Goose, Wiff, Richard, and Bob thank you for the responses and suggestions. My son and I successfully summited on 7-23-16.
The bottom line was that the main trail turned out to be just wide enough for me that I was able to push past what were some very scary spots. In the videos I watched on-line the trail looks much narrower than I found in person. And some of the spots that looked to have huge drop offs on the videos turned out to not be that steep in person.
For anyone who has the fear of heights "bug" the worst parts of the trail for me were:
1.) The back side a couple tenths of a mile after the 1.9 mile Whitney sign: There are a series of about 8 "horseshoe" circular parts to the trail that start at about the 9.2 to 9.3 mile point. Each one of these circular parts to the trail are about several hundred feet in length each. As you are going around these circular parts up the trail, the drop offs on the left side of the trail are extreme and very nerve racking. The trail is not perfectly flat and you have to step over or around some rough terrain spots and some fairly big steps and rocks right in the middle of the trail.
2.) The final of the 99 switch backs: It is a very long switch back. The trail is kind of narrow and the drop off is steep enough in many spots that I think it would be very tuff to stop your fall if you stumble off. "Passing" other hikers on this long narrow switch back was kind of scary because there were a lot of people on the trail when we were at this point.
3.) A 20-30 foot snow field on the backside just before the final turn up to the hut. The hiking poles were very helpful here. You can step in the foot prints of the preceding hikers but the snow was sloshy and slippery.
4.) The switchbacks coming up from trailside meadows and just before consolation lake.
As far as the 4 windows on the backside and the traverse across from the final switch back thru trail crest, I did not find these parts to be too bad. I'd estimate the trail was 5 feet wide so I just stayed right in the middle. The cables also were not bad at all because all of the snow was melted and the trail was very wide. I had read some posts about people going outside of the cables when they are snowed over. No way, I would never try that.
Living in Chicago, we had really never hiked before and we had never done any physical activity at any elevation over 1000 feet. So tackling Whitney for our 1st two hikes ever was quite an amazing experience. I spent many hours reading the forums, studying the maps, and watching the trail videos. I can't say enough about how helpful the people in this forum were. Thanks for all the advice and help.
