Alone in the High Sierra
Part I

“But we know little until tried how much of the uncontrollable there is in us, urging across glaciers and torrents, and up dangerous heights, let the judgment forbid as it may.”
- John Muir, The Mountains of California

Whitney on the Horizon (0009) - Mt. Whitney looms on the horizon at the end of the road. It's the distant peak in the center of the frame that's being touched by a cloud.
Even from this distance I found it to be plenty intimidating.

Mt. Whitney, in the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, had occupied my mind for much of the last five months. It was the mountain that, shortly after completing my solo winter ascent of Humphrey’s Peak in Arizona, I’d set my sights on. Not only because it is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States, but because I’d attempted to get the required permits to climb it twice before with no luck. It is a strictly regimented and, due to it’s aforementioned and significant lofty status, highly sought after summit. The main trail that slogs over 11 miles, around countless switchbacks, and up over 6,000 vertical feet to the summit sees some 100 hikers per day in the dry, predictable weather of the summer months. And that’s just day hikers, the controlling Inyo National Forest also allows some 60 more hikers per day who overnight along the trail. To gain said permits there’s an annual lottery in February and, after being stymied by the permit office for the third time in five years, I nearly gave up. Delving further into the matter however I soon discovered that there is, as is often the case, more than one way to climb a mountain. Unfortunately most of the alternate routes were long, overland treks of several days and upwards of 50 miles to achieve the summit. All except one that departs from the same trailhead as the main trail, at the end of Whitney Portal Road just outside the quaint mountain town of Lone Pine, CA. It is called The Mountaineer’s Route, and, as I would find, with good reason.

Whitney Map (0006) - Here's my map of the area. Departed from Whitney Portal on the right.
The Mountaineer's Route, which I followed, is the solid blue line; the main Mt. Whitney trail is the dashed red line.

So after months of planning, preparing, and studying, on Friday, August 1st I was finally on the cusp of leaving town which, as it turned out, was a much more difficult part of the journey than anticipated. That night, at around 11pm, my phone rings. It’s an 800 number, which is unusual and normally would go unanswered by me. Mostly out of curiosity I picked up and was greeted by a recording informing me that my flight to Las Vegas, scheduled to depart a mere eight and a half hours later, had been cancelled. No explanation, no rescheduled time, simply cancelled. As I hang up and prepare to embark on the odyssey of dealing with the airlines’ customer service via telephone, my phone rings again. It’s a friend of my girlfriend Stacy calling to tell me there’s been a little ‘accident’. “Great!” I thought selfishly, “just what I need”, as she had selflessly offered to take me to the airport at the crack of dawn the next morning. But before I can delve too deeply into self pity her friend explains that Stacy, while outside the bar they were patronizing, has been hit by a car! A seriously panicked conversation of course ensues, but after all is calmed, it seems that Stacy is, relatively speaking, okay. No hospital trip needed, and no police (especially as not one bystander caught the license plate of the offending, speeding, swerving car that simply drove off). After all this, she’s still driving me to the airport the next morning and we arrive at the gate, for my newly rescheduled flight, three mintues before scheduled departure. A sinking wave of feeling washes over me as we approach and I see that all the seats at the gate are empty. I see the plane, still there, but as the pricelessly unsympathetic lady at the gate says “you missed it”. The door to the jetway is closed so, despite the plane sitting right there with my empty seat inside, it’s too late. Apparently three minutes before departure is somehow ‘late’. More stress I don’t need. So again after much freaking out and near slippage into the abyss of madness I’m talked off the ledge by Stacy and the nice lady at the next gate who assures me a standby spot on the next flight, leaving half an hour later. All the stress and rushing left me no time to relish the last bit of companionship I would have for several days, which would turn out to be some of the most harrowing and challenging of my life.
Regardless, there I was, alone. Ahead of me a four hour flight, then a four hour drive, alone with nothing but my thoughts and the memorized silhouette of the granite mountain that lay in my path burned into my brain, reeling.

“I grew up exuberant in body but with a nervy, craving mind. It was wanting something more, something tangible. It sought for reality intensely, always as if it were not there . . .
But you see at once what I do. I climb.”
- John Menlove Edwards, Letter From a Man