Mt Whitney Zone Forums Trip Reports MMWT July 13th 2012

I decided to check the website out for permits. Randomly selected July 13th and got a permit on my first try.

so this is the pre-hike report.

Training - nominal
Gear - nothing new, same as last year
State of mind - I really need to get out of the city
Plans - Planning on making it a four day trip. I will probably stay at LPL or outpost the first night and trail camp the second night. Hopefully two nights at altitude will be enough before heading to the summit. Planning on spending the third night at trail camp so that summit day is relaxed. Definitely not trying to set any land speed records. Slower is better as it means that I will be away from the real world longer. I won't be shooting for the triple this trip.....LOL

Weather Report - Chance of thunderstorms! Yikes!

spotwalla link: http://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=4eb64ffb58292718b

Have a blast Tom. Are we taking the Aventure Route to LPL this time? Presumably mom's in the dark?

Hey Gary,
LOL, no adventure route this time. At least not going up. Might do some exploring on the way down.

Mom knows, I'll be making a trip to her house before heading up on friday to put her in a straightjacket, hide her cellphone and computer and otherwise remove her ability to communicate with authorities. I know it's drastic and perhaps a little cruel to do to a 70 year old woman and she may be a little hungry by the time I get back, but drastic measures sometimes need to be taken.

Bear boxes, the Portal has lots of bear boxes! Much less cruel than taking her computer. And you could put food in it too.

I could put a bear in the bear box too....I'd put my money on my Mom and she could eat the bear and save me on grocery costs. Great thinkin wagga!!!

I'm thinking of changing my itinerary a little....

Friday Night - Outpost camp. Go to sleep early
Early Saturday Morning - Everyone knows that sleeping at outpost sucks once the dayhikers come through. I am not going to fight it, I am going to break camp and head up to trail camp/consultation lake early.
Saturday Day - I'd get bored doing nothing all day. Going to make a run for Wotan's Throne.
Early Sunday Morning - head on up to the summit in time to see the sunrise
Sunday Day - Head back to TC/CL...make the decision to continue down or spend another night on the hill.

Bob R's photos for the Northwest Arete route for Wotan's throne. He describes this route as a Class 2
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockwellb/sets/72157624840389310/
Seems like the right route for me.....

A little bit past north fork crossing. Overcast, occassional drizzle, perfect temperature, beautiful day.

Exciting night. I'm in lone pine and all of my stuff is at outpost camp starving and tired. At mickey Ds chowing down before heading up to retreive my gear. I'll do a full write up later

Now that sounds like weather . . .

Why is your stuff starving & tired?

Not weather at all....

Got to Outpost Camp and set up camp in the last campsite before the switchers going up to mirror lake. As it was my first night at altitude, I wasn't expecting to sleep much. But I put on Pink Floyd, Meddle and started to drift off during Echoes. Then I heard some yelling from up the hill. I was thinking "c'mon ya bastiges, we're trying to sleep down here". Then I listened, it was a man and a boy screaming "help us! Help us!". It was about midnight.

I quickly got dressed and started heading up the trail. Another man from outpost joined me and we started up the switchbacks. We could see that there were four headlamps and I yelled "is anyone injured?". The reply was "No, but my son is very sick". Then I said "well come on down"....the man said "we can't, there's a mountain lion who's stalking us". So the other man and I start heading up the switchbacks to the boy and the man. In the back of my mind I was thinking "aren't you supposed to go the other direction than where the mountain lion is?". The mountain lion went into the bushes for a little bit and the two other men who were heading up to trail camp and were at the approximate same location as the man and the boy, decided to continue up.

I'll go out of sequence here: The two men had to turn around as the mountain lion would not let them go by. They set up camp next to my tent. Anyway, once we got past the stream I focused on the boy. His name is Maxwell and he is 12 years old. He's been puking for the past 12 hours or so and is severely dehydrated and he's pretty much bonking on top of the AMS and dehydration. I brought him to my campsite and tried to get him to drink some water...he puked it up within 3 minutes. He was really hungry and had only been eating protein bars, which of course, he was puking right up. So I made him my chicken soup that was slated for Saturday morning's breakfast. He ate a fair bit of it.....and then puked it up.

