Mt Whitney Training - Part I

Let's gettttt rrrrrrrrrready, to get ready. Saturday was our first of 3 hikes we'll be doing to get us in shape for our High Sierra backpacking trip / slash Dana's first Mt Whitney ascent on July 4th. Let me explain... If you read this blog, you know Dana is an athlete and loves a challenge. She's been interested in hiking Mt Whitney since she moved to CA. George, Beth, Rich, Dan and I day-hiked Mt Whitney several years ago and it was by far the toughest hike I had ever done. I had a great time, but I swore I'd never go back. Fast forward to 2012, aaaaaaaand I'm going back. I guess I like challenges too.

The problem with hiking Mt Whitney is the way that it's typically done. It's like hiking the AT or PCT and putting down a 30+ mile day. Yeah you're proud of it and you tell all your friends, but it really wasn't enjoyable - and the next day your toenails fall off. So, this time around I've got a different approach. We're going to do a 3-day backpacking trip up the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) heading north from Cottonwood Pass, approaching from the backside of Mt Whitney. The advantage is that we'll get to spend time hiking and camping portions of the High Sierra that we've never seen, and when we arrive at Mt Whitney our final day will be just 14.5 miles instead of 22. Plus, after a few nights above 10,000', we hope to be better acclimated when we make our way up to 14,498'.

So, back to this past weekend. Our plan was an overnight backpacking trip up San Jacinto from Idyllwild Friday night into Saturday. Unfortunately Southern California had a late season storm roll through right as the holiday weekend was getting started. The storm dropped temperatures on the mountain into the mid 30's overnight along with high winds and other miserable conditions. So, at the last minute we switched up our plans and decided on doing a day-hike of Mt Baldy.
Mt Baldy is IMHO one of the easiest and most enjoyable elevation training hikes around. Because of the storm, we opted for a later start on Saturday morning. We arrived at the trail head around 10:30AM and the temperature was still only about 40deg. After some debate about clothing, we started off. The trail was cold and windy, but great hiking weather. We were deep in the clouds for about 2 hours, but as we approached the summit we could see the tops of frost covered trees and clearing blue skies.

Eventually we made it to the top, fully above the clouds. The only thing we could see in the distance was San Gorgonio - our 3rd hike coming up at the end of June.


Above the clouds

Cold up top

Heading down the Devils Backbone

So hike #1 is complete and so is this post. Stay tuned for hike #2 as we get closer to Mt Whitney...