Tom's Mountaineering & Climbing Journal

Mount Whitney -

One of the first mountains that I wanted to climb upon moving to Reno was Mount Whitney. At 14,496 feet it is the highest in the lower-forty eight states. Also, it would be the highest elevation that my body had ever ascended to. Dave Walker, who is a fellow graduate student in geography at UNR, suggested climbing the peak. Neither of us wanted to deal with the crowds or the quota system that is imposed upon hikers during the summer months so we opted to climb the peak in January, 2006. This also gave us the opportunity to do a little bit of telemark skiing on the descent from base camp.

We left Reno for Lone Pine, California and stayed the night in a BLM campground near the Whitney Portal road. That is Dave in the photo with the Whitney Portal road ascending the hill behind him. That night we were rocked by strong winds but awoke to improved conditions.

Our climb began a little before the trailhead since the road is closed in winter. That day we ascended to trail camp, at 12,039 feet and pitched our camp. At -10 F it felt just like an Alaskan climb. We pitched our tent in the lee of an outhouse for protection from the wind.

The following morning we awoke to conditions that couldn't be better and went for a summit attempt. The morning sun barely poked its head over the mountains to the southeast, but gave us a jolt of energy. We put our skis on and headed for the col where the summer hiking trail reaches trail crest at 13,777.
The ridgeline teated us to gorgeous views of the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park to the west and vast areas of wilderness. In January there were no other people around to disturb our solitude apart from the military fighter jets that buzzed overhead ever 5 to 10 minutes. I have to admit that low flying aircraft truly is one of the biggest impositions on one's wilderness experience. Nonetheless, there would be no wilderness experience in the summer due to the crowds, so I suppose that we were fortunate in that regard.

Trail ridge is where I began to feel the effects of altitude. My body had never been that high before and such a lengthy traverse at that altitude had me slowing to a crawl. We proceeded up the amount, albeit slowly. Not once did we have to don crampons, however I certainly was glad to have an ice ax in my hand. Although non-technical the route had several sections where a fall could have resulted in injury.

At the end of the day we reached the stone hut on the summit. We didn't have much time to linger, however, and quickly started on the descent. We hurried as quickly as we could at that altitude along the traverse but darkness caught us by the time we reached our skis and we were forced to ski down in the dark. I lost a skin on the descent, which I didn't discover until too late. We were tired and exhausted, but where was the tent? The tent and the outhouse were tucked away amongst the rocks and in the darkness everything looked alike. After over an hour of searching we found the tent and cooked ourselves dinner.

The next morning Dave and I set out looking for my lost ski skin, but to know avail. We shoved off from camp with loaded packs and skied down to the trailhead. The conditions above treeline were horrendous. Wind blown crust alternated with small pockets of powder. Once we dipped below treeline conditions improved and the skiing was remarkable. Finally, the trail narrowed into a thick forest canopy where the surface was littered with branches and needles. These conditions proved tricky. Around noon we returned to the car, took a look back at the peak, and counted ourselves lucky. What a great climb!