Mt Whitney King of the Sierras At 14,496 ft, Mountain Whitney is the highest mountain in the contiguous mainland of the USA. It was the end of June 2006 and my wife and I were going to try the Mountaineers Route during our three day stint in the Sierras. From Lone Pine taking the Whitney Portal Road (turn left at the only set of traffic lights in Lone Pine) we began to climb up into the hills and mountains. Passing the Alabama Hills, which have featured in many Hollywood Westerns we arrived at the road head. Because of a strict permit policy on the mountain, (the park authorities run a lottery system each February) we couldn’t get two permits. So, we booked our trip through Sierra Mountain Guides (SMC) who not only supplied the correct permits, two of them, but a guide, food and tents. We also hired ice axes from them. We met Chris our guide at the road head. We headed up to Upper Boy Scout Lake our camp at 11,300 ft. We travelled through breathtaking scenery and the pristine nature of the area with its granite rock and abundant pine trees was a delight to trek through.

We crossed over Lone Pine Creek several times and once under a cooling waterfall, until we got to the Ebersbacher Ledges. This section of the trail is the route finding crux. It was graded 3rd Class, easy enough, but the route finding was tricky. We continued on vast slabs of granite and reached the lake, which was clear as crystal and full of brown trout. It took four and a half hours from the road head. After setting up camp and over dinner Chris warned up about ‘aggressive rodents’ visions of field mice with knuckle dusters and flick knives sprang into my mind, but there were marmots, ground squirrels, mice and other things that would very much like to eat our food. The food was put into a sac and strung over a boulder, to stop the ‘varmits’ getting to it.

Summit day was an early start and we left camp at around 5.30am and tramped through broken ground and patches of snow to gain elevation. In front of us was the impressive granite spires of Whitney, Keelers Needle and Day Needle. We came upon Iceberg Lake, and this looked like a larger version of Le Lac Blanc outside Chaminoux. Above us now laid our route to the summit, a snow ascent. For the first 400m or so we moved unroped and got to a rocky col. Nicola left her pack here. We then roped up and did three pitches of Scottish II to reach the summit plateau.

The plateau was large and comprised of mainly broken slabs and rock. There is an old research shelter put up by the Smithsonian Institute, on the summit on one side is a metal container with a visitors book. The highest point is on a large boulder and is marked by a plaque. We hadn’t seen anyone for two days and it was a bit of a shock to see fifteen or so people on the summit. They had come up via the trekkers route. The permit system means that on the other routes there a few climbers.

We descended down towards the snow slope and were lowered down to each stance. Upon reaching the col we went to retrieve Nicola’s bag. I noticed a sweet wrapper under a rock, tutting, I picked it up and realised it was one of ours then I saw another and her spare sun glasses. I couldn’t work out how it got there until Nicola noticed that her top pocket of the rucksack was open: I blamed the marmots until Chris said it was ravens. I wasn’t sure but he said they were clever enough to unzip, zips. Later lower down we did in fact see some ravens. So it could well of been true.

We then descended down towards Iceberg Lake. This time back on snow as the col was just rock. We roped up me first, Nicola second and Chris third. We descended down with a ‘gorilla walk’ and this took a bit of effort but eventually we got to an angle of slope where we run down or at least take big steps unroped. Finally we got to Iceberg Lake where there were two groups of climbers, whom we guessed were going to do the East Rib or East Buttress of Whitney were setting up camp. We exchanged 'hellos', and picked up our walking poles and then turned right and descended broken ground for an hour or so. Over slabs and more broken ground, Upper Boy Scout Lake slowly came into view. We descended easy slopes to the water’s edge and joined our tents.

We had dinner and an early night. In the morning I was surprised to find the cloth bag that contained my toothpaste and brush was chewed ad holes in it, and covered with mouse poo. Chris hadn’t lied about the aggressive rodents. After breakfast, we broke camp. Whitney has a ‘pack it in pack it out’, which includes human waste, I drew the short straw so, I took our waste and strung it up (bagged up) on the back of my rucksack. We began our descent to Lower Boy Scout Lake over the large granite slabs. Which, had clear water streams running down them. Easily making our way to the lake where we had a short break before heading on down to the Ebersbacher Ledges, the route finding going down these folded granite ledges seemed even more difficult than a few days ago in ascent. We scrambled down changing direction frequently down the ledges. The ground levelled off and we got to the first of several river crossings. This one was straightforward but the next one was rather acrobatic and involved down climbing amongst the rapids.

The path became a lot more level and we hit the forest path. Through the scented pine trees we got onto the graded trail with it’s switchbacks and returned to the Whitney Portal. At the Whitney Portal we went to the café cum gift shop and ordered burgers and fries after which we said goodbye to Chris and left Whitney was satisfaction and fondness.

Lee Farmer