Mt. Whitney "Mountaineers Route"

Planning

About 2 weeks ago, a friend and I mentioned attempting Mt. Whitney. A little about my friend: last March, we came up to the mountain, planning a two-day trip of the Mt. Whitney Trail. We left about 7 in the morning and made it to Trail Camp around noon if I recall. We planned on just chilling here and maybe doing a little reconnaissance up the mountain. The plan would be to try and get some sleep, then wake up uber early to try and hit the peak by sunrise. This sounded fine and all, that is, until my partner woke me up saying he had a crazy headache and determined he had AMS. After ten minutes of my trying to talk him out of it, we headed down the mountain, getting back to our vehicle a few hours after dark. A year later, I was confident in my abilities and was pretty sure he'd be fine. So this last Thursday, April 8th, I called to make sure he was still down. The plan was to try the trail again. I spend Friday getting most my gear together, checking weather reports, and calling the Ranger Station numerous times with various questions, mostly provoked by my anxiousness to get on the mountain. Again, my good friend let me down, however. He called me after he got off work saying he was too wiped to go to the mountains. Even after offering to drive the whole way there he still refused, so I just said "screw it" and decided for a solo attempt. Without my friend coming along, I would to go for the Mountaineers Route. The plan was to drive up, get there sometime that night, wake up sometime early, and attempt a speedy, one-day summit, hopefully making it back before dark.

The First Part

I left my apartment in Carlsbad around 6:00 pm Friday night. There was an unusually large amount of traffic, even though it WAS rush hour, I just figured it was all the people here for the Carlsbad 5k this weekend. Nope. I was wrong. I fought my way through traffic pretty much all the way down the 76 and the 15, finally catching a little break on the 395. lesson learned....leave way early or super late. It was just past 11:00 pm when I finally turned on Whitney Portal Road. Earlier when I called the ranger station he said that the road was closed due to an avalanche, but said that people were bypassing the "road closed" sign. He also said it was only about a mile from there to the trailhead. A few miles after that sign, there was the avalanche and a bulldozer. I saw a few cars parked there and just decided to park there. Don't make the same mistake I did, it was night so I couldn't see, but you can actually squeeze by the bulldozer and continue up Whitney Portal Road almost all the way to the start of the trail. I didn't know that so I had the enjoyment of walking an extra 3 miles, each way.

Ascent

I already had the luck of getting stuck in traffic, and parking far from the trailhead but also, my watch which I also use as my altimeter, decided to run out of batteries. It isn't THAT big of a deal normally, but since I was using it for my alarm in the morning, I got up a full hour after I had planned and didn't leave my car until about 4:45 that morning. I pretty much ran all the way up Whitney Portal Road and the switchbacks to the north fork of lone pine creek. Despite my bad luck I was feeling strong, and started hoofing it up the mountain, confident I would meet my goal. I put on my gaiters and snow shoes almost immediately after the fork, because I was post holing pretty good. I jammed all the way to Upper Boy Scout Lake making only a few short stops to adjust my gear or grab a quick snack. That's where I switched to crampons. The route was pretty clear due to a few tracks. I was a bit nervous getting up the chute to the notch. The snow was pretty deep and powdery, but luckily there were some decent steps kicked in I decided to follow. I reached the summit around 1:00pm (based on the amount of time I guessed it had been after asking for time on the way down). I stopped for a bit at the top, cooked a cup of Roman noodles shot a few pictures and left. Along the way I ran into two cool guys just below Upper Boy Scout lake planning on climbing the East Buttress. I could see them approaching as I was on the coulier but decided to attempt it the next day because there were two guys on it going pretty slow at the time. When I finally go the summit, I felt exhausted but on the way down I was filled with energy having gotten to the top. I basically ran down the mountain with this newfound energy. I also ran into a dude whom I complimented on his icebreaker wool shirt (which I was also wearing). Turns out he was Kurt Wedberg, who at the time I knew sounded familiar, but didn't realize he was the owner of sierra mountaineering international until I went home and looked him up. I was happy when I reached the trail head but, realizing I had to make the 3 mile hike down whitney portal road my spirits died. It seemed like an agonizing walk, there weren't even any cars to try to hitchike from. I finally make it back to my car right at 5:00 pm. so just over a 12 hour endeavor. And I got some decent pictures along the way, not bad. I at dinner at the Pizza Factory and spent the night right across the street in the Dow Hotel, deeming it too risky to drive back as tired as I was...And really wanted a hot shower instead of sleeping in my car.

360 degree pano from the summit of Mt. Whitney

gear used/lessons learned

I came to the mountain ready for a full assault, but ended up only taking the bear minimum. I was the only guy on the mountain I saw attempting it in one day, and had the pleasure of giggling to myself every time I saw someone's pack twice as big and heavy as my own. I used an Arc'Teryx Khazri 35 pack, a tiny thing of sunscreen, a whitney quadrant map, headlamp, camera snowshoes, crampons, ice axe, a fleece, and the Theta AR arc'teryx jacket. I had a wool beanie and some polarized shades. For food I brought one pack of Roman, a banana, an apple, 2 slim jims, and 3 snickers bars (yup, I'm a fatty) and 2 liters of water along with 6 extra strength tylenol. Now for some things to take away from this trip: 1. CHECK SUMMIT POST! or other online trip reports, I probably could have avoided the nerveracking extra 6 (approximate) miles I had to hike due to the fact that I didn't know I could drive around the bulldozer. 2. Bring trekking poles. yeah, an ice axe worked pretty good, but there were times where I wish I had brought poles. 3. take more pictures/video. I was so going so fast I didn't stop to take in the scenery enough, and regret not having taken more pictures. on that note, I took a sweet 6-picture pano and tried to load it but it's tiny on here, any help? 4. If you even THINK you'll be staying at a hotel in Lone Pine, make reservations. Most places, as I found out, were booked, and finally had to settle on a huge room for 90 bones. 5. Avoid traffic. yeah, it's obvious, but I didn't do it on the way there, It only took me four hours driving back early Sunday morning, shaving 2 hours from my trip there.