Hey All,
After an incident while on our day hike to Mt Whitney this past Friday, I felt compelled to post this.
Our group was on the descent from Trail Crest when a lone young woman caught up to us and asked to go down with us back to the Portal. She had gotten sick very early on, during her ascent and was trailing her group that included her brother. She continued the ascent and linked up with an unknown couple. At some point, she crossed paths with her sister on her descent. It was determined that she would catch a ride from the unknown couple she was with. The brother and his group would head to town when done. She later ran out of water (1.5L bladder) by Trail Crest, but continued on and submitted Whitney. On her descent, she left the couple she was with, because they were too slow, and eventually, she caught up to our group. She, no doubt, was dehydrated and suffered some altitude sickness. We were able to get her water at trail camp. Though, we were slowed by her pace we finally made it down to the Portal at 10PM. It was a 22 hour ordeal for her. We took her down to Lone Pine to her hotel, safe.
A couple thoughts. Stay with your people!! Someone in her condition should have not been left alone. SHE, should have faced the reality that she wasn't in the mental/physical state to decide to continue on. What was scary, was that she thought she was prepared this trip, after getting snowed out last year. She was very close to being another casualty on Whitney. Respect the mountain!!! Be safe guys!
