Fourteen, Five-Oh-Five

As the tallest peak in the continental United States at 14,505 feet, Mount Whitney towers over the tiny town of Lone Pine. I have made many journeys along the 395 between Los Angeles and Reno, but the mountain remained an abstract concept: some people climb that, but not me. This particular adventure never really crossed my mind as something for me until one of my best friends said, “We should climb Mt. Whitney.” So, we put our names into the permit lottery and waited.

We won the lottery, but received a date towards the end of the season in late September. Normally, this time slot contains the risk of an early snowfall. This wound up to be a blessing in disguise given the unusually wet winter in California that blanketed the Sierra Nevadas with a snowpack that was over 200% the average level. I started training by trying to hike every weekend that I could around California. We went on two training backpacking trips (Sykes Hot Springs and Mt. San Jacinto) to condition. I was fairly confident after the first trip, but as we approached 10,000 feet of elevation on Mt. San Jacinto, I succumbed to altitude sickness and we turned around before reaching the summit. With my confidence dented and only a few weeks before our Whitney attempt, I took a step back to think and strategize about how to best prepare my body for the altitude.

Three days before starting Whitney, I went on an acclimatization hike at 7,000 feet near Lake Tahoe. Two days before Whitney, I met up with my friends and we hiked to 9,000 feet elevation. I did not succumb to altitude sickness on this hike and my confidence was partially restored. One day before we summited, we backpacked up towards Trail Camp where we could spend the night at 12,000 feet elevation before summiting the next day.

The journey up to Trail Camp was phenomenal as we passed by waterfalls, hiked through a meadow, and paused by a beautiful lake for lunch. After lunch, we continued the climb and noticed the snow getting closer and our steps getting slower. By the time we reached camp, I could tell the altitude was wearing me down. We set up camp and pitched our tents amongst some rocks to block the wind, ate dinner, and went to sleep by 9pm. Two of the three of us were feeling the effects of the altitude and I went to sleep not knowing if we would make it to the top or descend in the morning.

We arose before the sun at 5am and assessed our conditions. Those of us affected by the altitude the night before felt better and we decided to ascend. We ate a quick breakfast and then started up the 99 switchbacks towards the summit as the sun rose. The switchbacks had a few icy sections, but we made it to the top and then rounded a bend to look down at Sequoia National Park. The views were incredible, but we needed to keep moving to reach the summit at a reasonable time and I was hiking at about 25% of my normal speed due to the altitude. (I probably should have done more cardio training at altitude!)

A few hundred feet below the summit, we encountered large amounts of ice covering the trail and decided to leave the trail and scramble up the rocks to the summit. After a lot of zig-zagging, we reach the top and I felt ecstatic. We celebrated by eating lunch and opening a bottle of Fentimans Cola. After taking the obligatory photographs, we began the descent back to the trailhead.

According to the guidebook I read, the journey down from the summit is actually more dangerous than the ascent due to fatigue and slippery slopes. Luckily, we made it down safely, though I continued at a slow pace, partially out of caution and partly to stay at a comfortable pace I could maintain indefinitely. We returned to Trail Camp by 7pm, had dinner, and continued to hike out.

I spent the rest of the night putting one foot in front of the other. Soon, my body entered a rhythm and my mind began to drift. Mt. Whitney is one of the places where backpackers cannot dig a cat hole to dispose of their waste. Instead, hikers use wag bags to pack out their waste. On the way down, I carried all of the crew wag bags strapped to the outside of my pack. I laughed as I reflected back on how the previous year brought me to this moment.

Roughly 1 year before hiking Whitney, I left graduate school in a bit of a disarray with broken relationships weighing on my mind and a bit of a shattered confidence. I usually hike and try to find a calming place in nature when I need to make “big life decisions”. Instead of slowing things down, I dynamited the previous iteration of my life, moved to a new city, and joined a robotics startup. I challenged myself technically and rode out the turbulent waves of corporate layoffs by focussing on the goal to summit Mt. Whitney. I had to go through all of this to realize I need to do better at spending quality time with the people I care about. I can definitely be a bit of a workaholic and struggle to keep a healthy balance in my life. I also realized that I have unconsciously been holding onto the past and that life is a lot easier without carrying other people’s old shit: metaphorically and literally!

I found a new level of peace on the mountain. The time in nature and the thrill of reaching the peak recharged me and sparked a renewed desire push forward and continue building the life I want to live. Life is a journey, just got to keep taking it one step at a time, even through the darkness of the unknown.