Mount Whitney Hike

I recently had the opportunity to hike to the top of Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states. My friend Chad invited me to go and we had an awesome time. Mount Whitney is located in California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains just outside of Lone Pine. It took us 13 hours of travel to get there. Here are a few pictures:

We stopped at Death Valley on our way to the mountain. It was 116 degrees and there was a 10 to 15 mph wind. It felt like there was a hair dryer blowing in your face. Dirt, rocks, sand, and alkali was about all there was to see there.

This is a picture of the crew hiking up the trail. The picture is taken looking back the way we have come. We are at about 11,000 feet, just above the tree line.

We hiked in 6.5 miles the first day with full backpacks and set up base camp at 12,070 feet elevation. We had to carry in bear cans to store all of our food in to protect it from bears and the marmits. There were lots of marmit that looked like a huge rock chuck. They were always snooping around camp to see if there was anything to eat.

The next day we waited until 6:30 am for the ice to soften on the rocks and then we headed out. This picture is taken at the top of 99 switch backs that trail up the face of the mountain to Trail Crest which is at 13,600 feet elevation. It is hard to see but our base camp is to the right of the small lake on the center right of the picture.

This picture is taken from Trail Crest looking over the California side of the mountains. Only another 900 feet of elevation to climb.

A picture of my friend Chad as he came across one of the snow fields along the trail.

Just a short victory dance at the summit with the American Flag. There was quite a view from the summit. It was 37 degrees with about a 30 mph wind blowing on top. It was too cold to stay very long.

I had to throw in this picture to prove that we were really on the summit. We also left our names in the register. Before leaving the summit I gathered some rocks to take back to Laynee, Shay, and Cohen (Laynee calls it her very special rock). We hiked back to base camp, loaded up and hiked out the same day, 18 miles of hiking, I was feeling it by the time we made it back to the vehicles. Overall, it was an awesome hike. I would love to do it with the men of the family someday.