I hate to throw a damper over the culmination of such a great trip, but for me, the glory of our journey was going to end just three miles up the trail - at the 13,560 junction with the trail coming up the other side. That would be the point where we would run headlong into a mass of people coming up the trail from the other side via la routa tourista - the tourist route. Mt. Whitney is the highest peak in the lower forty-eight, and it is far too popular for its own good. Hundreds and hundreds of people climb it each summer day - though their numbers are limited by quota - requiring those making the round trip to climb 6,000 vertical feet over the ten mile hike from the Whitney Portal trailhead. The sounds difficult, and it is - particularly for those who spent the night somewhere down in the Owens Valley, many thousands of feet below the parking lot. An alternative is to stay in one of two horribly misused camps en route, the pleasant Outpost Camp at 10,367 or the awful, dusty wasteland of Trail Camp (12,000).
As you can tell, I was not wild about having the good feelings of the past three weeks affected by legions of people. But, the north end of the trip ends in the Yosemite Valley, which is visited by four million people a year, and the south terminus was here. Pick your poison, I guess.
The hike up the west side en route to the trail junction was beautiful, and though it rose more than 2,500 vertical feet, it took us just a few hours and gave us no trouble. From Guitar Lake, the trail climbs diagonally along a steep southwest shoulder of Whitney, eventually leading to some spectacular, winding switchbacks near the junction. At the 15,560' junction, the trail cuts north toward the summit.
At this point, the remainder of the climb covers just 1,000 vertical feet and under two miles, but we were now well above the highest point we'd been, and altitude was beginning to take its toll.
When we reached the junction, the packs of Team Bean were there, as they had gone ahead to the summit with just their water bottles. We also saw the dreaded horde of touristas, stretching out over the trail in both directions. After being in the company of only savvy, fit backpackers for so long, it was hard to take. Many of the people hiking to the summit had come only for the day, and were seriously feeling the altitude. There were as many people sitting on the edge of the trail gasping for breath as there were hiking!
The early part of the trail to the summit goes up and down through a series of spectacular rock formations, and there are three wonderful "keyhole" views of the Owens Valley to the east through gaps in the rock. From that point on, the trail quality progressively degrades, as it gets closer to the summit, finally dissolving into a mass of use trails on the final approach ridge. At the bottom of this ridge, the altitude hit me too, and I simply ran out of gas. The air was too thin, and was not getting enough oxygen in each breath to keep up a pace of more than a few steps at a time. Julian plunged ahead for the summit, while I sat down on a rock to compose myself.
Both of us had been having trouble sleeping at the higher elevations, as a persistent altitude buzz made us feel like we'd had a couple of double lattes before going to bed. I usually got through this problem by taking two or three aspirin, which for some reason makes that problem go away. I thought it might work again here, and took two tablets from our first aid kit. Bingo. Within five minutes, I felt like a teenager, and sprinted up the ridge to meet Julian at the summit overlook. He was quite surprised to see me, having left me for dead below a short time before.
When we reached the summit, there were easily fifty people there, all cluttered around the rock slabs that define the highest point on the ridge. Each party, among reaching the top, predictably produced still or video cameras and methodically took pictures of each person in the group, alone, and in various combinations with the other members of their party (we did the same thing). I was reminded of the busloads of Japanese tourists I used to often see do this in front of the Golden Gate bridge.
We still had a bit of instant chili and a lot of dried chilis, so in the shadow of a rock, we made a massive lunch - too massive, I think - then headed down. To complete Julian's documentary, we had also recorded some tributes to loves ones, orthopedists, etc.
Save for a few hundred feet of ups and downs on the trail below, we now had no more uphills to be climbed. It was Miller Time, and we headed for the parking lot . . . albeit 6,000 painful vertical feet and ten miles below us.
After the junction with the trail down to Guitar Lake, the trail climbs up and over the 13,620' Trail Crest and then begins a descent down the steep, rocky switchbacks on the east side of the ridge. There had been warnings along the trail about an extensive blasting project on this section of the trail, and we were given a firsthand look at the hard work involved in creating this part of the trail. A knee-wrenching 1,600 feet later, we arrived at the dusty, crowded Trail Camp, which is provided by the Park Service as a place to camp for many dozens of summit-bound travelers each night during the summer. It was the antithesis of where we'd been so we shuddered once or twice and kept on moving.
After two more hours of hiking down the stunning valley below Trail Camp, I arrived at the parking lot, having dashed ahead to try to meet Kate by the agreed upon time of 5:00. I arrived about 5:15, and she wasn't there yet, so I wandered up the road to the small store there to pony up $3.00 for my first Corona in over two weeks. Team Bean was still there, and we visited for a few minutes before their shuttle arrived to take them down to Lone Pine. Julian arrived several minutes later, in surprisingly good shape for the knee pain he'd been feeling on the descent. And then, within minutes, Kate, Diana and Rick drive up the road in a shiny new rental SUV, and we knew the trip had come to an end.
Photos: Kent and Julian on Top of the World, View North from Whitney and Trail Down Whitney
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