Mt Whitney Zone Forums Trip Reports MR 4/29/13

Had a great day on the MR with Bob P. and along the trail met another fellow WZone/WPSMB member Nyker who is in town for business (and also seems to have a knack for spotting animals from a distance).

Mt. Whitney MR 4/29/2013

Carine, I watched you guys on Bob's SPOT throughout the day. All he told me beforehand was that he was going to tag a couple of peaks higher than the "run-of-the mill 10K-footers" he plays on near Reno. I halfway expected to see his track head north to Russell after you guys summitted Whitney, but when the signal headed south I knew he was going to bag Muir.

He keeps creeping closer to that magical number of averaging exactly one summit of 10K' or better every week for 20-plus years. He has well over 1000 summits of 10K' or better during that time - if he keeps tagging mutiple peaks each week throughout the summer, he'll get the average to 52 per year (or one every 7.00 days, depending on how you look at it). That's just insane! I'm doing good if I can claim 5-7 10K'-plus summits in a year. That's just a light month for Mr. Pickering . . .

It's pretty easy to pad those statistics when it's less than an hour to the trailhead, rather than 3,000+ miles. I can ski two 10K peaks and be home less than five hours after leaving my house. You could do it too if you transferred to the Reno Marriot.

You wouldn't be too far off on that Russell comment Bulldog. If I recall we were just past the slabs when Bob uttered his famous, "... you know what would be fun..." line and suggested we go for Russell, but I had my head tuned solely to the MR so that was that.

Everyone needs an "Insanity Bob" in their life to help spice things up... or at least to mentor you to the next level.

> Everyone needs an "Insanity Bob" in their life...



Thanks for posting the pictures and the link Carine.

I'm amazed crampons can be left behind.

+1000 !!!!

Yeah - just crazy-uber. Bob's SummitPost page is quite an eye-opener.

And keep rubbing it in Bob. Unfortunately, no relo possible - at the earliest - till Brianne's off to college in 2018 . . .

Laura, I was thinking of you when the post-holing got really bad just above Iceberg Lake on the way up. Fortunately, the bad stuff only lasted about 100 yards.

Steve, there is a big difference between leaving gear behind and bringing it but not using it. The snow was fairly soft and there were tracks up the MR chute. Carine, Rob, and I all went up without using our crampons. Rob used his axe a little, while Carine and I just used ski poles. On the way down, I used crampons because I had a new pair I wanted to try out. Carine and Rob just plunge-stepped down with ski poles and bare boots. It's not rocket science, but you do need stiff boots and good technique to do this safely. One screw-up can get you on the evening news.

There is still a lot of unavoidable snow, and it can get treacherous when the temperatures drop. Many people may be able to get up and back down safely without using crampons and an axe, but leaving this gear at home is a really dumb idea, at least for the next couple of weeks. We weren't on the main trail, but there is still plenty of snow over there. The conditions (and the need to bring crampons and axes) are probably about the same.

Hey guys! I finally have a few spare minutes. The trip was great and it was such a pleasant surprise to meet up with and finish with Bob and Carine and really made for an enjoyable day. I was happy just to keep up with you two! Happy to be able to get it done in one day also. As Carine alludes to...be on the lookout for several pairs of eyes watching you on the first mile or two; definitely raised some hairs on my neck! When I get back to a pc next week, I will put up some pix. If Dave is reading this-wondering how your summit day went with your team?

Here are some more photos and details from the climb:

http://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=13461&cpgm=tripmain&ski=Include