13,700 Feet

So I put off posting this, because I am a bit disappointed in myself. But not so disappointed when I realized the real reason why I did it. So here's what happened this weekend.

Saturday: we got up to Lone Pine at 9am after a big breakfast and picked up our permits and Bear Canister. We drove up to the trail head and started hiking at 10 am as planned.

Dave: at the start of the hike: doesn't he look so serious! I know he was ready to get going.

After a few miles into the hike, you reach this sign. I felt like I should be hearing music from the Twilight Zone or something. The wind was howling through the trees. I was worried about the wind before we even got there. So I had packed lots of warm clothes..mittens, ski hat, etc…As we were going up other hikers coming down were telling us how horrible the wind was at trail camp.So when we reached outpost camp we decided to camp there instead. Other people had actually gone up to trail camp and came back down because it was that bad. Winds were gusting to around 50mph! The downfall with camping at Outpost camp is that is adds 2 miles to your hike to the summit. So we set up camp a lot earlier then we had planned…about 1:30. So we just hung out for the afternoon, I took a few photos at mirror lake, and then we cooked dinner around 6pm.

The view from just above our campsite that we chose

Here's dinner….sweet and sour chicken in a bag over a makeshift stove in a camping pot! It actually wasn't that bad. But we also had French bread and cookies!

Lesson #1: bring lots of food backpacking but if you have to use a bear canister, don't bring to much! We were eating food just to be able to fit everything into the canister. Definitely brought to much food! After dinner we played some phase 10 in the tent, since it was still windy. Lesson #2: our tent rocks…it’s a marmot and it kept us pretty warm in the cold wind blown temps. I didn't even put my sweatshirt on until I went to bed. We stayed pretty warm while sleeping too.

Sunday - The alarm went off at 4am, and we got dressed, grabbed our headlamps, grabbed food out of the bear canister and went on our way. Lesson #3: Camping at altitude can defiantly affect some people. We got about 20 min into the hike and realized Dave was having some horrible times. He just couldn't catch his breath. And he's hiked to 12,000 feet before. We think it was partly due to sleeping at a high elevation and being there for about 15 hours. So in realizing the summit of Whitney wasn't in his future for that day, we both decided I would continue on my own and he would go back to camp and relax for the afternoon. It really stunk leaving him behind. I powered through the hike and reached Trail Camp at 6:30. But just before that I watched a beautiful sunrise (see the next post)! That made the day worth it right there! I was wishing I had a tripod at that moment. Then I continued on up the side of the mountain through the 99 switchbacks! I ended up passing a few people but still really didn't see a lot of people up there which I thought was weird. I later realized I was just ahead of the crowd. So I reached Trail Crest at about 8:45am. I was at 13,700 feet…the highest I have ever been. I never felt sick or any signs of altitude sickness, but I started to get scared. I think going over that thing that some people called "deadman's cliff" did it for me. There was a lot of mountain below me at that point. I was sitting here contemplating whether to continue. I had less than 2 miles to go! I was definately scared since I was by myself. Other hikers said I could go with them. But I soon realized that getting to the top without Dave just wasn't as exciting as getting to the top with him. I really missed him at that point…a lot! And I wanted to get back to him. So I made the command decision to go back to camp. I do partly wish I would have just gone. I kinda feel like a whimp I don't think the trail was as bad as I was making it out to be in my head. I just needed some encouragement from Dave. But at the same time I am looking forward to going back and achieving summit with my husband. We are partners and doing stuff without each other just is not as much fun. So we will be back in the next 2 years. We made that promise to each other. Dave has told me he wants to get into better shape so he can handle the altitude better. It is a drastic change….8200 to over 14500. I was proud of him for recognizing that he couldn’t do it instead of trying to push himself.

I returned to the camp just after noon and Dave was waiting for me. In fact he was on a rock and saw me coming and met me on the trail. How cute! I was in tears at this point. I was happy to see him but upset at myself for not going to the summit.

All in all I ended up hiking 14 miles yesterday. I also climbed about 4000 feet in elevation in about 4 hours!. Over the two days I hiked 18 miles and covered 5500 feet in elevation gain. About 8 of these miles were carrying a 35 pound pack! My calfs are a bit sore but not horrible. I was exhausted yesterday and ended up sleeping about 12 hours! Three more weeks and we'll be backpacking the grand canyon. Although this time altitude won't be an issue and either will the bear canister!