Friday, August 1 2008 -15.8 miles
I started at the Cottonwood Pass trail-head (9800 feet). I hiked the 3.7 miles to the top of Cottonwood Pass (11,200 feet). The view of Horseshoe Meadows was beautiful. I said goodbye to my neighbor Keven and his son Christian about a mile further. From there I hiked down the pass, through Big Whitney Meadow, seeing a coyote from afar, and onto Salt Lick Meadow (8710 feet) where I camped for the night. I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of two bucks during my hike. Golden Trout Wilderness is an amazing place. Back-country travel is tricky as trees are not hashed and cairns are not built. I had brought my brand new GPS for day three (my off trail adventure) but it came in just as handy today as I constantly lost the trail and used the GPS to continue off trail hiking in the same direction as I “re-established contact” with the trail later on.
I counter balanced my food on the largest White Pine I could find. Bear canisters are HIGHLY suggested in this area (but not mandatory as they are a mere 15 miles north). I don’t like the bulk or weight of canisters so I decided to try to camp near bear lockers or at high enough elevations that bears shouldn’t be a problem. That night I had no visits and my food was safe and sound the next morning.
Saturday , August 2 2008 - 22.3 miles
Woke up ready to go. I hiked through Little Whitney Meadow and DOWN to the Kern River (6248 feet.). I crossed the sturdy bridge over the Kern River and left Golden Trout Wilderness and Inyo National Forest behind as I entered Sequoia National Park. Walking along the Kern River was like being in a totally different place than the day before. Where meadows surrounded me yesterday, canyon walls and a river took over. Where smaller Western White trees looked down upon me from 20-30 feet yesterday, Sugar Pine and Sequoia gazed down upon me from 100-200 feet. The trail yesterday was dry and the landscape was mostly free of bushes and plants. Today, along the Kern River, Horse Tail (like around my backyard patio) and ferns covered up almost all open spots of ground. That made things both lush and beautiful. It also made “things” much harder to see. Things such as reptiles. There were hundreds of green, grey, and black lizards. They were fast….and cute. Cute until the next one was about three feet long, yellow colored with a RATTLE at the end. One hundred yards past the “Rattlesnake Trail,” one happened to be sitting on the trail. In my 30+ years of backpacking and the thousands of miles I’ve walked in countless states, I’ve never gotten to see a rattlesnake in the wild. Not until today. It didn’t rattle…just slithered on away. I walked a LOT more carefully after that but thought, “What are the chances of not seeing one in over 30 years and seeing another on this trip?” You guessed it. About 20 minutes later, I came upon a second rattler. Again, he/she must have known I meant no harm as it quietly slithered away.
After hiking about 10 miles through the canyon, I turned west on the High Sierra Trail began my climb out of the canyon. It was extremely hot at the lower elevations of the Kern and I had timed my climb perfectly to coincide with the low sun creating a nice shadow on the western wall of the canyon. It was a huge climb out to Moraine Lake (9320 feet) where I knew there was a bear locker. As I approached I saw three sleeping bags, two of which had sleeping men. The third in their party was down at the lake getting some water. These were the first people I had seen since I said goodbye to Keven and Christian over 35 miles ago. I began putting some food in the bear locker and setting up my sleeping area and one finally noticed I was there. I was invited to sit by their campfire and have my dinner with them. (Sequoia is one of the only places in the state that still allows campfires this season.) They were 3 men all from Tennessee. Two were 62 and one was a few years younger. Dan and Milton had climbed Mt. Whitney a combined 12 times. The third member of their team, who was still in his sleeping bag, had never been to CA and not done much hiking. Great time talking to the two….the third was sick all night long and the three decided to take a day off at the lake to let their friend recuperate. I had a great night sleep.
Sunday , August 3 2008 - 26.8 miles
Woke up in no hurry to hike as I knew this was my “off trail” day and I had only planned to do around 13 miles (7 on trail and 6 off trail). I climbed about a thousand feet higher (10,600 feet) along the High Sierra Trail until it abruptly started downhill towards the Big Arroyo Creek. I crossed the creek (9606 feet) before starting to climb again. During these hours on the trail I saw about 6 other backpackers. Some singles, some pairs….all very friendly.
