Mount Whitney Update – Summit Attempt and Descent

It has taken me more than a week to post the final exploits of the Whitney Winter Expedition of 2009 (makes it sound bigger and better!) – just a bit too much travel and work commitments.  But here goes with the final chapter (as I remember it now …)

Summit day is just such a stressful experience and I try to be all ready.  I’m up at 0145 am instead of 0300, so I just lie there, being cold and wondering why I’m here again?  Eventually the alarm goes off again and I hustled to get everything ready – sticking food in various pockets, retrieving all the items that were in the sleeping bag to keep them from freezing.  (What I had in my mummy-like bag: my plastic boot liners, 3 sets of gloves, extra socks and a hat.  I think I also had my camera and iPod somewhere there to keep from freezing also.)

After kind of getting everything ready, I stumble out of the tent am ready to go eventually, but I never figure out how 90 minutes goes by so fast on these mornings.

This is my favorite part.  Looking up at a brilliant clear night sky, the stars are just incredible.  Almost takes my breath away – again.  For awhile all one can hear is the sound of our boots stomping in the snow while our headlamps illuminate a small part of the world ahead of us.  There is no one else on the entire mountain other than our party and one other (they will play a role later in the story).

We head out and it becomes apparent on the side ridge of a ravine that we are walking on ice covered by some feet of snow and we’re kind of in danger of slipping and falling off.  So the guides make us stop, and trying to position ourselves on this side-slope, we have to put our crampons on to continue.  At about this time, the dawn starts and it’s the most amazing combination of oranges and reds in the far off desert sky.

It takes us a really long time to make progress on the side-slope and start up this really steep part to where we eventually will get roped up with harnesses and everything for the eventual summit ascent.  We are all working really hard and the guides are having to make fresh steps in deep snow so that we can continue in their tracks.  But we’re doing pretty good according to the schedule.

We get to the rocks and it takes us awhile to get harnessed up, helmets on and everything together as a team.  We eat some and get ready for the the straight up portion.  At this point, we’re about 1/3 of the way on summit day and about 12,700′.

Now is where the problems begin.  The snow is so deep that the guides are making little progress and despite being incredibly strong, they have to trade off leading because the work is so exhausting.  It’s slow going and we are falling farther and farther behind the schedule.

Then it gets worse.

We see the other group behind us, using our steps, and we decide to wait for them to catch up and try to blaze the trail.

They do catch up but are not anxious to lead.  But we kindly insist.

Then it really gets worse.  The snow is so soft, deep and fluffy with an ice bottom that there is now way to get traction or purchase with any sort of boots, crampons or snowshoes.  The ice axe is totally useless as there is nothing for it to grab into.

Then we reach an incredibly steep portion where we go two steps up and one step back-sliding down.  I have a moment of panic where – no matter what I do – I can’t get to the next step.  I just keep carving out a bigger cavern in the snow and when I go backward I try to pull the guide down with me.  There is now way to go sideways or upwards.  I then mostly get up on my knees and use these as some sort of leverage and using every ounce of energy get to the next ledge.

1000 vertical feet in 6 hours.  This should normally take 2 hours (about 500 vertical feet in an hour).

At this point Deb (one of the guides) turned to us and started to say, “well I don’t want to be negative but …”.  I think in unison we said, “it’s ok”.  In other words, yes it’s ok to turn back from where we were at 13,300′.

We were hours from even getting to the halfway point and then to the notch and then having to belay everyone up with ropes and everything.

SIDE NOTE: I just hung up from talking to John Morgain.  John had been on the (successful) Rainier climb in 2007 (where I went up with a double hernia and had surgery a week or two later. ha!)  He said that when he does Whitney in summer, he starts at 4am – and finishes by 33o pm and he can be back home that night (if you live in LA or San Diego which he does).  Oh, and it was also John’s idea for the climb but he had to back out due to family obligations, but we agreed just now to try a summer climb maybe later this year.

To conclude the story since it’s getting long now.

We came back to high camp and took everything down.  On the descent it was horrible for me as my toes were banging into the front of my plastics in the snowshoes and I was in agony and the tops of the toes were worn down and the front of the toes were just so painful – worse than any other trip – ever.  But there was a great sunset of the mountain over the desert.

Then I drove almost 500 miles in one shot to get back – and was pretty dead.

All in all, even more difficult – but shorter – than portions of Rainier and Denali.  But it had nothing to do with conditioning, or training, it was just that, this time, the mountain won.  But coming back with all digits intact – priceless.