Been planning on heading up North Fork Mountaineer's Route on Mt Whitney since we did it last year. My buddy DJ, who runs half-marathons, works out often, hikes Baldy, San Jacinto and the Santa Anas is in great shape, and for me, I had summited 8 mountains in the last 9 or 10 weeks, ranging from 9,000 feet to nearly 11,000 feet. That included Baldy, Sanny J, a hike above Upper Boy Scout with Christine four weeks ago to about 11,600 feet, as well as a quick run up Marion Mountain trail last week. So, though I hadn't regularly been on the stair-master at the gym, I figured I was pretty close to being ready to do this again. Boots on the ground...right? I've thinned down, put muscle on and am in good shape also.
Now, the reality. DJ and I get up at 3.30 AM, Sunday morning, eat what we can, drink some coffee and head up to the Portal. We head to the North Fork, and about 1/2 mile in, we run into 7 other hikers who we met the day before at the Visitors Center and at the Portal. Even though it's dark, one of them says...DJ and Joe? Are we glad to see you. They hadn't done the route before and I had only completed it once, but I was made the "lead", to find the trail, while DJ checked to make sure everyone was doing okay, giving advice, etc. We were all doing fantastic above Upper Boy Scout, and singing Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Headed right in front of the needles, and skipped the sandy valley, instead, taking a course that goes over the water on the right of the valley. Light rock climbing there, but at least you don't have to lose elevation. A few more feet and you're at Iceberg Lake, where 8 out of 9 of us felt great. One hiker was a little dizzy, but did want to continue. DJ gave him the options and assigned a person to stay with him, in case he needed to go back.
Then, up the chute. DJ had told the group to go ahead and take the trail marked on a photo and on their map. We sat back a bit as they headed up. After filtering some water, DJ and I started up, catching them fairly fast. This is when I did something I shouldn't have done, I separated from the group of 8, and wanted to see how the right side of the chute would be since it had less snow. After getting a couple of hundred or more yards up, through some very easy rock climbing, that came to a stop, and, stuck. Two other hikers on the left wall said, "hey, it's easier over here"... in which I said, yea, I know that now. I tried to get over to the left, but the rocks were steep, and there was lots of snow and scree. I finally headed up through the scree and found a spot to head over to my group. A little sketchy, if not a lot, I finally found a rock with no hand holds, but a two inch wide foothold I was hoping I could scoot on. If not, I would be in trouble. But, I felt as comfortable as I could and got across, joining the group.
No, the rest of the way was a pain for all of us, with strong very cold winds, snow blown by the winds and just plain cold. On top of that, we couldn't stay on harder rock as snow was on the edges of the chute, so we had to scree it up, taking advantage of some larger rock formations until it got better near the top of the chute. We were all very exhausted by then, but the 400 was ahead. Quite a bit of snow on the 400, but lots of room to get around it. We were told a guide had not taken his group up the 400 earlier, but it looked very doable. We decided a different course from last years and found this course, far to the left to be not as easy as the middle course we took last year. Still not bad on the 400, summited pretty quickly, stayed a short time at the summit as it was freezing cold with strong winds. Then headed down, completely exhausted, making it back to the Portal at dark. Burgers in town and a drive home.
All in all, a good trip. The lesson here is, though we felt we were in good shape, we had a difficult time and were exhausted fighting the elements and conditions we hadn't faced before. Some different training for next time is needed to figure out how to not be completely exhausted for the 11 mile trip back down.
"Turtles, Frogs & other Environmental Sculpture"