The trail continued up the canyon with the Great Western Divide to my left and the Kaweah Peaks to my right. I was in a massive canyon with peaks over 3000 feet above me. The trail aimed towards Kaweah Gap, but that was not my destination. I left the trail about a mile before the gap and headed north towards the Kaweah Peaks. My goal: find a small notch that I had studied on 3 sets of maps. That was the only notch available to me (in my opinion) that I could scramble up and over the range without technical climbing skills (which I want none of and possess none either.) I hiked about a mile and came to off the nine unnamed lakes in the Nine Lakes Basin. I stopped, had lunch and went swimming. It was a very peaceful place devoid of anyone else at all. About and hour later I shouldered my pack and resumed my off trail hike towards the back of the canyon in search of my notch. About 90 minutes later I found it. It blew my mind. And more than any other pictures I have…..the pictures of this notch do it NO justice. It was a climb of 733 feet from 11,044 to 11,777 feet. This all took place in a distance of 1824 feet or .34 of a mile! It was very steep. That .34 of a mile took me almost a full hour. And I only had a hunch that what I saw on the other side would be safe enough for me to get down. For the hour it took me to climb my way to the top, I focused on stepping on the large rocks in the gully. These rocks were heavy enough that most of them didn’t move much as I stepped on them, but in the absence of large rocks, I was forced to pull my way up using the solid sides of the notch.
At the top I peered down at what I had come up and felt a sense of pride and success. For those of you who know me well, you know that I’m extremely afraid of heights. This climb was a real triumph for me. And looking down the north side of the gully I was surprised to see that it was not only steeper, but made up of sand and very little rocks. After studying the new gully I took a couple steps in and started sliding. This scared me a bit at first…until I saw what I was doing. I was skiing down rocks and sand in a “controlled mini-rockslide.) I slid in distances of about 30 feet at a time until both feet would disappear under the rocks building up behind me in this controlled slide. Then, I would step a few feet to the left or right, let the river of rocks continue on their way and wait until they settled before starting over in a new line. In this way I kept safe from larger, heavier rocks building up or loosening behind me and hitting me from behind. This worked very well and after 30 minutes, and burning quads, I reached the bottom 10056 feet below at the head waters of the Kern River. I was in a brand new canyon filled with melting glaciers that fed the newly born Kern River. I had some dinner, fighting off the mosquitoes, and decided to hike on for the afternoon and evening. It was 6:15 PM and the sun was due to set at 7:50 PM. This was the place I had planned to camp, but I felt so good that I decided to go on. I hiked for about 4 more miles through the trailess unnamed canyon before reaching the Colby Trail. This trail would lead me back to the Kern River to Junction Meadow and another bear locker. At about 8:30 dusk was setting in and I put on my headlight. It seemed dim (I had used it the week before on a 50 mile hike on the Tahoe Rim Trail with a Sierra College Class I was helping to teach), but I thought it was just because the trail was so grown over that I was really having trouble seeing. About a quarter mile before the campground, and at 10:00 PM at night I reached the first of 2 creek crossings that wouldn't have been tough in the daytime with adequate light, but proved very challenging at this time of night with a dim headlight. After crossing both creeks on rocks without getting wet I reached the very dark Junction Meadow (8104 feet). I did see a tent with a couple headlights inside so I approached it saying, “Hello” and asking if they had seen a bear locker. “Not here,” was a males voice. I was forced to hang my food again. I didn’t get to sleep until about 10:45 and planned to sleep in and do a short 12 miles to the Crabtree Ranger Station the next day. There, I would let my body rest in preparation for the summit of Mt. Whitney the following day.
Monday, August 4 2008 -24.8 miles
Woke up to another terrific sleep and my counter balanced food untouched. The only problem was that it was 7:00 and I was wide awake ready to go. The mosquitoes had woken up before me so I decided to pack up camp and have breakfast up the trail. I hiked up and out of the Kern Canyon once more and stopped at a creek for water and breakfast. After another few miles I joined my old friend, the John Muir Trail. I hiked this trail in 2001 and it’s my favorite long trail that I’ve hiked to this date. About 30 minutes into my hike I stopped to gaze at the building cumulus clouds. It was Monday. The weather report before I left said that Tuesday a storm would be moving in. Incorrect weather reports….typical. As I was considering the clouds a voice from behind me called, “It’s not supposed to rain in the Sierras.” And with these words I formed a terrific friendship with Brian who was in his last days of completing the 225 mile John Muir Trail.
Brain and I hiked towards Crabtree Ranger Station talking about everything from the trail to gear, to food. But we talked most about the weather. He had been told by another hiker (who had supposedly talked to a Ranger) that a cold hard storm was moving in on Tuesday. Cold storms bring hail and snow to high elevations. Mt. Whitney, being the highest peak in the lower 48 states (14,494 feet) would quite possibly get snow on Tuesday. That would not be the time to try to hike to the summit and to the other side. Our discussion centered on what to do. We could:
1) Hike to Crabtree and take our chances at a summit bid tomorrow. This would mean possibly camping in the rain/hail and having to pack wet gear in the morning.
