Mt. Whitney, Mountaineer's Route
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| Looking at Mt. Whitney at beginning of the trail | Spring on the approach | A frozen water fall on the approach | On the second morning, Mt. Muir and the Needles glowing in sunrise |
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| Peaks surrounding Iceberg lake | Mt. Russell | View of Mt. Russell from the summit of Whitney | Summit Hut |
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| Rock and Ice | Sunset over Sierra mountains |
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| One view on the the approach | Tao and Spring on the Summit | Summit view | Our tent |
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| Third day, another sunrise | More rock and ice | Sunshine on the mountain | Sunshine on the mountain |
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| Spring ready to descent | Tao on the descent trail | Looking up the valley | Another frozen waterfall |
Lone Pine, 4000 ft
In the late October of 2002, Tao and I climbed Mt. Whitney via the Mountaineer's Route and descent through the main trail. Mountaineer's route climbed 6400 feet of elevation in only 6 miles. Even though it is not technical but rather a scrambling route, because of the late season, the complicated route-finding and some unexpected problem, we still had an adventurous experience.
We arrived at Lone Pine late in the afternoon of Oct 21 and checked in a small and charming motel. We visited the Ranger's Station hoping to get an update of current route condition. However, the ranger could not give us specifics since very few people visited the Mountaineer's Route at that time of the year. The only thing we knew was that there has been a snow fall several days ago. But it still felt like late summer in the town. We debated between ourselves whether to bring crampons but finally decided to bring them along, which turned out to save us from having to bivy in the open in an freezing night.
Whitney Portal Trail Head, 8000 ft - Iceberg Lake, 12800 ft
The next morning, we woke up to a crisp clear day. The drive from the town to the trailhead through Alabama Hills offers very unique scenery. After the usual routines at the trail head, we started hiking up the trail around 9:30 am.
The approach to Mountaineer's route soon
branched off from the main trail after 2 mile. The route follows a stream
and weaves through a series of complicated ledge systems. (See the picture
on the left). Although, we have three different versions of route
description with us, because of the thick vegetation covering up the
trace of trail (if there is any), we had to find our way back and forth several
times. At one time, we had to climb 5th class rock with a full pack on.
Luckily, by carefully lining up the landmarks mentioned in the descriptions such
as the fox-tailed pine or a well-described rock slab, we did not get lost but our
progress was very slow. As we gained elevation, we started to see ice
frozen on the path. At several spots, the ice made the passing very
tricky. At 4:30pm, we reached the upper Boy Scout Lake. There are
nice camping sites along the lake but we decided to move on. It should be
straightforward from Upper Boy Scout Lake to Iceberg Lake, but we didn't follow
the route carefully and ascent too high too quickly. The path became
steeper and steeper and our progress were significantly slowed down.
Finally at 6 pm, we managed to find a way to pass the final cliff band and
pulled in the flat area surrounding the Iceberg Lake. By this time, we
were both exhausted. After a hasty dinner, we crawled into sleeping bags.
The night turned out to be rough. I had made a mistake by trying out a new
kind of camp food that I have never tried before. It was too greasy for
me. Being a vegetarian, I don't handle greasy food very well.
Needless to say after a long day of exertion and at an altitude of 12,800 feet.
The sleep was broken apart that night. Finally, at dawn, I threw up and felt
weak. But as I came out of the tent, I was greeted with the most beautiful
morning I have ever seen. The three Needles and Mt. Whitney were just in
front of us, gilded gold by the rising sun (see picture below).
Iceberg
lake was like a small piece of jewelry that was dropped into a bowl. The
air was crisply fresh. The beauty of the mountains seemed to have a
therapeutic effect on me. I felt stronger again. We decided to take
the full pack with us since we wanted to go down via the main
trail to avoid dealing with the slippery ledges and down-climbing the nasty
rocks. Since there are only less than 2000 feet elevation gain to the
summit, we were not in a hurry to leave the camp. It was almost 10 am when
we started moving up again.
Iceberg Lake 12800 ft - Summit 14494 ft
Taking a 40-pound pack over the Mountaineer's Route was not easy especially when we were
under the effect of altitude. We studied the two sides of the chutes and
chose to use the right side. (Later on I found out that the left side is
the preferable route.) We couldn't tell the obvious route so we had to
scouted around to find the least resisting line to scramble up. Several
times, we had to climb up and down in the mazes of rocks and wasted a lot of
time and energy. Often we had to climb really hard and made fifth class
movements. The going was slow and painful. I started to regret
taking the full pack. But we didn't have other choice at that point. The
only way out was to go to the summit. And then we reached a shadowy point
where the lingering snow from the recent snowfall started to
mingle with the rock. This
has made the situation even more precarious. Finally we reached some snow
patches that was just deep enough to hold our weight. Tao took the lead and
broke the steps. It was easier to go up on the snow but the side effect
was that I became colder. By the time we reached the notch above the
Mountaineer's Route, it was already 3pm. We took a break to eat and drink.
We became very focused at that point because we started to feel the pressure of
time.
The rest of the ascent was a traverse followed by a short scramble. Now
the path was full of snow with significant exposure on one side. (See
Picture of the last scramble on the left) At 4:30, we
were on Summit plateau. The view was spectacular in every direction.
Unlike the greenery forests in the mountains in Seattle, Sierra is more rugged,
rocky and wild. We walked around and had a conversation with only two
other people on the summit. We savored the feeling of victory as much as
possible, since in our simple mind the descent was merely a well-maintained trail that
we could easily walk down even in the darkness with our headlamp on.
