All posts tagged as Mt Whitney CA

Standing on Badwater, CA America’s lowest point. The drive through Death Valley was spectacular. 45MPH winds here, dramatic cloudy sky. Next stop Vegas

Blaine just had his biggest slip of the climb, in the icy trailhead parking lot. Made it back with a few blisters & lots of memories

We have a 6.5 mile 4,000′ drop descent, today but we both feel good & are ready for some civilities. Heading down soon, won’t blog much, serious stuff ahead.

We were only two on mountain yesterday, today we saw 15 going up. Many of them have turned around at the switchbacks. Most don’t have the proper equipment.

Enjoying perfect mountain morning as we reluctantly prepare to leave this wonderful place. It’s clear & cool, be a nice hike down.

Back at camp, cooking. Crampons all day, snow conditions varied from deep powder, to firm. Temp varied from sweat to freeze. There really are 99 switchbacks.

Missed our target of Sunset by 45 minutes. Long break at a very dark summit, the we descend back down by the light of our headlamps

I now stand with my new friend Blaine Yates on the 14,505′ summit of Mt Whitney, the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states.

We wound our way through the ridge along some very dicey stuff with lots of exposure & little margin for error. Not blogging much, need to stay very focused

We just left Whitney Trail for the awesome 210 mile John Muir which I hope to hike end to end at some point. Read about the JMT here goo.gl/yBFrbK

Just crossed some steep exposed ice. Made it safely across. Hard work here, but all is well.

We are geared up and moving out now, headed for summit. It’s a cold clear beautiful day in the mountains. A good day to be alive.

Whitney is very steep climbing. We were exhausted last night after 10 hours & dined on 14deg pizza to avoid cooking. Melting snow for water now & gearing up

It was a big day with and we are now in our bags to sleep. Blaine is a strong climber.. View coming up was spectacular. We have a very uneven camp site.

Just completed our first shortcut & yes, it was a bad idea. 18 deg, dark and we have another 600′ to high camp. Excepting shortcut, trail is in great shape!

Took our first break at 2hrs. Moving out and just encountered our first snow, but its well packed and icy, no issue for our micro spikes 42 Deg, Perfect Day!

We are leaving the trailhead now & have 4,000′ of climbing before we reach high camp. Weather demands a lot of heavy gear, so it’s going to be a long day.

The allure of big breakfast & warm bed, won out over benefits of sleeping a few thousand feet higher. We have our gear locked and are driving to trailhead.