Monday, September 08, 2014

Back from climbing Mt. Whitney at 330 a.m.

My trusty Mag-lite helped me make my way through the inky High Sierra darkness. Had a fine time up there with the exception of that final ascent, which made me quite woozy and a tad nauseous. Went to Dominican yesterday evening for treatment of minor frostbite but I should be just fine. This is the last camping trip for the book with the exception of the upcoming RV tour of the southwest.  By the way, I enjoyed meeting JMT hikers out there and I gave three of them a ride out from Onion Valley to Bishop, where we all shared a good meal at a Mexican restaurant and went out separate ways. More soon.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome home! Frostbite? On fingers or toes? Why did you climb in the middle of the night? MIL

cactuseaters said...

hi MIL! So great to hear from you. I climbed it in the middle of the night because the young folks camping near me said that was the way to go. They warned me that the climb would take much longer than I thought it would because there is so much elevation gain in so few miles. As it turned out, after hiking nonstop from 330 on, I didn't get back to the parking lot until 4 in the afternoon! Take care and write back soon
DAN

Anonymous said...

I thought of another challenge for you - when I heard that Mt. Rainier is the tallest peak in the contiguous US. Is that true?

cactuseaters said...

nope, Whitney is the tallest, but Rainier is far more difficult to climb -- more extreme, more technical. To be honest with you, I would find Rainier a bit too intimidating for my skill level and conditioning, and i was alarmed at some of the recent news stories about rescue operations, etc, up there ...