Mt. Whitney in a day

John Wilson

I had been up Mt. Whitney before, backpacking up and down over three

days with my wife, Mary, in 1990, taking time to get acclimated to

the altitude, and slogging it out up from the 8,300-foot trailhead to

the 14,497-foot summit. But my three companions had never been up,

and since Whitney is the highest point in the contiguous 48 states,

and just a few hours up the 395 Highway from Costa Mesa, we decided

to tackle it in a macho one-day assault.

Dennis McNutt, 66, is a former (way former) point guard and

fullback from Southern California College (now Vanguard University).

He still plays noon hoops, tennis and golf and keeps himself in good

shape. After teaching political science from 1966 to 2002 at SCC, he

retired; only to have his college bride, Charlotte, die unexpectedly

and devastate his retirement plans. A physical challenge seemed like

a good idea, though he is more accustomed to backpacking away from

crowds and trails in the Sierras.

I’m 59 and a former club soccer player and coach, still into noon

hoops, tennis and church league softball. With degrees from UC Santa

Barbara and Northwestern University, I’ve been teaching history at

Vanguard since 1989, with a special interest in baseball history. My

wife, Mary, was diagnosed with breast cancer in February and had been

going through chemotherapy after a lumpectomy. Something physical

sounded good to me, too.

Nate Molstad, 36, who is married to our older daughter, Amy,

graduated from Augsburg College in Minnesota. Like me, he is more an

athletic wannabe, pretty much limited to church league softball by

knee problems. An audio-visual techie at Hoag Hospital, he’s the

compassionate one of the group, involved for years in the Big Brother

program and Royal Family Kids Camp for abused kids. He was also

probably the least in shape for an assault on Whitney and most

reluctant to tackle the mountain. He doesn’t need the sense of

accomplishment.

Greg Olson, who is married to Christie, our younger daughter,

turned 33 on our drive up to the trailhead. A Southern California

College soccer All-American, he is completing his doctorate in

history at Claremont, teaching junior high in Scotts Valley, and

adjunct teaching at Bethany College there. Plus he coaches the

women’s soccer team. He plays soccer, tennis, or whatever is

available. Like Dennis, he’s a real college athlete, only half the

age.

We drove to Lone Pine on the afternoon of July 29, picked up our

trail passes from the ranger station, and had set up camp at Whitney

Portal (reservations advised) by 4:30 p.m. We walked up to the

trailhead store, breathing the thin air, and bought the local burgers

for a chilly supper out under the trees in a sudden storm. Ominous,

that! But it passed, and we returned to camp, turning in between 9

and 10 p.m. in preparation for our early getaway the next day.

My 3 a.m. alarm malfunctioned, so we didn’t wake till our backup

at 3:15 a.m., but we struck camp and hit the trail with flashlights

at 4 a.m. sharp, leaving anything tempting to bears in the bear

lockers at the trailhead. By 6 a.m., we had reached Outpost Camp, 3.5

miles up the trail, where we had a bit of breakfast in the early

light.

Then it was on to Trail Camp, where Mary and I had camped on our

1990 expedition. We arrived there at 8 a.m. and had six of the 11

miles to the top already behind us. However, at that point, we had

already taken longer than the fastest round trip, an incredible three

hours and 20 minutes. That’s a decent marathon time, and it was over

22 miles of rough, rocky, uneven trail. Good grief!

Then things got rough. The next stretch was 97 switchbacks and a

climb from about 12,000 feet to almost 13,800 feet. Dennis surged

into the lead as my legs screamed for oxygen and Nate and Greg both

got headaches and began showing other signs of altitude sickness. In

spite of all that, by 10:30 a.m., we had reached Trail Crest, and

then actually had to descend a bit to the John Muir trail coming up

from the west side before pushing on toward the summit, a thousand

feet above.

By this time, Greg says, he was seeing triple and had a bad

headache and Nate was seriously exhausted. Everyone was ibuprofened

to the max. We reached the summit at 12:45 p.m., with Greg and Nate

suffering the most. Here was a chance to use modern technology --

Nate’s cell phone allowed us to phone our wives and tell them we had

managed the hard part.

But it was windy, cool and apparently nonthreatening clouds were

moving in, so we headed for the bottom after a bite of lunch and a

picture with our Daily Pilot. We were actually quite fortunate in our

weather -- nothing too extreme in heat or cold bothered us.

However, back at Trail Crest, a hailstorm struck us, and we donned

ponchos (we learned why those cheap $3 plastic ones are so cheap!)

for the switchbacks down. Greg was behaving strangely -- whenever we

stopped for a break, he would lie down and go to sleep, which seemed

a bit alarming. Still, going downhill, we had gravity on our side. We

sailed through Trail Camp at 4 p.m., then on down to Outpost Camp,

where at 10,000 feet, Greg suddenly emerged from his semi-comatose

condition and became himself again. Slogging doggedly along, we hit

the parking lot at 7 p.m. sharp, a round trip of 22 miles in 15 hours

that almost exactly matched the times I had anticipated: nine hours

up, six down.

We staggered into the Whitney Portal Store for souvenirs, cleaned

up a bit, and drove down into Lone Pine for some good Pizza Factory

pizza to celebrate survival before hitting the road home. We all

agreed that it was the most grueling stunt we had ever pulled, but by

midnight, we were back in Costa Mesa and healing.

Part of the macho bit was a doubles tennis match the next day.

Perhaps reflecting his youth, Greg ran the table in our round robin,

but we were alive and, sore legs aside, well. Never again, we said

... for a few days.

Then, as hikers often do, we began to forget all the pain and

strain and think it hadn’t been all that bad.