2) Try to get to the summit and over today. This would mean a colossal day for Brain at 32 miles (he had started north of Forrester Pass at 4:30 AM) and a third day in a row of over 25 miles for me.
Brian had an extra dehydrated Pasta Primivera and cooked it up for me at Guitar Lake. We filled our stomachs with hot food (my only on the trip) and water and made the decision to go for it. We would make our way to the summit, try to be there before sunset, and then hike down to Whitney Portal. We would do all of this hoping that the clouds would break and not continue to build. We would do this hoping to not get caught in bad weather.
It turned out to be a great choice. Between Guitar Lake (11470 feet) and Trail Crest (13,450) the clouds broke and created beautiful colors and shadows everywhere. We left our backpacks at Trail Crest, each grabbed one of our trekking poles, he some water in his other hand and a camera in his pocket, and me with my camera alone in my other hand. We walked the 1.9 miles (1004 feet) lighter than either of us had been in days, but breathing just as hard if not harder at this elevation. We reached the summit at about 7:15. We were the only ones there. It was perfect. Brian had completed his JMT journey and I had completed my first venture that included the kind of off trail experience I was finally ready for. We watched the sunset, took some pictures and started heading back to our backpacks. In the dusk, the walk back to trail crest took us what seemed like longer than it took to ascend. At trail crest we drank a bit, ate a bit, put on our headlights and headed down the other side of Mt. Whitney towards Whitney Portal 8.7 miles away and 5093 feet below us. It was a long dark hike. But….Brian had new batteries for my headlight and I could suddenly see again. Now I knew why it had been so hard to see the night before!
Trails up mountains are built with switchbacks. The dictionary defines a switchback as: “A road or track with many steep uphill and downhill slopes and sharp bends.” Mt. Whitney has 97 switchbacks. And after awhile…in the middle of the night…..they are like a bad dream. But, at nearly 2:00 AM under a cloudless sky, we reached the Portal, got my car and headed to Lone Pine to score a room at the brand new Mt. Whitney Hostel.
My hike was over. I had hiked 89.7 miles and a total elevation gain/loss of over 35,000 feet. It was an amazing experience. I treasure my alone time in the mountains and recharge my inner battery with each new trip to elevation.
I started at the Cottonwood Pass trail-head (9800 feet). I hiked the 3.7 miles to the top of Cottonwood Pass (11,200 feet). The view of Horseshoe Meadows was beautiful. I said goodbye to my neighbor Keven and his son Christian about a mile further. From there I hiked down the pass, through Big Whitney Meadow, seeing a coyote from afar, and onto Salt Lick Meadow (8710 feet) where I camped for the night. I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of two bucks during my hike. Golden Trout Wilderness is an amazing place. Back-country travel is tricky as trees are not hashed and cairns are not built. I had brought my brand new GPS for day three (my off trail adventure) but it came in just as handy today as I constantly lost the trail and used the GPS to continue off trail hiking in the same direction as I “re-established contact” with the trail later on.
I counter balanced my food on the largest White Pine I could find. Bear canisters are HIGHLY suggested in this area (but not mandatory as they are a mere 15 miles north). I don’t like the bulk or weight of canisters so I decided to try to camp near bear lockers or at high enough elevations that bears shouldn’t be a problem. That night I had no visits and my food was safe and sound the next morning.
Saturday , August 2 2008 - 22.3 miles
Woke up ready to go. I hiked through Little Whitney Meadow and DOWN to the Kern River (6248 feet.). I crossed the sturdy bridge over the Kern River and left Golden Trout Wilderness and Inyo National Forest behind as I entered Sequoia National Park. Walking along the Kern River was like being in a totally different place than the day before. Where meadows surrounded me yesterday, canyon walls and a river took over. Where smaller Western White trees looked down upon me from 20-30 feet yesterday, Sugar Pine and Sequoia gazed down upon me from 100-200 feet. The trail yesterday was dry and the landscape was mostly free of bushes and plants. Today, along the Kern River, Horse Tail (like around my backyard patio) and ferns covered up almost all open spots of ground. That made things both lush and beautiful. It also made “things” much harder to see. Things such as reptiles. There were hundreds of green, grey, and black lizards. They were fast….and cute. Cute until the next one was about three feet long, yellow colored with a RATTLE at the end. One hundred yards past the “Rattlesnake Trail,” one happened to be sitting on the trail. In my 30+ years of backpacking and the thousands of miles I’ve walked in countless states, I’ve never gotten to see a rattlesnake in the wild. Not until today. It didn’t rattle…just slithered on away. I walked a LOT more carefully after that but thought, “What are the chances of not seeing one in over 30 years and seeing another on this trip?” You guessed it. About 20 minutes later, I came upon a second rattler. Again, he/she must have known I meant no harm as it quietly slithered away.
