Mount Whitney trail, to the summit and back in one day

Summary

Location: Mount Whitney, Lone Pine California
Date & Time: 06/28/2015 02:30 AM
Distance: 24 miles
Duration: 14 hours 10 minutes
Difficulty (1-5): 5, This is one of the worlds most extreme day hikes!
Official web page: http://www.nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/whitney.htm

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Story

This hike is not close to be in the bay area that i normally write about but it was and will be the hike of my life. As much as i loved it all the way up and down it also was so much other feelings during the climb, the pain, the total exhausting feeling and of course the wonderful views and the challenge itself.

Because of this i have to share my story here, if you need any advises about doing this hike feel free to comment or email me.

Me at the summit, so happy!

This hike was a dream for me to do and to get everything that i experienced during the 14 hours hike / climb up and down into words will be impossible, but i will do my best.

I didn't get my permit in the lottery but was able to get a 24 hours permit for me and my wife on June 28th, about two months ago. At the beginning i was very confident to make it to the top but the closer to the attempt we got i become more  and more worried and anxious, mostly because of the height and i have never really tested my body at elevation above 10 000 feet before.

We started the journey to the south east California two days before the hike to try to adept as much as possible. Day 1 we spent in Yosemite over 10 000 feet before heading down to Bishop for a night before moving on to Lone pine to pick up our permits the day after. After getting our permits we took the car up to Whitney portal at 8000 feet  and just relaxed there for a couple of hours. Also we checked out the start of the Whitney trail so we wouldn't have any problems finding it in the middle of the night. After that we head back down to Lone pine to do the final preparations, make sure the equipment was ok and packed the bags with everything we were gonna carry up on the mountain. This was what we brought with us to eat / drink. As you can see we hardly brought any food and that was a good choice. You don't get hungry up there, all you need is quick carbs that is easiest to get from drinking them. We also brought two big Red bulls and i can tell you they really saves you when you are totally exhausted, which you will be.   

Our drink / food for our climb

After a few restless hours with almost no sleep the alarm went of at 02:00 AM and we quickly put on our clothes grabbed our bags and started the 20 minutes drive up to Whitney portal.

Even though we had almost no sleep we were both so excited and happy when we were finally on the way.

At 02:30 we started the hike in complete darkness with only headlight showing us the trail. It was so exciting and amazing to walk there in complete darkness and silence with this huge task in front of you. 

Checking our backpack weight that was about 20 lbs

The beginning of the trail in total darkness

The first part of the trail is very easy and takes you on a nice trail slowly gaining elevation for about 3,5 miles. The only difficult thing was some small water crossings that seemed difficult in darkness but on the way down in the light we were laughing a lot about how we could have had problems with those small crossings.

After the first easy 3,5 miles it starts to get a little bit more trickier when the trail turns into a more rocky landscape, this was also the section when the sunrise started and we had some amazing and almost religious moments to actually see the summit of mount Whitney up high in the sky thinking, how can we ever get up that high...

Entering the whitney zone, after this a permit is required.

Sunrise

The first glimpse of the Whitney summit in the sunrise

Like i mentioned before i was really worried about how my body would react in this high altitude and after about 6 miles hiking at an altitude of about 11 500 feet i started to feel very dizzy. I don't know if it was because of the early morning, being worried or if it actually was because of the height but it was really scary, especially since we still had about 3000 more feet of altitude to gain. We decided to take a short break for about 15 minutes and after that i felt better, but at the same time we really started to feel that it was really cold and we had to take on all extra clothes we were bringing with us.

The third part of the climb is the famous switchbacks when you are climbing about 1500 feet in about 1,5 miles. The climb is going back and forward for 97 switches on a very narrow trail, sometimes the trail is only a few feet wide and the dip outside the trail is a lot of hundred feet down.

However for both me and my wife this part was very easy and quick, especially since we were using trekking poles that helps your legs a lot.

Happy wife

Me doing the switchbacks

After the switchback the fourth and most scary part starts, you are now up at about 12 000 feet and are climbing on a very narrow trail full with big rocks and a lot of ice. The trail is sometimes only a few feet wide and without any kind of rail or ropes there is a huge 2000 feet dip next to you. For about a mile you have to climb this narrow trail knowing that one bad footstep will send you very far down...

I hadn't read anything about this part of the trail before and it really surprised and scared me. But we were lucky and both survived :)

One of the four "windows"

Climbing the rocks

We were lucky that most of the snow was gone

Tired and happy

In the guides they are telling that the climb is 11 miles but according to my GPS it was actually 12 miles which we realized when we arrived to the last part of the climb and the sign told us it was 1.9 miles to the summit while we were expecting less than a mile. Normally 0.9 extra miles is nothing but up here if felt like 10 more miles. We were both exhausted and the low oxygen level made every step so hard to take.

Here we had to take a break and use our first Red bull to get some extra quick energy. After the short break we started the final climb that is 1.9 miles and bout 1000 more feet of climbing. It took a lot of time since i could only walk about 5 minutes and then had to stop to catch my breath.

But after a total of 8 hours climbing we finally reached the summit at about 10:30 AM. We were lucky to be pretty early because the weather forecast had mentioned a high possibility of thunder storms after lunch and being at the summit when its lighting is extremely dangerous. 

The feeling to get up there was amazing! I was so happy but at the same time it was difficult to enjoy it fully because of the bad weather coming in and also knowing that its a long dangerous hike down again.

View from the summit

View from the summit

View from the summit

View from the summit

Proud happy couple at the summit

We only stayed about ten minutes at the summit and then we started to descend again, this was when a really bad hail storm hit us and it became very freezing, also the hails was big and it really hurt of them hitting. But luckily it was only hail and no thunder or lightning at this time.

The hike down was ok, We were not extremely exhausted until the last 4 miles when the pain and extremely exhausting really hit us. I guess it was after everything difficult and dangerous was over and you allowed your body to relax it hit you. 

The last three miles of the hike i was so tired and had so much pain in my foots and my knees.

And when we finally spotted the parking lot at the Whitney portal again it was amazing. We did it...

Only 5 miles left

So wonderful, but at this point we had no energy to enjoy it

Amazing

After this part it was only 3,5 miles more to hike

The feeling after this hike / climb is still one week after it happened so difficult to describe, the mountain is so wonderful, the hike was definitely one of the best things i have ever done or will do in my life.

I am so proud of both me and my wife that we actually did it!!!