Mt Whitney September 15-17th. 2007
Trail report by Carol Dower .....aka "The Solar Baker".

I first heard about the "Whitney Experience" from Sandy Becker in the late 80s. and  early 90s from her many trips up the mountain.

I enjoy hiking to the top of tall mountains for the view so thought it might be something I would want to do. Sandy had invited me more than once, but due to work I never had time to train.

The year was 2006, my last year working, August 26th.  Sandy came through my check stand and was disappointed because her trip up the mountain did not happen! The other people with her had unavoidable or foreseeable reasons why they could not go forth to conquer the mountain.

She asked me to go next Aug. 2007 and I said I would start training in January.

We started hiking in Lassen National Park as soon as it opened with the intent of getting a little altitude training in. We hiked a different hike in the park every time and sometimes two if time allowed and on some hikes I wore a pack for weight training.

I hiked Feather Falls once a week for 7 weeks.

I wanted to get acclimated to altitude before our climb so knowing our first date to try to summit Mt. Whitney was Aug. 15.th. I reserved a campsite at Summit North campground in Lassen at 6800 ft. elevation from July 27th.-Aug. 4th. And after over 30 miles of hiking at altitude for a week I felt acclimated and strong!

I came home and hiked around home with my 30# pack and hiked Feather Falls again, also rode my mountain bike up and down hills... finally the time came and we had to re-schedule our trip to

Sept.14 which we knew was later than we should have.

I picked Sandy up in my Toyota truck and we started across Sac. through early morning traffic (not too bad) to highway 50, then 89 to Markleeville,  it was my first time through the area and the fall colors from quaking aspen?  were turning very nice.

We stopped in Bishop for a bite to eat and gas and off we went again,,, it was at this point I started feeling the effects of driving and altitude 8500 ft. passes, so when we pulled into the Forest Service station at Lone Pine and found we would be waiting for 3 hours for a permit I decided to rest in the back of my camper. The winds were gusting very high and rocking the truck quite a bit. We finally secured our permits at 5pm. and went straight to the Portal to set up our tents and get some food. The Portal store stays open until 8 pm. And it was hopping with people from a Portal Forum planned group hike that was leaving the next am. for a climb up the mountaineer’s route. Sandy had one of Doug Sr.’s  HUGE hamburgers (only ate half) and I tried to stuff some delicious French fries in my poor stomach.  We woke up at 6 am. and I fired up the Jet boil stove and we had a light breakfast of oatmeal and hot liquids and after breaking camp and getting our water bottles filled we started up the trail at 7am.. It is about 3.8 miles to Outpost Camp where we were to camp for the night. We arrived in good shape and none the worse for wear at 11:15 am after a stop and  pictures at spectacular Mirror Lake.

The rest of the day at Outpost Camp was spent in the warm sun watching the travelers as they jaunted, wobbled or crawled either back to their tents or the trail to the bottom of the hill. I went to the creek by our tent and in a bowl I solar heated water to wash up with and by afternoon it was a lot more pleasant than the runoff water temp.

The night came and went without much wind and the temps. were close if not freezing but we were both  warm and comfortable.

The morning started at 8 am. on our way to above 12 K. and Trail Camp ... we made it to Trail Camp in three hours only stopping to take pictures of the spectacular scenery.

With our tent and camp made I wandered off  to a nearby pond to filter our water.

We spent the rest of the day at Trail Camp watching people go by on their way up or down or starting camp or breaking camp after successful or in some cases unsuccessful attempts.

The weather from 11:15 when we got there until sundown over the trail crest was, one minute shirtsleeve no wind to a minute later every piece of warm clothing and serious gloves on fast...you could feel winter coming through the sun that day!

The winds were at times 30 mph gusts out of the north above the switchbacks.

We were camped against the large wall with a group of 3 fellas on our south side from Grass Valley and around there, who were very nice and I thank them for making my Birthday special with their wishes. We met the north side campers when one, a Mr. Smith, from Paradise who was  a retired Butte Crew 1 leader from our area. He came to borrow a cooking pan because the 3 of them thought the other had one and had been eating crunchy cold food. We loaned them our stove and pot and they were able to get a hot meal.

Now when you're at over 12K one of the first things you learn real fast is....as soon as the sun goes down it gets really cold.

We slept until midnight and Sandy needed to get over me to the door so I had taken an excedrin pm an hour before and was in no condition to operate heavy equipment as they say and took a step past the door... of course you see I did not want my new socks to get dirty so I took them off and stepped on a sharp rock which sent me off balance (still ok) in a graceful star lit landing with my right hand perched balancing all my weight on my right and when my left foot went to find the ground it grazed a frozen sharp edge of granite rock and took off a pea size flap of skin.

It was the ball of the foot and really stung for a short while... I thank Sandy for her fast neosporin (frozen at first) and bandage. I applied a blister patch in the am with 100 percent relief.

The night at trail camp was very cold and the wind came up at about 4 a.m. and blew some strong gusts at the tent which in turn caused the frozen drops of condensation on the fly to pelt the cover. I thought at first it was light hail. After a few more hours of sleep, it was time to rise.

I ate some hot oatmeal, breadsticks, and jerky and Sandy had some hot liquids and granola and off we went to Trail Crest, our next elevation feat .I enjoyed the steepness of the switchbacks and thought the cables were no problem at all, but now when you pass the cabled area the trail looks like if you had ice or snow in this part it would be very tricky to get by and one slip to the south and no way are you stopping until you hit the rocks 2000 feet down.

When we got to Trail Crest there were 3 or 4 young hikers that had just come up from camping on the north side below and they were close to hypothermia from such a cold night! They were seated together in the small spot of sun that was there at the sign at Trail Crest and were waiting for their bodies to defrost before they headed to the top.

The hike from Trail Crest was quite enjoyable to me because in spite of the continuous climb the   views are spectacular and take your thoughts off of everything else!

We arrived at the summit of Mt. Whitney, elevation 14,496 feet, at 11:45am to greetings from 4 or 5 friendly fellow hikers who offered to take pictures of us with our cameras. We walked around getting some great pictures of the awesome spellbinding views.

When we got to the top a guy came up and said it was his 50th. birthday and someone else said it was theirs also, and the 50 year old said his friend Colleen was enroute up and it was her 59th. B.day ( we saw b.day boy later and had a great laugh... Colleen never made it to the top).

The laugh was because after we got a short distance off the top here came a lady and I started

singing happy B.day to her. Well she was shocked and said "how did you know it was my b.day?"

I replied that her friend on top had informed us, well she still had a question on her face and her question was who told us she was 59 years old because she just turned 60. We later found out that her name was Lynn not Colleen who was 59 and did not make it to the top so there you are another birthday person. We left the peak at 12:15 p.m.

The trip back to Trail Camp was quick and we arrived there at 3 pm. When we got to Trail Camp I went off to filter water for our 6.8 mile hike down to the Portal. The break down of camp and my water filtering took us one hour and fifteen minutes to complete and off with our packs we went.

The way down was unexciting until dark came and then it was thrilling to not see anything but what is right out in front of the headlamp. I was not too worried about bears but I always think of mountain lions as I did on the last 2 miles of the hike... still not worried but wondering.

We arrived at the trail head and dumped our trash and threw our packs in the back of the truck.

The time was 9:15 p.m. and no one was around but the parking spaces were mostly taken, the  

generator to the Store was kicked off at 8 p.m. so it was dark.

We drove back to Lone Pine for a shower and food and a good nights rest.

The eight hour drive home was spent reflecting on our successful adventure climbing the highest mountain in the lower 48 states…… and planning for next years summit.

The End.