Mt. Whitney

We clambered all the way to the top of Mt. Whitney today! It's the tallest peak in the lower 48 at 14,505 feet. This is actually a side trip off of the PCT so we made our base camp at Guitar Lake about halfway up the back side of the mountain. At this point in the trip, the climb was...kind of easy. The hard part was that we were huffing and puffing for air, plus that I'm terribly afraid of heights and went wobbly a few times on the way up. That just added to the excitement and makes it impossible to forget that it's the highest peak. As we got closer to the top, it got colder and colder. We stopped to put jackets on and a man on his way down pointed out where the peak was. "Just above that snow patch." As we got closer, we started to see little figures moving around on the snow patch and realized that we'd be going right through it. On a steep, rocky mountainside. I tried to keep my mind calm, moving through rocky passes. A few times, the mountain would open up into a window view of Lone Pine, our previous town stop. Finally, it was our turn to make our way through the snow and the final ascent to the top. The snow has been walked through so much that it is actually melted down in the middle, creating a wall and security. This part was really fun and then, soon after, we could see the hut at the peak. It was really cold on top; especially for a sunny day. We hung out for a while behind a rock wind block and had lunch. There were tons of people up there and we chatted with a few, finding out all the ways people has come up and all the trails they were on. Some were day-hiking up from Whitney Portal. Some were thru hiking the John Muir Trail. Some had taken the technical route with a guide. When we started to get chilled, we headed back down, flying this time. As we got back to our base camp and Whitney was in the background, we started to get a little nostalgic about it. Now we can call Mt. Whitney our home as well as the PCT.