After hiking about 10 miles through the canyon, I turned west on the High Sierra Trail began my climb out of the canyon. It was extremely hot at the lower elevations of the Kern and I had timed my climb perfectly to coincide with the low sun creating a nice shadow on the western wall of the canyon. It was a huge climb out to Moraine Lake (9320 feet) where I knew there was a bear locker. As I approached I saw three sleeping bags, two of which had sleeping men. The third in their party was down at the lake getting some water. These were the first people I had seen since I said goodbye to Keven and Christian over 35 miles ago. I began putting some food in the bear locker and setting up my sleeping area and one finally noticed I was there. I was invited to sit by their campfire and have my dinner with them. (Sequoia is one of the only places in the state that still allows campfires this season.) They were 3 men all from Tennessee. Two were 62 and one was a few years younger. Dan and Milton had climbed Mt. Whitney a combined 12 times. The third member of their team, who was still in his sleeping bag, had never been to CA and not done much hiking. Great time talking to the two….the third was sick all night long and the three decided to take a day off at the lake to let their friend recuperate. I had a great night sleep.
Sunday , August 3 2008 - 26.8 miles
Woke up in no hurry to hike as I knew this was my “off trail” day and I had only planned to do around 13 miles (7 on trail and 6 off trail). I climbed about a thousand feet higher (10,600 feet) along the High Sierra Trail until it abruptly started downhill towards the Big Arroyo Creek. I crossed the creek (9606 feet) before starting to climb again. During these hours on the trail I saw about 6 other backpackers. Some singles, some pairs….all very friendly.
The trail continued up the canyon with the Great Western Divide to my left and the Kaweah Peaks to my right. I was in a massive canyon with peaks over 3000 feet above me. The trail aimed towards Kaweah Gap, but that was not my destination. I left the trail about a mile before the gap and headed north towards the Kaweah Peaks. My goal: find a small notch that I had studied on 3 sets of maps. That was the only notch available to me (in my opinion) that I could scramble up and over the range without technical climbing skills (which I want none of and possess none either.) I hiked about a mile and came to off the nine unnamed lakes in the Nine Lakes Basin. I stopped, had lunch and went swimming. It was a very peaceful place devoid of anyone else at all. About and hour later I shouldered my pack and resumed my off trail hike towards the back of the canyon in search of my notch. About 90 minutes later I found it. It blew my mind. And more than any other pictures I have…..the pictures of this notch do it NO justice. It was a climb of 733 feet from 11,044 to 11,777 feet. This all took place in a distance of 1824 feet or .34 of a mile! It was very steep. That .34 of a mile took me almost a full hour. And I only had a hunch that what I saw on the other side would be safe enough for me to get down. For the hour it took me to climb my way to the top, I focused on stepping on the large rocks in the gully. These rocks were heavy enough that most of them didn’t move much as I stepped on them, but in the absence of large rocks, I was forced to pull my way up using the solid sides of the notch.
At the top I peered down at what I had come up and felt a sense of pride and success. For those of you who know me well, you know that I’m extremely afraid of heights. This climb was a real triumph for me. And looking down the north side of the gully I was surprised to see that it was not only steeper, but made up of sand and very little rocks. After studying the new gully I took a couple steps in and started sliding. This scared me a bit at first…until I saw what I was doing. I was skiing down rocks and sand in a “controlled mini-rockslide.) I slid in distances of about 30 feet at a time until both feet would disappear under the rocks building up behind me in this controlled slide. Then, I would step a few feet to the left or right, let the river of rocks continue on their way and wait until they settled before starting over in a new line. In this way I kept safe from larger, heavier rocks building up or loosening behind me and hitting me from behind. This worked very well and after 30 minutes, and burning quads, I reached the bottom 10056 feet below at the head waters of the Kern River. I was in a brand new canyon filled with melting glaciers that fed the newly born Kern River. I had some dinner, fighting off the mosquitoes, and decided to hike on for the afternoon and evening. It was 6:15 PM and the sun was due to set at 7:50 PM. This was the place I had planned to camp, but I felt so good that I decided to go on. I hiked for about 4 more miles through the trailess unnamed canyon before reaching the Colby Trail. This trail would lead me back to the Kern River to Junction Meadow and another bear locker. At about 8:30 dusk was setting in and I put on my headlight. It seemed dim (I had used it the week before on a 50 mile hike on the Tahoe Rim Trail with a Sierra College Class I was helping to teach), but I thought it was just because the trail was so grown over that I was really having trouble seeing. About a quarter mile before the campground, and at 10:00 PM at night I reached the first of 2 creek crossings that wouldn't have been tough in the daytime with adequate light, but proved very challenging at this time of night with a dim headlight. After crossing both creeks on rocks without getting wet I reached the very dark Junction Meadow (8104 feet). I did see a tent with a couple headlights inside so I approached it saying, “Hello” and asking if they had seen a bear locker. “Not here,” was a males voice. I was forced to hang my food again. I didn’t get to sleep until about 10:45 and planned to sleep in and do a short 12 miles to the Crabtree Ranger Station the next day. There, I would let my body rest in preparation for the summit of Mt. Whitney the following day.
