First, I want to thank all of you for this forum. As I planned for this trip, I read through this forum quite a bit. It was actually because of this site I was so persistent in trying to get an overnight permit late in the game. And it worked!
What started as a 10 day vacation for early Sept. to get the high points of NM and CO quickly turned into a 5 week quest all over the West. With the help of Jet Blue's All You Can Jet program (and being liberated of employment) we added the high points of OK, KS, NE, and CO to our trip. Then one night in planning I said hey...I think we could get CA in there as well. Oh and I have a friend in Salt Lake, while UT is a 3 day hike, why not? And hey if we're going to do CA, we have to do NV, it's so close. So I started stalking to get a permit for Whitney and reading as much as I could.
Being an East Coaster, I had never hiked anything near 10000'. I knew Wheeler in NM would be a good starting point. I wasn't worried about my fitness, I am a long time long distance runner, but I did have concerns about the possibility of getting altitude sickness.
Wheeler was a success. A nice hike without much trouble. I was breathing hard at about 10000' but nothing drastic. I was thrilled when I reached the summit. About 45 minutes after descending, I did feel sick but it passes very quickly. I attributed it to being at sea level the day before and flying cross country THEN hiking.
After NM, we drove to OK where we ran the 8.4 mile trail to Black Mesa. Much to my surprise it was really beautiful. Then lots and lots of driving to hit KS and NE and end up in CO.
We spent several days near Mt Elbert, sleeping above 9000 feet and tagging the summits of Elbert as well as La Plata, a 14er across the street. We had a ton of wind and cold on Elbert but it was beautiful. La Plata is a much more challenging climb with awesome views.
After a quick trip back east for a half marathon that I promised to run with a friend for her bday, we headed to UT.
King's Peak is a 28 mile round trip hike that we did in 3 days. If you haven't done it, I recommend it, it's amazing.
Up next, WHITNEY. We flew from Salt Lake to Long Beach to Vegas. In and of itself a weird experience. We then drove through Death Valley, stopped off at Badwater to get low point before hitting the high point.
CA was having record heat the day before we started out. It was very warm when we left the Portal on 9/28.
Our plan was to hike to Trail camp, spend the night, summit early, and hike out.
We made it to trail camp in a little over 4 hours. Along the way, we saw and airlift and passed some rangers hiking out carrying out someone's shoes. When we asked if everyone was ok, he answered with "relatively". Apparently someone got very sick, disoriented, passed out, and need an airlift. Scary stuff.
Once we arrived at Trail camp, we set up for the evening. It was pleasantly warm which was a nice change. It was pretty cold in UT.
Our plan was to get up around 4 and start our summit attempt around 5. After talking to the ranger who was also camping up at trail camp and some other folks who had already been to the summit that day, it takes the average person 5 hours from trail camp. One guy made it in about 3.5. I though 5 hours was a really long time and figured 3.5 was totally doable.
By this point, we had been sleeping above 9000' for over a week. In UT we slept at about 11000'. I was having no issues with the altitude at all. I felt very comfortable at trail camp and slept like a baby, possibly the best night's slept I'd had in a week.
We were up and on the trail at 5:20 AM. Going up the switchbacks in the dark was great, no way of knowing exactly how long we had been going or how much further to go.
About half way up, we passed an older man who said he had spent the night on the summit and it was very cold through the night. We later learned he didn't didn't stay in the hut but must have been out all night. We passed him again when we were hiking out. He was lost and had spent the whole night out and possibly disoriented.
It was a beautiful hike, watching the sunrise and passing some day hikers as we went, as well as a few early birds who made it up to the summit to catch the sunrise.
We made it to the hut in 2.75 hours, much faster than I expected. I guess all that hiking I had been doing really got me in shape!
After about a half hour on the summit, we headed back to trail camp, had a snack, packed up, and headed back down to the portal.
Boy oh boy, I was pooped when we hit the Portal. It was still fairly warm and a really beautiful day. We really lucked out with the weather.
2 days later, we hit Boundary Peak, the high point of NV. Not nearly as cool as Whitney, but a fun hike none the less.
I'm the one in the Yankees hat.
Here are links to more High point pictures from our trip
High points even more! Thanks again to this site for all the info. It was very very helpful!
