Mt. Whitney in their sights

It’s not K2 or Kanchenjunga. It’s not McKinley or even Kilimanjaro. It’s mighty Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in America’s Lower 48 states and reputedly the highest walk-up summit on the planet open to just about any local bucket-lister with a healthy pulse, reliable footwear, the right attitude and enough foresight to apply in February for a summer climbing permit.

Perched atop its boulder-strewn crest on a cloudless Saturday afternoon in July or August, gaping over a glorious granite sea of southern Sierra Nevada peaks, is a crowd of high-fivers about as select-looking as a line at the DMV.

Who’s standing on top of Whitney this aft? A flushed dad and his slightly pale-looking teenage son. A perky gang of Elderhostel-types munching on apples. An expressionless man carefully scrawling his name on a summit register at the 100-year-old Whitney Hut. There’s a dude in a Steelers jersey and cargo shorts, and a coterie of college girls edging toward the peak’s rim for the ultimate photo op -- 14,497-feet above sea level, nothing between them and the sepia-brown Owens Valley but a couple of vertical miles of desert wind.

And then there’s us. Three humbled guys from Los Angeles who casually decided several months back that climbing Mt. Whitney together might be a nice way to spend a weekend, test a friendship, remind ourselves that we’re alive.

Mark Segal is a 38-year-old sales manager from Long Beach with a 4-year-old son, a cellphone that never stops and a new Porsche to celebrate a recent promotion. My other friend Vic Leyson, 32, is a personal business manager from Sherman Oaks who squeezes the odd marathon and photography class between a Rolodex of demanding clients. I’m turning 40, have two young kids, a mortgage and a fickle jogging regimen that will have to suffice for Whitney training.

In other words, none of us is going to Everest in this lifetime. But if we can stand on the top of Mt. Whitney, well, that’s something, right?

Others join us in that thinking.

Last year, about 24,000 permits were issued to enter the Whitney Zone. Most climbers arrive in the summer to walk the 11-mile Whitney Trail, the most accessible route to the summit, covering 6,100 feet of elevation gain at a moderate enough grade for even functional acrophobes like me. If you want to climb Mt. Whitney in the warmer months when the mountain isn’t steeped in ice, snow storms and bone-chilling temperatures, you need to enter the Mt. Whitney Lottery in February and cross your fingers. There’s a joke that the hardest part of climbing this mountain is scaling its tight summer quotas to get a wilderness permit.

But it’s just a joke.

“Most people really underestimate this mountain, and I’m not sure why,” Inyo wilderness manager Brian Spitek tells me near the trail head at Whitney Portal after I pick up an overnight permit in Lone Pine plus two other Whitney requirements -- a plastic bear canister for storing food on the trail and some free WAG Bag kits, which stands for Waste Alleviation and Gelling. (A few years ago, Whitney removed its solar toilets from the mountain and now all visitors to the Whitney Zone must pack waste out.)

“People in great shape burn out all the time on the Whitney Trail, especially during the summer when you get the crowds,” Spitek says.

Every year, there are fatalities and a rash of nightmare scenarios on Mt. Whitney -- people slipping on a patch of ice in June, taking a “short cut,” a wrong turn or a bad step in the worst possible place. There are rogue storms, tragic lightning strikes and various other traumas.

The most common problems along the Whitney Trail in the summer, says Spitek, are caused by altitude sickness, sheer exhaustion and grave misjudgment of one’s limits -- “or basically some combination of all three.”

People often try to climb Whitney too fast, zooming up from sea-level elevations without leaving enough time for the body to acclimate. At least a night near the trail head and a warm-up day hike are recommended.

As you drive up to the trail head from Lone Pine, Whitney’s summit looms in the west above a serrated horizon of dull silver peaks. It’s high. It’s stark. It’s aloof. If mountains could talk, this one wouldn’t. Yet it beckons with a force that will push regular folks to do irregular things.

Shortly before the hike, Spitek leaves me with this simple advice: “It should be fun. If it’s not fun -- mild discomfort aside -- then maybe it’s time to turn around.”

