Heading for the Top : It’s a Tall Order at 68, but Fullerton Climber Trains Hard to Conquer a Goliath

Every day shortly after sunup, Evelyn Bauman begins a hike through the Fullerton hills. She walks the brisk five-mile course determinedly with her eyes on a faraway mountaintop: 14,494-foot Mt. Whitney in Sequoia National Forest.

In 1985, Bauman fulfilled a longtime ambition by climbing to the top of the peak, the highest mountain in the lower 48 states. Now at 68, she is training to climb it again in August.

Hopes to Be Inspiration

“I think some of my happiest times are spent on mountain trails with a backpack on,” Bauman said at her Fullerton home. “It’s an electrifying experience. Today we have so many things to make life easy. It feels great to get out on the trail and go without. You struggle and test your independence. Because you’re removed from everything, you have the solitude to enjoy the beauty around you: wildflowers, lakes . . . birds. It feeds my soul.”

Bauman hopes she’s an inspiration to young people, showing them that they can be active when they’re older if they stay physically fit.

The North County YWCA will honor Bauman and five other outstanding Orange County women for their achievements at its 10th annual recognition luncheon Thursday at the Anaheim Hilton.

Bauman first attempted to scale Mt. Whitney with her family years ago. They made it to a trail camp 12,000 feet up. When they awoke the next morning, however, daughter Sally, then 12, was ill with a high temperature.

Bauman stayed behind to care for her daughter while her husband, Don, and son, Fred, then 9, hiked to the top of the mountain.

A few years ago, as her husband neared retirement from his Fullerton medical practice, they drew up lists of activities that they had never been able to do. Scaling Mt. Whitney was near the top of her list.

Bauman became more eager to climb the peak after she read about celebrated mountaineer Hulda Crooks. Crooks, 90, first scaled Mt. Whitney when she was 66. Bauman turned 66 in the spring of 1985.

“If Hulda could do it at 66, why couldn’t I?” Bauman reasoned. In a remarkable coincidence, Bauman said she met Crooks while climbing the peak that August. “She was coming down as I was going up. I knew her from her pictures. We had a nice visit. Since then, we’ve become friends.”

Met Crooks Clinbing Peak

Bauman found it “incredibly exhilarating” finally to stand atop Mt. Whitney, which is on the crest of the Sierra about 200 miles north of Los Angeles. “It was like a vast football field. I stood there for about an hour just looking at the magnificent view. I had a sense of great accomplishment.”

Reaching the top, Bauman said, took “a lot of energy.” The ascent along the 11-mile trail to the summit is steep and physically demanding. Above 10,000 feet, most hikers begin to suffer from altitude sickness--headaches and nausea--unless they are in good physical shape and have trained for the climb.

A Sequoia National Forest spokeswoman said that it’s fairly common for people in their 60s to scale Mt. Whitney. However, she added: “No matter what age you are, you have to be in good shape to climb Mt. Whitney. We have people who run at lower elevations who find out that they’re not in shape to make the trek.

“You start out at 10,000 feet and have to climb to 14,490 feet to get to the top. So you need to hike at high elevations and do other training to prepare for the climb.”

Bauman trained in 1985 by riding a stationary bicycle 10 miles daily. She also hiked for five miles a day for five weeks through the hills near her home.

“I thought I was in pretty good shape, but when I began walking through the hills, I really had to push myself,” she said.

Bauman began backpacking after moving to California from her native Ohio in 1949.

She and her husband did a lot of hiking and camping with their children. “It was nothing strenuous because they were young,” she said. “But we had a great time going different places.”

Bauman’s daughter, Sally Glaze, now 39, is a homemaker in Redlands, and son Fred, now 35, is a research engineer at UC Berkeley.

“Camping was a great way to teach the children how to lead simple lives,” Bauman said. “They had to think carefully about what they needed because they had to carry everything they needed for five days on their backs.”

The trips also taught the youngsters discipline. “There were times the children were so tired that they’d point out in the distance and say, ‘How do you get out there?’

“We’d say, ‘You get there by putting one foot in front of another.’ ”