JMT Day 15 / September 14, 2010 - Mt.Whitney and cheeseburgers

stats: 14 miles, 3000' gain, 6200' loss

We were so grateful that the nighttime low temps didn’t get anywhere close to what we’d seen the night before….we both slept warm and soundly and were well rested when the alarm went off.

As this was our last night in the tent, we no longer had to worry about our tent or clothes smelling like food and attracting bears, so we fired up the stove right next to our tent and finally got to have breakfast and coffee in our sleeping bags instead of out in the cold. We broke camp and joined the string of headlamps working up the switchbacks about an hour before dawn.

After spending two weeks almost entirely above 10,000ft we were incredibly well acclimated for Whitney and climbing the 14,497ft peak felt more like a casual stroll at Snoqualmie Pass (3000 ft), especially now that our food bins were down to just a couple pounds of food. We hit Trail Crest about an hour after sunrise..this is the spot where the west side trail we’d been on joins up with the Whitney Portal trail that everyone else is on for climbing Whitney as just a weekend outing…from there we had two miles and a thousand feet of gain to reach Whitney’s summit.

If we’d been in the sun, we’d have been plenty warm, but the two mile traverse runs along the west side, and our hands were freezing. We’d brought thin fleece gloves which were perfect for everything up until now…fortunately a spare pair of wool socks works as a fine pair of mittens in a pinch, so we continued on to the summit happily wearing socks on our hands.

As we neared the summit, I looked back and saw a familiar figure, and I said to Becky ‘hey, is that Larry?’ …I don’t think Becky said anything, but man oh man did her pace speed up…I think she was determined to hit the top before the speed-demon Larry got there.

The summit cabin came into view and before we knew it we joined Beverly and a young man who was Larry’s son on the summit…Larry strolled up a few minutes later and we all basked in the sunshine of Whitney’s summit celebrating our various journeys to get there. Larry’s son had come up the more challenging mountaineers route that morning and brought along soda, beer, chips, and chocolate…we were happy to help them lighten their pack and ate far too many Pringles.

After spending close to an hour on the summit, Becky and I grabbed our packs and started down…the expected crowds coming from Whitney Portal were beginning to show up. The vast majority of the hikers looked like hell, going so slow and pressure breathing as we chatted and hopped over boulders…not everyone gets as much time as we had had to be acclimated.

We descended the hundred or so switchbacks blasted and carved into Whitney’s east slope and after a short lunch break we met up with Beverly again who we stuck with for the rest of the hike out. I think Becky was happy to have someone new to chat with and I was happy that she was apparently unaware of the wonderfully rapid pace that Beverly was setting. We pounded down the 6300ft to the trailhead by mid-afternoon and before even going to the car for a clean change of clothes we were at the Whitney Portal Store ordering cheeseburgers, fries, and cokes. Despite the pile of food being massive, it was devoured in an instant. We said goodbye to Beverly and headed for the car, which fortunately the bears had taken no interest in over the past two weeks.

A quick drive north on highway 395 brought us to Bishop where we found a motel and hit the pharmacy for all the toiletries we couldn’t leave in our car due to bears ripping into cars for anything that had a nice smell at the trailhead. I finally got to shave off my sad little beard and Becky spent a good half-hour scrubbing the dirt off her feet. By 8:00 we were starving again, so we headed to a nearby taqueria where we ate approximately ten pounds of tacos and tortas.

The next day we hit the Schatt's Bakery where we tried to curb our insatiable appetite and only eat a couple pastries each, then it was off to the coast….we reached the Redwoods by nightfall, camped, then drove home via the northern CA and OR coast the next day. After two weeks of sunny, mostly hot weather, driving along the gray, drizzly coast was quite the change and definitely signaled that we’d squeezed the last of summer out of this vacation and it was time for fall to begin.

After we got back, we read that Cliff Mass, local Seattle weather guru, had officially declared this the worst summer in Seattle since 1980. Upon hearing that declaration we were extra happy to have had the opportunity to spend two weeks basking in the (mostly) warm California sunshine.

Making sock puppets at 13,000ft

Closing in on Whitney’s summit

Views out to the east…our car is down there somewhere…

We made it!

Beverly, Pete, Becky, and Larry

View to the south

Guitar Lake, our camp the night before, is in the lower right

Only a hundred switchbacks to go.

Almost at Whitney Portal

All done! now where's the burger stand?

Whitney Portal Store cheeseburgers are really, really good…

Apparently my backpack straps plus two weeks of grime makes a frowny face on the back of my t-shirt