Friday

3:40 p.m.: Mark and Vic pull into the last available parking space in the overflow lot at the Whitney Portal trail head (8,360 feet). They had planned on camping here with me last night but an emergency sales meeting held Mark back until this morning, which means we’ll be diving into our two-day climb about eight minutes after they’ve arrived from Los Angeles.

“Can you believe we’re less than four hours from L.A.?” says Mark, who climbed Whitney 10 years ago and has decided it’s time to come back and refresh his memory. He takes a deep, satisfying breath of Sierra air. “I love this place.”

4:33 p.m.: “Whose idea was this again?” gasps Mark, stopping several times to lean on his Mt. Whitney-inscribed walking stick and catch his breath. We’re about a mile above the trail head on a dirt path gently curving between a broad groove of forested slopes. We can still see parked cars. If climbing Mt. Whitney were a road trip from Santa Monica to Miami, we’d be somewhere around Anaheim.

Vic is ahead of us, snapping away with two cameras while his marathon-trained lungs barely notice that he’s moving. Mark stares up at the long, winding trail. We won’t be able to glimpse the elusive crest of Whitney until late tomorrow morning. “I’ll be fine,” Mark says with a sigh. “I just forgot how hard this was.”

5:05 p.m.: We’re still crawling like ants between the same tilted pine groves. Mark’s face is redder, puffier, sweatier. His chest is rising and falling almost as fast as his love for this place is fading.

Some wispy clouds are scarring the blue sky, which may mean an evening storm is brewing. Or not. Nobody knows. “I can’t wipe the smile off my face,” Vic bellows to us from above, peering across the valley.

“Want me to help you?” mutters Mark under his breath.

5:47 p.m.: At the 2.5-mile, 9,850-foot mark, a short detour along the trail leads to Lone Pine Lake, a vivid, mirror-like pool of alpine bliss hiding behind some shimmering trees where the ghosts of Ansel Adams and John Muir might be kicking back on a quiet Friday near dusk -- laughing at single-minded bozos like us trudging past with heavy packs toward yet another set of switchbacks.

6:32 p.m.: We arrive at Outpost Camp (10,360 feet) -- a large, verdant meadow encased in granite walls with a clear running spring and a crashing waterfall. Trail Camp is the more popular overnight option for summit-pushers, a couple of miles farther up the path at the foot of the infamous 97 Switchbacks -- the steepest leg of the Whitney Trail.

“It’s much nicer down here and you’ll sleep better at the lower elevation,” says Bill, a fellow climber from Stockton who’s been up Whitney a few times and has camped in both spots.

Saturday

3:23 a.m.: Most streets in L.A. are quieter at this hour than the Whitney Trail on a summer night at Outpost Camp. It may be hard to fathom why anyone would want to start climbing Mt. Whitney at 2 a.m. in the pitch black to try to bag it in a day and then drive home, but here they come -- droves of clumping footsteps, bouncing light beams and clinking hiking poles.

6:30 a.m.: Did anyone log more than nine minutes of shut-eye last night? Never mind. We would’ve slept even worse up at Trail Camp. Mark is feeling much improved from yesterday’s initiation. Vic hasn’t yet broken a bead of sweat. We pull out of Outpost Camp with lighter packs and head on our long journey toward the summit. Just under 7 1/2 miles and 4,200 feet of elevation to go.

“This is where the climb starts for real,” Bill the Whitney veteran had told me yesterday. “The altitude, the grade, the exposure, the sense of just how long this thing really is. This is where people begin to feel it.”

7:12 a.m.: I’m beginning to feel it. The onset of a headache. Waves of mild nausea. What was that advice I’d been given -- about turning around when it’s no longer fun? I know fun, and this isn’t it.

Just up the trail, an alpine stream glimmers in the morning light. It’s strewn with loose rocks and patches of wildflowers beneath a vast canvas of Sierra silver and deep cloudless blue. I dip my hand in the water, rub the back of my neck and remember again why we’re here -- what a privilege it is to be standing in this utterly gorgeous setting. How could I have even considered turning around?

