Better late than never?!?!
4 weeks ago today, my husband & I started our overnight hike to Mt. Whitney.
We spent two nights at the portal campground hoping to help with acclimating and we both took Diamox beginning on Monday evening. I did not like the side effects, mainly the tingly hands so I stopped taking it after Wednesday morning (the morning we set out). It took over a full day for the side effects to wear off and for my hands to feel normal.
The night before our hike, we watched a big thunderstorm over Lone Pine with lightning stretching across the valley. Sure enough, it rolled over us about two hours later and continued to storm over us for about at least an hour.
Since we were only hiking to Trail Camp, we started hiking around 10 AM. Later than I would like, but my husband is in no way an early riser and I think we were both really anxious and nervous. It was funny because I have been talking about this for over two years and it was finally happening but I wasn't ready for it mentally and I didn't want it to be over with. Silly, I know.
August 1st was a very warm, almost hot! I am not sure of the temperature but it felt like it was 70° - 75°. We both started out with a little over 2 liters of water in our packs and a liter of water in a Nalgene bottle. We ran out of water at Big Horn Park only to discover our Steri-Pen was not working properly. We met two gentlemen on the trail that were gathering water from the stream by the meadow and they were kind enough to filter water for us. We got to Trail Camp at about 5 PM, my husband was not feeling well at all and was dry heaving by the time we got to camp. We set up camp, ate, and then he laid down thinking we would have to turn around in the morning. He did take an extra dose of Diamox and we both slept a little that night.
As morning came, I was so excited that I wanted to jump up and look at everything but I also didn't want my husband to feel pressured in continuing on if that was not the right thing to do. I walked around the lake at camp, following the water upstream, bolder hoping along to where it was coming down off the mountains or where the snow was still melting and refilled all of our water containers to the max. I didn't bother asking to borrow a filter because after reading the boards and all of the research, I figured if it was coming out of the rocks it was safe enough.
My husband slowly got up, ate, moved around a bit and he decided it was okay to continue on. We started the switchbacks at 8 AM and played leap-frog with many other hikers. I didn't think the switchbacks were that bad and only stopped to take pictures. I had taken the digital camera from him because he wasn't taking pictures, so I was taking pictures with both cameras. One kid was counting the switchbacks out loud, thankfully they stopped to take a break and we continued on. I was secretly counting them in head but I got to 102, I know I got distracted by conversation and the views…either that or I don't know how to count! We did come across different groups of people working on the trail and stopped so we would not interrupt them, they gave us the okay to go and we thanked them.
We got to Trail Crest at 10 AM and stopped to take more pictures. Trail Crest was my favorite part of the trail; it was everything I had imagined and more! Next time, I would take more of it in, take more pictures and spend a little bit more time here but I wasn't going to argue with grumpy, so we continued on. We saw some JMT hikers and they said the bear on my backpack was the first bear they had seen in the backcountry!!
We reached the summit a little after noon on August 2nd. The weather was perfect, not too windy and the sun felt warm. I reapplied sunscreen several times but I still tried to keep my head, face, neck, and arms covered with clothing since the sun felt ubber strong and I could tell that if I didn't cover up, I be a lobster. We ate snacks and took pictures for about 30 minutes before we headed back down. When we got to the switchbacks, we noticed the huge dark clouds over the tops of the mountains…and when I look back at the pictures, there were definitely clouds forming over the summit but we didn't notice them when we were there. We hurried down the switchbacks, filled up our water containers at switchback #23 and got back to camp where we ate again and packed our tent. We knew our son would be waiting for us at the portal so we tried to hurry, but we were tired and feeling the weight of our packs. After outpost camp, we didn't see anyone hiking up past us. As it got dark, the bats came out which was kind of cool. We got back to the Portal a little before 9 PM.
As my grumpy husband who went camping for the very first time just last year said (as we were coming down from Trail Camp) "I am glad we did this, but we are Koo Koo!". We learned a lot, and would do a lot of things different next time but we had a great time together and we got home safely which is always the goal. We had a lot of bumps in the road this past several months that we had to deal with and try to overcome, I know, it is called life. But I can honestly say, it was a life changing experience for me and even my husband who said he met some of the nicest people in the world. He is not a savvy on the computer, but I always pulling up the Whitney Zone to share with him the stories, the pictures, so thank you all, again.
I am new to Picasa, but I did upload some of the digital pictures, hopefully it works -
https://picasaweb.google.com/11152773339...feat=directlink Heather =)
ps...I have been talking about Mt. Whitney so much, my dentist is hiking it this Saturday!!
Great TR. So glad to see your hiking buddy made it to the summit with you. 
