“Go slow to go fast.” – Kevin
This is the year of Denali and to give myself a taste for some real mountaineering, I signed up for the winter summit of Mt. Whitney. Mt. Whitney in the winter is quite a harsh mountaineering experience and also a very scenic time to go. I would say that I definitely underestimated this experience. I was slightly underprepared physically and mentally for this trip. Particularly, I realized that dealing with camp is a mental struggle and as draining on you as the physical part of the trip. In any case, I had an absolute blast and a collection of valuable lessons and memories.
The plan was the summit Whitney in 4 days and then use the last day to come back down to the base.
Pre-expedition:
I flew into Las Vegas and skipped right by the casinos, wooo! I landed at 12 am and the plan was to drive the 5 hours to Bishop, CA from there in 1 shot. However, I was absolutely dead within 2 hours of the drive and I needed to crash. I shacked up in a Motel 6 in Beatty, which is some weird town in the middle of Nevada, right next to the Death Valley National Park. The only significant notable thing in the area were the overt brothel signs and the signs claiming alien sightings. Slightly unnerving to be honest, but nothing eventful took place. The following day I drove into Bishop in a nice and easy drive on a beautiful blue bird day. It was fantastic to see the mountains and approach them slowly as I drove to it. It was one of the most therapeutic drives I have had in a long time.
In any case, the hostel in Bishop was a quaint little spot with a great vibe and cheap rooms. I was to meet up with the team the next day and start the trip. I had chance to meet up with them for dinner that day and they were a great bunch! David, Trent and Peter were all climbing/school friends that were on this trip together. They were a lively bunch so it boded well for the trip.
Day 1:
This was supposed to be a nice easing day into the rest of the trip. After gear check with our guides Kevin and Ian, and getting acquainted with each other, we set out from the base of Whitney to get to the Whitney portal which is the base of the climb. Not an eventful day but we learned how to set up camp which was valuable.
A huge snow storm pulled in at night as we started dinner that lasted the entire night and was a very nerve racking night.
Day 2:
So first thing, woke up to frozen humidity inside the tent which was a bit to deal with. After we cleared the tent and got packed up, we jumped straight into a avalanche training that required us to use the beacon and the shovel to practice tracking and ‘rescuing’ a small duffel bag. It was an interesting experience and the first formal training with the probes and beacons.
Soon we got moving and the plan was to get to either get to lower boy scout lake. This would be where we set up camp. It was a fairly gruelling journey carrying about 60lbs of our stuff up the ridge and over where there was some technical climbing that involved protection and some actual climbing moves with massive packs on. Eventually we navigated around the ridge, with snow shoes on for most of the journey up. It was fairly gruelling and a long 8 hour day. Eventually we got to camp which was a fairly unstable section of snow near the lake.
This was one of the most rough nights I have had on a mountain in a long time. It made me question everything and why I was doing this. I started the evening by struggling to flatten the base of my tent which lead to me sliding around at night. Then I decided to cook inside the tent. However, I forgot to vent the tent so I tried leaning over to vent it but accidentally burned a hole into it. This was while I was inside the bag with food being prepared. I had to hold on and eventually get out and get some duct tape from the guides to tape it up. Luckily it all held up but the lack of sleep along with the nerve racking hole in the bag led to a very stressful night.
Day 3:
The beautiful sunrise today however made me realize why I do this and why it is all worth it. The camera could not do it justice but it was fabulous. Especially watching the sun start hitting the peaks inch by inch and creep all the way down the mountain.
We began the day with some cramponing techniques by using them on rocks and doing a few bouldering moves to test it out before we need to use it on summit day. We then proceeded up the mountain to get to upper boy scout lake which would be where do the summit push from on the next day.
On the way up we did a quick detour to practice our self arrest techniques. It was fun to practice this but led to snow going everywhere inside my clothes. Not super great! But still fun. At this point I was also feeling the effects of altitude. It was substantial but I could acknowledge it for sure.
Camp setup this time was much better and we found a much flatter place to setup camp. It led to me actually sleeping well for the first time in 3 nights.
Right before bed time, I saw the most stars that I have ever seen in my life. I was struggling with cold and exhaustion and wanted to sleep to be ready for the summit push the next day and unfortunately gave into that, however, I really wish I could have spend more time just hanging outside watching the stars.
Day 4:
The big day was finally here. I woke up at 3 am to melt water for the trip and eat breakfast and get my pack prepared. Procrastination was the reason I had to wake up early for the 5 am start. We started off in the dark and on snow shoes and made it up to pinnacle ridge which is what we had to cross. We reached the ridge by sunrise and could see the beautiful peak face of Mt Whitney with a pink hue being created by the soft rising sun. Unfortunately the ridge has snow pack at about 35 deg and hard pack over a softer layer causing it to be highly prone to an avalanche.
Essentially the test that we conducted was to cut a 1 by 1 square in the snow and use the shovel to test the pack quality. Two taps from the arm were enough to set out the entire block so the pack was incredibly loose. This meant that we had to turn back and a summit was not in our destiny yet. And we did turn back and decided to ice climb the following day instead. We high tailed it back to our cars and back to town for a well earned meal, shower and then bed. It was a huge relief.
Day 5:
The final day was ice climbing in Lee Vining. It was about an hour drive from Bishop and again a really early start to the day. It was a great day and after about 45 mins of hiking we got to the spot which happens to be 20 mins from Yosemite!! The pass however is closed in the winter making it about a 6-7 hours drive I believe. Ice climbing in Lee Vining was fun and is the most I learned about the technique at this location. The ice fall was quite large and substantial as well. Quite a sight to behold.
Overall a fantastic trip that I was grateful to do, but not sure if I would repeat again. I think we had the summits in our sight and we would have been able to pull it off. However, it is not a peak that will remain in my focus. One big take away from the trip was what Kevin said on the way up, when we were going nice and slowly up the steep snow slope - “Go slow to go fast”. It doesn’t really seem to make any sense and seems like a juxtaposition, however it is quite profound. Many times in life we try to move too quickly in the short term while ignoring the long term. Mountaineering and life can often have close parallels. In mountaineering and life, you have to maintain a nice slow sustainable speed that you are comfortable with enough to make it to the top. Trying to rush in the short term will just burn you out to the point that you need to stop, wasting precious moments that could have been managed. Go slow to go fast. Simple and profound.
– G