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Mount Whitney is the highest point in the contiguous United States, elevation 14,505 feet (4,421 meters). It is located at the boundary between California’s Inyo and Tulare counties. The western slope of the mountain lies within Sequoia National Park.

The climb to Mt. Whitney began about six months ago when I started training (or rather I focused on becoming fit). I read two books on climbing Mt. Whitney for middle-aged folks and found out that the author suggested it takes about one year. There were a couple of motivations for this climb. One was the reality of feeling old, the second was just wanting some good ole adventure. However, there was another bit of motivation and that was spurred on by a friend, Romina Avery. Our families have knows each other for over 10 years. She has an overwhelming spirit of a natural adventurer and loves to work out no matter what she’s doing. Recently she experienced her second bout with breast cancer and fought it off, again, by undergoing radiation and having a hysterectomy earlier this year. After her first fight with cancer a few years ago, she said that she was going to climb Mt. Whitney. Her goal now was to climb Mt. Whitney as a two-time cancer survivor. Her faith in Jesus Christ showed strength and humility before others. It was a blessing to climb with Romina.

The group was headed up by Danny Rossmango. Danny is one of the most unselfish persons I know. When one of the climbers, Rebecca, got altitude sickness, Danny insisted on carrying her pack. It was Danny who sacrificed his climb. On top of that, he left Romina, Josh and myself heat pads at the switchbacks before turning back. However, we did not see them (I wish we had). What a nice gesture! With Danny and Rebecca turning back at mid point of the switchbacks, that left Romina, Josh (who has an Abe Lincoln style beard sporting socks over his ears to keep warm) and I alone. I spent the day before getting to know Josh. He was one funny, witty all around great guy who happened to be a blessing to be around. We talked about his time serving in Iraq, moving to Los Angeles area, and hearing about his fiancee. Josh went back to his room, and I went up to the Portal to sleep in the car.

It was about 8:00 p.m. and I tried to get some quality sleep in my 4Runner (and tried not to think about bears), but sleeping in back of a car was not very comfy. I woke up feeling pretty refreshed at 2:00 a.m. and started to prepare. The four other climbers did not arrive until 3:00 a.m. Danny, Romina, and Rebecca left the Antelope Valley at 11:30 p.m. and were operating on very little or no sleep.

We were on the trail head at 3:15 a.m. The climb to the top of the tree line was without event, and we made good timing. It was dark and everyone was wearing their headlamps. Just before the Meadows at Trail Side, we saw the sun begin to rise. We could see lots of clouds hovering around us. From the Meadows to Trail Camp is where Rebecca was overcome by altitude sickness. Danny was monitoring her closely. We made it to Trail Camp and it was very cold. We had not expected it to be this cold, it was 20 degrees colder then I expected, so we were not prepared for what lay ahead. I wore four layers and the last one was my windbreaker. My hands were freezing. I just bought gloves (wind resistant, not cold resistant).

From Trail Camp and onto the switchbacks was not that difficult of a climb. The pain of climbing was overlaid by the feeling of freezing. About the midway point of the Switchbacks, Rebecca had to stop and Danny ushered her down to the Portal. This is where Josh took off ahead, leaving Romina and myself together (we didn’t see Josh until later when he was descending about a 1/4 of a mile from the summit as we were still ascending). While we were doing the Switchbacks, we discovered that our camelbaks (water) feed tubes were frozen. I was able to get it working by using a hand warmer and biting the tube to loosen the ice and then wacking it to make the ice fling. It froze again in a few minutes, so we were without water until we met up with Danny at the tree line on the way down.

Romina and I stayed close within eyesight. I knew that Romina hates the cold (a fact to anyone who knows her) and it was getting colder. She was very determined, but we struggled to make the summit. The last 1/4 mile was brutal. My guess was that is was about 15-19 degrees and the wind was blowing 35-45 mph. This was the hardest part. For me, my speech was a mess. I could not talk well, and I could not use my hands (in fact I have four fingers today that are still numb). We made it to the summit and ran into the hut. We tried to eat, but all our food was frozen. The hut was empty but within minutes about 10 people arrived. We were hoping to get enough body heat in the hut to make a difference but that failed. Romina was severely shaking and put on some rain gear, hoping it would help. I wanted to take several pictures of our feat but took very few. (I regret not taking more, but our health came before photography ). We needed to get off this mountain.

The trek down the mountain was a bit scary. There is one part of the trail that has large rocks and they were now covered in snow creating very slippery conditions for us hikers. We managed not to hurt ourselves. At the junction of the Crabtree Ranger Station trail split (I do not know the name of the trail), I had to stop to relieve myself. I told Romina I would catch up with her. She was still freezing and moved quickly down the switchbacks to get to the bottom. When I finally saw her, she was jogging! I had to jog in areas before I could catch up to her. She got toe cramps and had to stop. I finally caught up with her. We ate some frozen food; I had an apple, Romina had an orange. We continued down to the Meadow where we met the Ranger. He was coming up to warn the Trail Camp of a severe incoming storm. We trotted down the trail, until we met up with Danny who was climbing back up to meet us (isn’t he a saint!). We were looking down at Mirror Lake when we met him. He had water that was not frozen and more hand warmers. From there, we walked back down to Whitney Portal without any problems.

Overall the trip took:

3:15 to 11:45 to climb up (8:30 hours).

12:00 to 6:15 to climb down (6:15 hours).

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