On October 3rd, 1999, my 70-year-old dad, my buddy Steve, and I hiked up and down Mt. Whitney (14,497' highest spot in the lower 48 states). Although the guidebooks tried to make it out as some spectacular multi-day trip, it really was just a long, strenuous, one-day hike. We started at 5:40am and finished about 8:30pm, and we had beautiful weather the whole trip. We did the lower two miles of the trail in darkness both ways, but we had moonlight in the morning and our headlamps in the evening. I guess the guidebookwriters were trying to scare off the L.A. flatlanders, but it didn't work; we met a few unfortunates suffering from altitude sickness.
| Daybreak above Lone Pine Lake (25% up) | Treeline (50% up) | Ice floe on 99 switchbacks (70% up) | The ridge at Trailcrest (80% up) |
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| Looking back down (90% up) | On top! | The summit plaque | Here's a map/guide of Mt. Whitney. |
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| We visited Death Valley the day before. |
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For more Mt. Whitney info, go to the website of the Portal Store at the trailhead. Or the National Forest Service website.
See a later, more extensive tour of Death Valley.
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