Monday, August 4 2008 -24.8 miles
Woke up to another terrific sleep and my counter balanced food untouched. The only problem was that it was 7:00 and I was wide awake ready to go. The mosquitoes had woken up before me so I decided to pack up camp and have breakfast up the trail. I hiked up and out of the Kern Canyon once more and stopped at a creek for water and breakfast. After another few miles I joined my old friend, the John Muir Trail. I hiked this trail in 2001 and it’s my favorite long trail that I’ve hiked to this date. About 30 minutes into my hike I stopped to gaze at the building cumulus clouds. It was Monday. The weather report before I left said that Tuesday a storm would be moving in. Incorrect weather reports….typical. As I was considering the clouds a voice from behind me called, “It’s not supposed to rain in the Sierras.” And with these words I formed a terrific friendship with Brian who was in his last days of completing the 225 mile John Muir Trail.
Brain and I hiked towards Crabtree Ranger Station talking about everything from the trail to gear, to food. But we talked most about the weather. He had been told by another hiker (who had supposedly talked to a Ranger) that a cold hard storm was moving in on Tuesday. Cold storms bring hail and snow to high elevations. Mt. Whitney, being the highest peak in the lower 48 states (14,494 feet) would quite possibly get snow on Tuesday. That would not be the time to try to hike to the summit and to the other side. Our discussion centered on what to do. We could:
1) Hike to Crabtree and take our chances at a summit bid tomorrow. This would mean possibly camping in the rain/hail and having to pack wet gear in the morning.
2) Try to get to the summit and over today. This would mean a colossal day for Brain at 32 miles (he had started north of Forrester Pass at 4:30 AM) and a third day in a row of over 25 miles for me.
Brian had an extra dehydrated Pasta Primivera and cooked it up for me at Guitar Lake. We filled our stomachs with hot food (my only on the trip) and water and made the decision to go for it. We would make our way to the summit, try to be there before sunset, and then hike down to Whitney Portal. We would do all of this hoping that the clouds would break and not continue to build. We would do this hoping to not get caught in bad weather.
It turned out to be a great choice. Between Guitar Lake (11470 feet) and Trail Crest (13,450) the clouds broke and created beautiful colors and shadows everywhere. We left our backpacks at Trail Crest, each grabbed one of our trekking poles, he some water in his other hand and a camera in his pocket, and me with my camera alone in my other hand. We walked the 1.9 miles (1004 feet) lighter than either of us had been in days, but breathing just as hard if not harder at this elevation. We reached the summit at about 7:15. We were the only ones there. It was perfect. Brian had completed his JMT journey and I had completed my first venture that included the kind of off trail experience I was finally ready for. We watched the sunset, took some pictures and started heading back to our backpacks. In the dusk, the walk back to trail crest took us what seemed like longer than it took to ascend. At trail crest we drank a bit, ate a bit, put on our headlights and headed down the other side of Mt. Whitney towards Whitney Portal 8.7 miles away and 5093 feet below us. It was a long dark hike. But….Brian had new batteries for my headlight and I could suddenly see again. Now I knew why it had been so hard to see the night before!
Trails up mountains are built with switchbacks. The dictionary defines a switchback as: “A road or track with many steep uphill and downhill slopes and sharp bends.” Mt. Whitney has 97 switchbacks. And after awhile…in the middle of the night…..they are like a bad dream. But, at nearly 2:00 AM under a cloudless sky, we reached the Portal, got my car and headed to Lone Pine to score a room at the brand new Mt. Whitney Hostel.
My hike was over. I had hiked 89.7 miles and a total elevation gain/loss of over 35,000 feet. It was an amazing experience. I treasure my alone time in the mountains and recharge my inner battery with each new trip to elevation.
