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I made it to the top of the lower 48!
I set off June 10th around 11am for Mt. Whitney trail camp with Michaele and Jen. About an hour in we were making solid time so we stopped at Lone Pine Lake, the lowest lake along the Mt. Whitney trail, to take a dip and have some lunch. After hanging around for an hour we decided to practice some snow climbing techniques on an adjacent slope which would be important for the next day’s summit attempt. After we’d finished our practice we loaded our packs back up and continued on our way.
Fast forward a couple hours we reached 11,000ft, one thousand vertical feet away from trail camp, and the start of our snow travel. We threw on our cramp-ons and spikes and started the laborious task of piecing our way up the slushy snow. Around 6:00pm we made it to camp, unpacked, cooked dinner, and started getting to bed around 8:00pm with high hopes of beginning our summit push at 1:00am.
This plan would be thrown out just hours later. At around 11pm we were woken up to someone screaming “HELP!” at the top of their lungs. At first I thought it was a dream, but I peaked out of my tent to see two men standing there with headlamps blazing, one was shivering uncontrollably with visible blood smearing his face, hands, and knees. His friend had just carried him down from the base of the chute. This is a roughly 1200 foot snow slope that leads to the summit ridge of Mount Whitney.
These climbers summited late in the day and were making their way down in the dark on slushy snow. As one of the climbers started carefully down the chute, his partner followed behind and slipped; tumbling its entire half mile and 1200 vertical feet uncontrollably, coming to a stop at a snow bank. The climber scrambled down as quickly as he safely could, somehow managing to find his partner’s phone, wallet, and keys. When he made his way down he found his partner bloodied and shivering. He gave his partner all the clothing he could spare and helped him the rest of the way down, stopping to provide body heat every 5 minutes, and constantly screaming for help.
At the realization the screams were indeed real we all scrambled out of our tents. Luckily two members of camp were doctors, so they took the lead and started checking the injured climbing partner over and asking him what happened. It became apparent to all of us quickly that he wasn’t going to make it down the mountain under his own power, and it was time to message for help. As one of the people at camp started that process the rest of us gathered our sleeping bags and an emergency blanket to wrap around the injured climber, and gave over all of the water (and Michaele’s hot chocolate) that we had to offer. The next couple hours were filled with constant check-ins with the injured climber to relay more information to the rescue team. Eventually they concluded the only option was a helicopter evacuation, but that had to wait for the morning.
When this was determined it was around 1:00am. Unsurprisingly, after getting virtually no sleep we were not ready to push for the summit at our originally planned time. And with one sleeping bag and a liner left for Jen, Michaele, and me we had a cold night ahead of us. We crammed ourselves into a Michaele’s two person tent and oriented ourselves on the two sleeping pads. We somehow managed to all squeeze our legs into the liner and drape the bag over us just enough to have some cover on our upper bodies, sharing body heat to stay warm enough the rest of the night. At this point nobody who was assisting with this, myself included, had any intention of summiting the following morning. None of us got more than two hours of sleep by sunrise, and the two doctors stayed up all night with the injured climber.
When I climbed out of the tent at 5am my body was sore and I wasn’t looking forward to the 4000ft descent back down to Whitney Portal. I turned and looked up at the chute looming above camp and saw people gradually making their way up. Suddenly my brain and body kicked into gear and I started to think it would be possible for me to try for a summit push even after less than two hours of not so restful sleep. I talked it over with Jen and Michaele and they said that they would stay down and wait for me at camp. There was no way I would have gone for it without their encouragement and accommodation, I could not have asked for a better pair to be out there with.
I loaded up my day pack with caffeine gels, and a few other snacks, grabbed my ice axe and micro-spikes, and started making my way to the base of the chute. I put my head down and started climbing, sticking the spike of my axe into the hard snow, then kicking two steps in. I would do this about 20 times then stop to catch my breath for a few seconds before continuing another 20 steps. I pushed hard and made it to the top just in time to watch a helicopter make its way in to evacuate the injured climber from the night before. I took my spikes off and turned onto the ridge. After traversing and climbing the last few hundred feet there was just one more snobstical (snow obstacle) left. I cruised up it, breathing heavily in the thin air.
I’d finally made it! I was at the summit, 14,505 feet, looking over all of the Owen’s Valley, the Inyos, and the Sierras. The view was spectacular, I spent about 20 minutes up there in awe. I’d like to say I was thinking some sort of deep thoughts about the world or something introspective up there, but I was truly just stunned by the vast beauty of where I was standing, and grateful for the opportunity to be there. Eventually it was time to start my descent.
After clearing the snowy slope below the summit I looked up to my left and saw Keeler Needle. Prior to the previous nights events I told myself I wanted to scramble up there to check off a subsidiary 14 thousand foot peak that provided a more exposed view. I’d made good time so I decided to give it a go. I scrambled up the large rocks and got to the summit, sitting and dangling my legs over a stomach churning drop.
After some time spent there I continued my descent along the ridge trail to the top of the chute. Getting to the top of Whitney was an accomplishment, but the most dangerous part of my climb was sitting right in front of me. It was time to glissade. This is when a climber slides down a steep snobstacle, using the spike of their axe to steer and modulate speed. I sat down, pulled out my ice axe, and took a few deep breaths in the thin air to calm down my racing heart. Then I pushed off down the chute. I was terrified for the first half, gradually figuring out the balance between digging in with the spike of my axe and self arresting every few hundred feet. But then I got the hang of it and started having fun. I let myself pick up more speed, trusting my axe, and cruised down the rest of the chute to camp. The round trip took about five hours.
Now it was time to pack up camp and start the hike back down to Whitney portal. At this point I was still feeling surprisingly energized, and not at all like I had only slept for two hours. We descended the rest of the notable snowy sections on foot, glissading anything steep enough to save energy. Once we got out of the snow the day started catching up to me. I was getting tired and my ankles were starting to hurt from the impact of all the previous hiking and climbing. Luckily there were only four miles left. We stopped for a while on a rock to have a snack and rest before continuing down. We made it to the portal at 5pm, just over 11 hours after I’d started for the summit that morning.
I was happy to have made it to the summit, but the more overwhelming feeling was relief. Relief that I’d made it safely, and that Jen and Michaele made the decisions they felt comfortable with and got down safely. We often get lulled into a false sense of security when in the mountains, knowing something bad could happen while being overconfident in our skills and assuming they’ll keep us safe no matter the decisions we make. That’s what happened the previous night to those climbers. We have to respect the dangers these mountains present and make our decisions accordingly. With the record snowpack in California this year, there are likely to be a lot of beginners (like myself) attempting to climb on snow for the first time. Please do your research on conditions and practice before going up, and be prepared to turn around at any point so you can make it down safely. The mountains aren’t going anywhere; and Jen, Michaele, and I will be back as soon as we can to bag that peak.