Mt Whitney Foolishness
Or How to cheat Death
It was late in the Fall of ‘94, November, possibly early December. I had just been discharged from the service and was ready to get back into the Sierra and do some mountaineering. The plan: climb the Classic East face route in a day with my older brother and hike down the main trail. It was after all a “highway”, right? Neither of us had been up Whitney before. The plan failed.
We only had the weekend. The plan was to arrive Friday night, sleep at the trailhead and start early Saturday morning, get back to the car after dark, rest and drive home Sunday. We did arrive late Friday night, but the road was already closed at the base, far from the trailhead. This did not deter us, we only left earlier.
The snow was hard and the moon shone brightly, which allowed us to make good time, for the conditions. But it was obvious that we weren’t going to have the time to do the East face. We could however do the Mountaineer’s Route. Luckily we had the forethought to bring our axe’s. They would be needed.
It was mid-afternoon by the time we reached the base of the Mountaineer’s route. High clouds were filling the sky and the breeze was picking up. Perhaps retreat should have been more seriously considered, but we had already unhitched our ice axe’s from the packs. There was no turning back. We could easily kick steps up this gully , victoriously sign the summit register at sunset, then easily follow the main trail under the full moon. Plod on!
That gully’s a little longer than it looks. By the time we reached the top the sun was setting, the clouds had thickened and the wind was screaming. Oh, and the final few hundred feet of easy 4th class (3rd class my ass) rock started with traversing a 10 foot section of hard ice. Sans crampons. I remember it was near dark and I could see the car headlights on 395 fade in and out of the lowering clouds while I prayed everything would stick as I inched across that ice. I wished I could be in one of those cars. After the ice it was just a matter of beating the dark to gain the summit. And the trail, you know, the “highway”.
The Summit. We made it. Did you know there was a hut on top? I didn’t. We stepped inside to a full room of people. Staring people who shook their heads as we adjusted our loads, ate a quick snack, and then started our descent. It was starting to snow a little now and the wind was screaming. We knew generally where the trail went. It goes down the west side of the crest for a mile or so before dropping East into the drainage. I say this in general terms because the snow cover was completey obliterating any trace of the trail. Guess we wouldn’t be following a highway. It was a long night.
I’m still not sure how we made it down in those conditions. We were oblivious to the steep dropoffs. The trail along some sections was discernable only by the obviousness of the steep sloping snow along a ledge cut into the rock for the trail. Thank God for those ice axe’s. Next of course was the Hundred Switchback section dropping you down into the drainage. God only knows how we made it down this. It just seemed to be a steep slope with no remarkable difficulties. We finally picked up a somewhat packed trail around the outpost campsite. Finally it was our “highway”, cruise control all the way to our car just after sunrise.
I recently hiked the trail in the daylight and saw what we had come down. Pretty amazing. In retrospect perhaps we should have turned around at the base of the Mountaineer’s route, or we should have stayed in the Summit hut. Nah, It was great trip with fantastic memories…
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Sequoia/Kings Canyon NP