9:02 a.m.: We pass Trail Camp (12,000 feet) and enter the 97 Switchbacks, which snake up a steep, lunar rock face with no end in sight. Back and forth we go in this slanted maze. Mundane thoughts float in and out of my head. Most of them have to do with what a ridiculous endeavor this is beginning to feel like. Wouldn’t an article about not making it to the top of Mt. Whitney be a better story? Maybe if I start counting switchbacks they’ll go faster. Back and forth. Back and forth. . . .

“This is brutal,” says Mark, reading my mind.

“This is wild,” says Vic, pulling ahead again.

10:15 a.m.: It’s official. Counting switchbacks does not make them go any faster.

10:26 a.m.: “I’m like 70% sure you’re going to make it,” Mark croaks as we round another dizzying switchback. Right now, those feel like very generous odds.

11:11 a.m.: At last, we round the final switchback and head over a ridge to Trail Crest (13,777 feet), the final 2.8-mile section of the Whitney Trail, where a couple of signs inform us that we have now entered Sequoia National Park and are in an area subject to extreme lightning danger. A spectacular panorama of Sierra peaks stretches across the western horizon, dotted with deep-blue alpine lakes shaped like mandolins. It’s a view you’d otherwise get only with a tray table and seat belt sign.

A blast of cold wind hits us as the path winds along the edge of steep, massive pitches into distant granite valleys below, occasionally on both sides. If the 97 Switchbacks are the Whitney Trail’s most obvious hurdle, this boulder-strewn final cut to the back door of the summit is its hidden purgatory.

For many climbers, the elevation, exposure and length of Trail Crest make it the most taxing leg of the journey. For me, something kicks in on this stretch. Maybe it’s the Advil or a numb resignation to just keep going.

Noon-ish: You can see it in people’s faces. They’re no longer sentient beings climbing a mountain. They’re strange Sierra zombies stuck in a painful, slow-motion movie. I feel it myself. I see it in Mark’s face.

And now I can see it in even Vic’s face. The whole way up he’s been a two-camera-toting mountain goat with Goodyear lungs and Energizer quads. Now, in the final, ceaseless stretch, he’s looking pale, fuzzy and vaguely depleted.

“If I close my eyes, I might not open them,” he says blankly, letting Mark and me pass.

Some time later: “There it is,” mutters Mark, pointing up at the Whitney Hut -- a tiny stone hovel with a corrugated metal roof perched on the tilted summit of Mt. Whitney. Somewhere else, it might look close. Not here. We’ll be walking toward that odd speck of real estate for at least another hour.

1:48 p.m.: Suddenly, the summit of Mt. Whitney (14,497 feet) appears right in front of my face like something I wasn’t ever expecting. Like a mirage. But it’s real. I enter my name on the summit register by the door of the Whitney Hut, and notice that the long page is almost full today with climbers who’ve signed it like a resort guest list. “What an amazing experience!” “Loved it!” “We’ll be back!”

All walks of life are up here. The casual, plebeian atmosphere at the top doesn’t really jibe with what we’ve put ourselves through over the last day and a half. Is there a high-speed gondola or chair lift somewhere?

Never mind. Standing on the summit of Mt. Whitney is a great moment. It’s the high point of a serious challenge not to be trivialized or misjudged. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’m sure I’m not alone. Like most people, I underestimated it for some reason.

“I’m hitting the wall,” says Mark, reaching the top and conking out on a slab of granite. Then Vic appears, looking green and glum, the tripod he’d carried all the way up here for a special summit shot all but forgotten. He lies down. Soon they’re both flat on their backs and fast asleep on the top of Mt. Whitney.

Later that afternoon: Walking down the mountain, a journey that will take close to six hours, we’ll pass an assortment of resolute stragglers -- including a guy in a tank top -- who don’t have a hope of reaching the summit before dusk.

“What are they thinking?” says Mark, anger in his voice. “What’s the matter with these people?”

“How in the world did I walk up this?” Vic will mumble several times during our smooth but interminable descent.

“I don’t know,” says Mark. “All I know is that this mountain will never, ever see me again.”

Two weeks later: Over dinner in L.A., the three of us reminisce about the climb. What an amazing experience it was. It was a little slow-going near the top, but we all made it up just fine.

It was fun.

“Next time,” says Mark, “I might try doing it solo.”

travel@latimes.com