Night Descent: Ice, darkness and 97 switchbacks
As the sun started to set, the temperature
dropped considerably. At this point, we felt fairly strong and confident
that we could still walk another 4 or 5 hours in dark. The trail traversed
from the Whitney summit through the three Needles and Mt. Muir before it dropped
through the famous "97 switchbacks" to a camp site. Even though the trail was relatively
flat, the exposure was thrilling. Sometimes there were exposure at both
sides of the trail. As night drew in, we turned on our headlamp. The
next thing we discovered was that the path started to dispersed with patches of
vicious ice. We were anxious to go down so we resisted the idea of
having to put on crampons. Then as the night set in, the patches of ice
became longer and longer and it became more and more slippery. I refrained
myself from looking into the gaping black holes on both sides of the trail when
I had to walk over some ugly-looking ice.
With the exposure on both sides, it just became incredibly dangerous.
Soon, we were forced into the decision to sit down, dig out the crampons from
our pack and put them on with our cold fingers. Walking with crampons made
passing icy patches more secure but also made walking on gravels more painful.
When we saw a long stretch of dirt path in front of us, we readily took off our
crampons only to find another long patch of ice in front us 20 minutes later.
After several times of crampon on and off, we decided not to messing around any
more but kept crampons on until we were dead sure that there would be no more ice ahead. The
temperature was well below the freezing point. Our water
bottles was frozen. We had to break the ice on the top in order to drink the remaining
unfrozen water. Appetite was gone both because of exhaustion and great
concentration. We couldn't rest very long since body became cold very
quickly. As if the situation was not hard enough, we soon realized that we
had another problem. Some of the spare batteries we brought were not
functional! We thought about bivying for the night but there was really no
secure place to bivy on the trail. We had to keep descending. So we
rationed our remaining batteries and decided to only use one headlamp between the
two of us. We kept encouraging each other and kept the spirit high.
The pressure of the situation really brought more strength out of both of us.
As we reached trail crest, we were on the east side of the mountain. It
was a night with full bright moon! The moon lit up the whole mountain and
also lit up our mood. I felt much more peaceful and secure. The next
section is the infamous "97 switchbacks". There was no longer exposure.
We shut off headlamp and totally relied on moonlight. As the pressure of
imminent danger was gone, fatigue started to pound on my mind and body. I
numbly followed the switchbacks while fighting the temptation of sitting down
and falling asleep. The switchbacks were endless! The only thing
that kept me awake was the mountain bathed in the silver layer of moonlight
and the shivering snow. It was so achingly beautiful even to my tired and anxious
mind.
Consultation Lake
At 11 pm, we finally finished the switchbacks and reached a place called Trail Camp. It was a fairly flat boulder field, with several tents scattered around a small lake. The lake was not very close to the trail, but since we were out of water, we dropped our pack on the trail and went to get water. The walk to the lake almost took 15 minutes. At that time, we were in such exhaustion and dehydrated state that our mind must be functioning very poorly. As we walked back, we couldn't find the packs we dropped on the trail. All we saw was boulders that were of the same size of packs. At first, we thought this was very ridiculously funny and the packs would show up in 5 minutes. But as we skirted around and around, we started to realized that we were lost in the maze of this boulder field and our packs seemed to be hiding from us! Without the pack, spending this freezing night in open field was unthinkable. In his half hallucinating state, Tao just kept going higher with the belief that he would intersect with the trail at one point. But in my mind, he was not going to the right direction. I told myself that I had to clear up my murky mind and think hard. I tried to remember the landmarks I saw when I walked into this area and how they were lined up in respect to the moon and the lake. Finally, I had a grasp of reality and pinpointed out a direction. Sure enough, 20 steps away, I found the faint trail and then there were the packs. In my great relief and joy, I called out to Tao and found out that he was almost 150 feet above me.
It was obvious that we could not move any further. We were half sleep anyway. We pitched the tent and rested. On the switchbacks, I felt like I could fell asleep as long as I sit down, but now sleep was shy to come to my over-exhausted body in the tent. But finally we succumbed to sleep.
The Third Day
We woke
up to another incredibly beautiful but windy morning. We had a well-cooked
breakfast. Some birds were accompanying us and waiting for dropped food
scratch while we were eating.
As we finished packing and hiked down the trail, the temperature started to
rise. But we still could see patches of evil ice on the trail. We
were lucky that we did not descend even further last night. Since these
ice were more hidden and sure would be more treacherous. There were very
few people even on the main trail. To our utter disbelief, we managed to deviate
from the main trail on our descent and followed a side branch trail to a cliff.
My mind was not prepared to make any elevation gain on the third day so the
notion that we had to climb up again was really painful to accept. After
backtracking up for 700 ft and some scramble over huge boulders (with ice
again), we were finally on the main trail again. From then on, it was
impossible to get lost. The final three miles was uneventful but really
tiring.
As our guard was let down, all body parts started to complain. Shoulders were
most unhappy after carrying the full pack for three days.
Since there was no imminent problem to solve, the minds were ready to shut off.
But the sight of the parking lot was still a great stimulus. We happily reunioned
with our rental car and joined the civilized society again.
Remarks
This climb was successful but close to an epic. We probably would have been better off to camp at Upper Boy Scout Lake to get better acclimatization. We definitely underestimated the route-finding and spent too much time going back and forth at several places. One thing I remember in a hard way: never try a new food at high altitude! We were so thankful that we brought crampons even though the Rangers suggested that it was unnecessary. Without crampons, we would have been forced to either bivy on the trail or go back to the summit hut to spend the night.
Anyway we still had a huge sense of accomplishment. We made to this 14,494 summit through the complicated route all by ourselves. For someone who has never had backcountry experience two years ago, it was a feat to be proud of.
(Note: the pictures of the "ledge system" and the "Last Scramble to the summit plateau" was copied from website http://members12.clubphoto.com/robert634908/943486/guest.phtml)