A Real High Point : Honors: With the official designation of Crooks Peak, Hulda Crooks, the first lady of Mt. Whitney, now has a mountain to call her own.

Hulda Crooks, 95, known affectionately as “Grandma Whitney,” readied herself to ascend her mountain one more time.

Twenty-four times, from age 66 to 91, she had climbed to the 14,494-foot peak of Mt. Whitney, usually wearing the same jacket bought years ago for $1.50. But on Wednesday, she twisted earplugs into her ears and strapped herself into a seat in an Army Chinook helicopter instead.

“I thought I was retiring,” the five-foot-tall Crooks joked to the National Guardsmen and others coming along. Still, she confided to her longtime friend, Helen Hayes of Yakima, Wash.: “I really don’t know why I’m coming up here.”

What everyone had kept secret from Crooks was that this was more than a sentimental reprise. When the helicopter landed at a trail camp about 2,000 feet below the Whitney peak, Crooks was to be met by a hiking party of friends and family and would receive an honor granted to hardly anyone while still alive.

At the rocky landing near the highest peak in the contiguous United States, Crooks walked down the helicopter ramp, her wispy hair--permed specially for the occasion--swirling in the rotor-blade wind. She stepped cautiously but easily amid the boulders in her Nike tennis shoes--and then spotted familiar faces.

“There’s Bruce!” she cried with surprise, seeing her grandson Bruce Couch of Yucaita and great-grandson Patrick perched on a boulder nearby. “I’m so glad to see you!” Then came friends and other hikers who had heard rumors that the first lady of the mountain was coming, asking her to autograph their hiking guides.

With the craggy, snow-touched mountains and brilliant blue sky as a backdrop, a friend and past hiking companion, U. S. Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), began to read a proclamation. The second peak south of Mt. Whitney, he intoned, the highest peak of Pinnacle Ridge, “shall be known and designated as Crooks Peak.”

Crooks spun her head to the crowd in surprise, then laughed and laughed.

“This is beautiful,” she said, grinning with delight through the reading of letters from President Bush, former President Ronald Reagan and Gov. Pete Wilson.

“You have not only highlighted the importance of physical fitness for all Americans,” the letter from Bush said, “but also served as a role model for senior citizens everywhere.”

District Ranger Arthur Gaffrey from the Inyo National Forest stepped forward and declared: “All of my rangers who hike this thing are inspired by you.”

Lewis and others peeled off jackets and sweat shirts to reveal blue “Crooks Peak” T-shirts with a drawing of the mountains on the back, then presented one to Crooks and tossed a few to others at the gathering.

After the applause subsided, Crooks began to speak, calmly and clearly.

“You know, the Bible said the Lord’s righteousness is like the great mountains. There is no limit to it. I give credit to my faith in the Lord that I’ve been able to survive so many years. What credit people try to give to me, I turn right over to the Lord,” she said, touching on one of the main themes of her life as a Seventh-day Adventist. Then she launched into the other.

“It’s never too late to change your lifestyle if you realize it’s not appropriate,” said the woman who began hiking at age 66 on the advice of her doctor after her husband died. She has scaled dozens of peaks, including Japan’s Mt. Fuji. “I want to impress to young people that they’re building their old age now.”

The last area in the Inyo National Forest and Sierra National Forest region to be named after someone was the Ansel Adams Wilderness, declared in 1984 after the photographer’s death. Lewis had the idea of naming a peak after Crooks after hiking with her on Mt. Whitney in 1986 and learning that the nearby peak had no official name. Locals called it Day Needle, according to the Visitors’ Center. (The peak between it and Mt. Whitney is officially named Keeler Needle.) It took five years to pass the legislation because Congress was reluctant to honor someone still alive, Lewis said.

Crooks moved to a rest home in Loma Linda about six months ago. She still walks a mile or two every day but gave up her regimen of climbing fire escapes about a year ago.

“I don’t worry about things I can’t do. I do what I can. There (are) always things to do,” she said. She is the second-oldest resident at the rest home and expressed amazement that so few of her neighbors take walks to explore the ponds nearby or watch the ducks and observe nature. Crooks has a wide knowledge of trees, plants and wildflowers and hopes to have a collection of nature stories published.

“She’s remarkably healthy for any age,” said her physician and friend, Roy Jutzy of Loma Linda, who accompanied Crooks on the helicopter ride and brought an oxygen tank just in case. But after 95 years, one does slow down: “She’s accepted it very gracefully. She’s very realistic. She has a tremendous outlook on life, a tremendous ability to see things the way they are.”

Even though Grandma Whitney may not set foot atop “her” mountain--Mt. Whitney--again, she said past trips still offer her strength.

“It’s been a great inspiration for me,” Crooks said. “When I come down from the mountain, I feel like I can battle in the valley again.”

She said she needed some time to digest the news that a mountain was now officially “hers.”

It may have started to sink in by the time the helicopter returned to the airport in Lone Pine, after she took a minute to admonish a young photographer to prepare for his old age. “Don’t waste your youth staying out till all hours of the night, using up all your energy,” she told him as he nodded dutifully.

Then she looked at Crooks Peak, easily visible from the town of Lone Pine and Highway 395 below.

“There’s my mountain,” she exclaimed with another delighted laugh.