I was worried that dropping altitude wasn't helping him. With his current state, his Dad wanted to set up camp and let him rest so that he could get some energy back. I suggested to put him in my tent and sleeping bag while we figured things out. I knew that the right answer was to get him down the hill, but I didn't think that the two of us (Dad and I) could carry him out and I was worried that he wouldn't be able to go out under his own power. Meanwhile, Maxwell fell asleep in my tent. So I said, we need some professional advice, there's a spot on the switcbacks right below bighorn park where I can get cell reception.

I went there and called 911. Talked to the Inyo country sheriff's office. Told her the situation and she said "doesn't matter, get him down here". So I went back and we roused a very unhappy Maxwell from his sleep. I carried Maxwell's pack and we headed down the hill. Maxwell puked literally every 10 minutes. But I'm telling you, this kid was tough. He'd puke and rest for 5 minutes and then he would say "ok, I'm ready". He was also the most polite kid I have ever met. Whenever I did anything for him or gave him anything he would say "thank you very much, Tom".

We continued down and I decided that the old Whitney Trail would be the best path as it would get us down quickest. Corey (Dad) called his wife and told her where to meet us. Because of all of the puking, my time estimates were at least an hour off. The old whitney trail was definitely the right choice except that I tweaked my right knee. Now whenever I stepped down with my left leg first, my right leg from the knee and above had a shot of extreme pain. I tried not to show Maxwell as I didn't want him to worry. BTW: going downhill was ok, it was just when I stepped down. We got to the portal at 5am. I was starving and since Maxwell and Corey had eaten my breakfast, I figured that I needed to head to town and get a bite. After a couple of Egg McMuffins I went to the hospital to check on Maxwell. They were having trouble getting a line in to give him fluids. His veins kept on collapsing. While I was there they got a line in and started fluids immediately. He was asleep within 5 minutes. They ended up giving him 5 liters of fluids. They were worried about a pulmonary edema as they heard wheezing, but they got there in time....no pulmonary edema. He was released this evening and was eating dinner at 8pm.

I was worried about my trip up the hill. My leg still hurt and the anticipation of coming back down the hill wasn't making me happy. I started up the hill and for some reason, the egg mcmuffins weren't kicking in. As I got to about 2/3rds of the way to LPL, I was really starving again. I ran into three women who I had talked to down at the portal and they gave me a bunch of snacks since they were headed down the hill (thanks Tracy, Stacy and Donna!!!! It really helped). Continued up the hill, ran into Ranger Michael by the Rockwell spring and talked about the events of last night. I was shocked to hear how many people knew about it. I had several people tell me about the sick kid and the mountain lion. Ranger Michael said that there hadn't been any signs of a mountain lion in the area. I ran into somebody else who went up shortly after we left for the portal and said that they saw that the mountain lion had a fresh kill. So it probably wasn't stalking Maxwell or Corey, s/he was just protecting her meal.

With my leg acting up, I decided it was time to pack it in and go home. I made myself a PB&J on Pita and then broke camp. The pain on the downsteps was worse with a 30lb pack, but as long as I stepped right foot first I could control it. It just took longer (My turtle pace went down to a snail's pace).

Other interesting things: I saw a weasel or something from the weasel family near LPL. I didn't see the mountain lion, but I did hear it. And at least 6 other people in three different groups saw it. There's no doubt in my mind that there is a mountain lion hanging out above outpost camp. But it appears that he isn't really interested in us after all. I saw two deer on the way down.

Most amusing thing: Corey said "the mountain lion didn't seem to care about the bear bell". I said "bears don't care about bear bells". I gave him the rundown on black bear behavior. Not sure if he believed me.

I'm sure that I left out a couple of details. I'll fill them in as I remember them.

Edit: Corey sent me a text saying that Maxwell has already done a drawing of me and apparently he's a pretty good artist. I'm not sure that I want a good artist to capture my likeness though!!!

