that I would need on the hike. Yes we had water purifiers and tablets. Yes there would be plenty of opportunities along the way to replenish our supply. But that would mean I would have to stop. I don't need to stop. MUST CLIMB FAST. I also didn't want to have to take everything out of my pack so that could get to my camel pak and then have to put everything back in. Well there wouldn't have been that much stuff in your stupid pack if you weren't carrying 7 liters of water! Water is heavy. My pack weighed around 35 pounds or so. Half of that was water. I was giving water away at the summit. I was pouring it out on my way back down because I was so tired. I still had water left when I got back to camp. Lesson learned.
Tip #5
When nature calls, just answer, its easier that way.
The thing that I was looking forward to the least was the fact that a strict "Leave No Trace" policy was enforced on the hike. I always do my best to leave an area in better condition than I found it when camping. Due to the amount of people that hike Whitney every year, and the fact that they could not longer afford to remove the waste from an outhouse at the summit (More info) each hiker was given a "WAG Bag" to ... well you get the idea. I was determined not to have to use this bag, but as I continued hike while ignoring the call of nature I began to feel worse and worse. I finally broke down and had to use stupid bag. Although it was not a pleasant experience, I should say that the WAG bag system is very well designed and might be a nice addition to a 72 hour kit.
