Oh man! I haven't read any but the last three posts. (I'm a slow reader.) It will take a week or so to put together a decent trip report, but I will get to it. Please be patient.
I hope all who followed along had fun. I'll try to zip off a few observations here to start.
Biggest problem: After the trip, I am hobbling around with one good foot/leg, and one with a deep blister so bad that my entire foot is mildly swollen. It swelled and filled with liquid AFTER I finished Saturday.
Highlight: catching half a dozen voracious 6-7 inch trout in about 5 minutes from the lake east of Pants Pass. They'd hit the yellow/red dot lure before I could start reeling it in! I released all of them because I had miles to go down the trail.
Bad deal: The lake to the west of Pants Pass that some report said was full of huge trout was devoid of any fish! None seen, none rising, no bites. Dang Internet reports
Black Kaweah: Some hiker guidebook was too brief, and I didn't do proper research to find the correct approach. So I climbed a Big Dog mountain to a false summit. Took a picture of two guys on the real summit, about a half mile away and 500' above me. Compared to Whitney, it's a Big Dog peak, and Whitney is somewhere between puppy and a Golden Retriever.
Forgotten item 1: flat/pita bread. So got some breakfast bagels and English muffins at Wuksachi Lodge. Next time, I'm taking more bagels!
Forgotten item 2: Tent pegs for my 6-Moon-Designs parka tent. (re-seam sealed the parka at last minute, and forgot to grab stakes) Oops!! My 7-y-o wanted to telephone me to tell me, after I was out on the trail. I used big rocks to set it up one night (and it didn't rain). But all the other nights, I either slept out as planned, or inside
some hut.
...Actually got significant rain only the second day -- I hunkered under the parka and ate lunch.
Fun item: My work associates were watching my progress, and noticed I had turned around at one point. They were very worried, called my wife asking if she'd heard any thing. She looked at the "terrain" version of the map and could see my ascent and descent of Black Kaweah.
Pants Pass: Off trail, steepest crazy ascent and descent (1200') with a 20+ lb pack. It is talus and scree on the west side (tough climbing!). On the east side, consolidated dirt with gravel covering in the gully--sure failure without a rope. But then beside (N of) the gully, I could down-climb the blocks and scree. Lake to lake (west to east) took 4 hours.
Lots of horse manure in the valley east of Pants Pass before the Colby Pass trail. Packers must be overnighting their stock there. I drank from that stream all day, untreated. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Didn't see a soul after the Black Kaweah false summit and reaching Wallace Creek and the JMT. That was a day and a half and lots of miles alone!
Made friends with a lot of good people on the trails. Alice from Alpaugh, Em and Steph from Petaluma and Oakland, Jeremy and Margarita from NM and Tx. 6 guys from Texas.
The 6 from Texas were also planning on climbing over Pants Pass. Took them about 15 minutes to change their minds once they spotted it from Kaweah Gap. They instead took the HST trail all the way through to Mt Whitney.
On Friday, I got almost to Guitar Lake, but wanted to try the north slope of Mt Whitney, so headed up the Arctic Lake drainage. A friend had thought there would definitely be fish in Arctic. Nope, not a sign; murky water with green moss. Tried a few casts, then a quick cleanup swim, and moved on. The north slope if Mt W looks too intimidating to climb. I then pulled out a picture Rick Kent had taken from Russell just before he climbed the slope. I THEN realized: he had climbed with snow on the slope -- so he could use crampons and get good traction. No way I could do it in a late afternoon solo climb on bare rock. I just couldn't see a sure path. So over Whitney-Russell pass I went, down to Iceberg lake. Filled a quart bottle and two quart freezer zip-locks with water, and headed up the MR to the summit. ...wish i could have heard the comments of the 10 or so people watching me from Iceberg. (I didn't have time to head over and talk with them, it was 4:30 pm when I started up.) Lost my light-blue Crock camp-shoe water-crossing shoe on the way up. Offering a reward--I want it back!
Friday night in the hut was great. I was disappointed several finishing the JMT didn't meet me up there. They just weren't sure with the cloudy weather. The hut was about 60 F inside, even without the door!
Ok, enough of the "brief" report. Once I get pictures uploaded and captioned, I'll do a real report.