Wow, what an event. Great job getting them down, hope your knee heals up. What was the fresh kill by the way??? Deer???

I swear, Tom, you have the greatest adventures on Whitney! Excellent job taking care/charge of Corey and Max's situation - that makes you one of the really good guys on the trail in my book. Glad to hear Max is on the mend and it wasn't edema.

Cougars have never been on my radar in the Eastern Sierra, but I guess I'll have to revise that thinking next month. The only place in Cali I've ever kept a cougar-watch is in the heights in Death Valley. They're so elusive - it's amazing that so many people laid eyes on one in such a short period.

Good write-up, pard. Hope your next trip up Whitney is quiet, uneventful, and features great summit shots!

Wow what a story, and what an example for all of those us to be aware of.. I surely appreciate a good deed when one is needed tdtz , its people like you who make Whitney such a remarkable place thanks for sharing , hats off to you.. we have seen a cougar twice now just always figured we were lucky sounds like mr lion is getting comfortable with people now....

CalicoKat
Oddly enough, I didn't think to ask. When I was writing it up I thought to myself "gee, I wonder what the mountain lion killed". the information should filter down to us eventually. On the way back up, I couldn't believe how many people knew about the "mountain lion and the sick kid" story. there were probably ten or so people at outpost camp who came over to see what was going on. And we warned a couple of solo dayhikers who came up to wait for a group to show up so they could go up as a group. So that was obviously enough people to spread the story around.

Gary,
No kidding eh? I keep telling my family that the MMWT is no big thing. Well maintained trails, tons of people, plentiful water.....what could go wrong? And this trip was heading that direction. Very routine trip up to Outpost, boring camp set up. Hell, I even climbed into the tent when there was still enough light to move around without a headlamp....I always understood that it's the mountain lion that you don't see that would be the problem. And that they are there, but we never see them. As you say, they are elusive. I may have to go up in a couple of weeks and go for one more as a training hike for the big August hike. I hear that some cool kids are coming to town.....

MW85
You've seen mountain lines in the whitney zone before? Indeed you are lucky. I was kinda bummed that I didn't get to see it. when you saw it, was it in the same general area that I described?

BTW: to see all of the Spot tracks on spotwall, you have to specify 2 days in the "Adjustments" - "history". Otherwise you only see the first day

http://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=4eb64ffb58292718b

Not that it is very interesting, it just shows me going up to outpost twice and down twice.

Wow, what a story! Glad everything turned out ok for everyone.

I've heard of a mountain lion in the Whitney Zone just once, and I wasn't quite sure if the guy was joking or not. A little scary really. Only two critters I fear on hikes, mountain lions and ticks.

All those people knew about the sick kid and mountain lion and did nothing? Summit fever much?

Thumbs up for helping those two out. You should have plenty of good karma to get you up to the summit in style in August.

The thing that I found amazing is that only two people from outpost camp responded to their cries for help. There's no way that only two of us heard them. They were quite loud. I'm less surprised about the sick kid part. When I found out that Maxwell was not getting better by descending, I took it very seriously. If it wasn't for what I have learned here on WZ and WPS and the fact that I had altitude sickness before, I'm not sure that I would have taken it as seriously either. I think that most people think of altitude sickness as what you get when you are a kid and go to Mammoth to go skiing and feel a little crappy. The mountain lion was the most sensational part of situation, but once we were in camp, I was far more concerned with Maxwell's condition.

Wow -- Friday the 13th takes on a whole new meaning...


Note to self: Read the trip report if tdtz writes it; it is certain to be interesting...!



PS About ignoring cries for help: many years ago I was up North Coast diving for abalone and I heard a very shrill whistle. I asked the people I was with what it was, and they all said "Oh, nothing -- ignore it". I did not. Around the next boulder was a man trapped in the surf with just his head out of the water enough to blow the whistle. Another swimmer and I went out and retrieved him.....and I left my 'companions' behind.

The others at the Outpost Camp "ignored it"

You are a good man, Tom.