After 240 feet of gain and a short .2mi, we arrived at and hiked alongside Mirror Lake, which comes into view through the last of the thick pine trees. The lake is a beautiful green color and is surrounded by a green meadow, with areas of shallow water both moving and not. After this sight, the trail switchbacks left and then right up an exposed rocky outcropping that more gradually ascends, taking you above Mirror Lake, where the trees are now gone, and the massive walls around us started to close in.
 |
| Mirror Lake from above on Mt. Whitney Trail |
Our next stop along the trail (1 mile from Mirror Lake) was the incredible Trailside Meadow. We took another break here while we enjoyed the pleasure of purple alpine flowers, bright green grass, and remaining ice shelves melting into the ice cold stream alongside the meadow. And, I can't forget, this is where we first saw one of those storied marmots! We saw it, then it was gone, just like every other time we did! After this break, it was just one more mile to our destination for the evening, Trail Camp.
 |
| Trailside Meadow |
 |
| Abundant flowers |
 |
| Chillin' in Trailside Meadow |
 |
| Looking up from Trailside Meadow |
We were pretty tired, so it still felt like a long distance from here, but with a friendly, "you're almost there" from hikers coming down, we found our curious selves walking into Trail Camp at 12,200 feet. It was a little different than I had expected, but I was pleasantly surprised at the layout of the tent sites and man-made rock walls forming such. There were tiered sections and various layouts, which means that if you do get there early (on certain days), there are decent sites to be had, and we found a nice one up on a tiered section up above the trail. Just before walking into Trail Camp, Consultation Lake is on the left.
 |
| Consultation Lake |
Once we chose the site for our tent, we took another break before setting up the tent for the overnight stay. Thanks to Nemo Equipment and their Tenshi Mountaineering tent, we were camping in style at 12,200 feet. Although we could get this tent up and staked in about 3 minutes, we know for a fact that it took roughly 10 minutes total to have the entire tent set up including our pads and bags laid out inside. I have not camped in many tents, but the ventilation and condensation features on this single-walled tent performed exceptionally well, and all of its features were noticed. We experienced both gusts and constant wind during the day and night at Trail Camp, but the temperature was always regulated inside. At 3AM when we got out of the tent, I had no idea how cold it was outside!
 |
| Trail Camp in the afternoon sun |
 |
| Nemo Tenshi 2P at Trail Camp - 12,000 ft. |
 |
| View up to the peaks from our tent site |
Although it would have been nice to have the energy for a short exploration excursion from Trail Camp (such as Wotan's Throne), it was just not possible and to keep on the task at hand, we spent our time just poking around, re-filling our water, and taking in the sights of Consultation Lake from the rocks just above our tent, which looked over the lake. It was the perfect place for Bill to set up his own throne using the wag-bag. For dinner, I had some Mountain House Beef Stew. We stuffed all of our food and scented items into the bear canister and set it aside the tent. We made some preparations of our summit packs so we wouldn't be doing everything in the dark in the morning. The sun was going down, and sunset was behind the mountain, so after enjoying the view of the pink-ish sky in that moment, it was between 8-9pm, it was time for bed.
 |
| Me and Bill after dinner and before getting to sleep |
Just before 3AM, my alarm sounded, beginning a day that we will never forget. There was a steady breeze on the tent, and as we stepped outside, holy crap, it was cold. Mid to upper 30s, maybe? Probably. We were very excited and still fairly full from our 2 serving-sized dinners before going to bed, so instead of freeze-dried scrambled eggs, we opted for cereal bars, energy bars, and several ounces of water before vacating our shelter to re-fill our water. We used our Katadyn Hiker Pro filter for this trip, and we each would carry around 64oz of water from Trail Camp. For us, this amount was plentiful.
In the full dark of night, and while all others appeared to be sleeping still, me and Bill started up the infamous switchbacks. We were the very first to leave Trail Camp on this morning, we believed. The trail's footing is like a walk in the park for us, but the relentless switch-backing, vertical ascent, and difficulty from the altitude made it tough going from the start...again. We arrived at the cables section, where very limited snow remained. The only snow that remained was tucked nicely against the rock on the left of the path. There were no issues here, and just like that we were above the cables, pressing on, switch-backing up, turning left and turning right. A good way to sort of split the switchbacks up mentally is know that the cables are basically halfway, around 44 switchbacks from Trail Camp. No, I didn't count them, but on the way up, we often did 4-5 switchbacks and took a break.
 |
| Bill leads the traverse past the cables section in the dark |
Sunrise was at about 5:30am, but well before than, the orange glow started to creep up upon the dark sky. Just as that was happening, Venus and Jupiter were glaring among the orange and dark blue sky, and just like that, they started to move more quickly up into the sky. Here we were above 13,000 feet witnessing Venus and Jupiter, followed by one of the most amazing sunrise experiences we might ever see. There are no further words to describe this sight. It would be just several hundred feet more until we reached Trail Crest at 13,700 feet.
As we looked ahead, not only could we see the Trail Crest sign, but also that orange alpenglow which struck the side of the mountain and seemed to brighten everything up, including our spirits. Having watched the alpenglow on the Whitney Cam on most mornings, being in the midst of this beautiful sight, in person, at this elevation, again simply took our breath away and made us speechless. Were we really here right now or still in our tent dreaming?
 |
| Trail Crest at sunrise - Mt. Whitney |
When we made it to the Trail Crest sign, the view opened up over the crest to Hitchcock Lakes and Crabtree Meadows and the Hitchcock Range, and it was as if we had just landed on an entirely different planet. Most of the surrounding mountains were now below us, and it was such a stunning view. The wind, nothing mattered as we started forward along the backside of the ridge crest. Here the trail descends for about 400 feet, and although the path is easy, the steep drop-offs are much more intense compared to any other areas on the trail, but significantly more beautiful, and hundreds of peaks were visible, and who knows how far we could see?
From here, we proceeded down to the junction with the John Muir Trail, where it is 1.9 more miles to go to reach the summit of Mt. Whitney, and in about 15 minutes, we got a first glimpse of our destination.
 |
| Looking at the summit directly for the first time |
From here, we passed the windows. On the rest of the ascent, we put a lot of attention to just one foot in front of the other, breathe, and keep going - and take a break. We crossed one remaining snow patch that crossed the trail.
Once we got to the last section looking up to the summit shelter, the excitement and emotion really started to build. It was pretty overwhelming to experience the moments just before we reached the summit. All of the hiking we've done no doubt prepared us for this challenge, because it wasn't easy. Next thing I knew I was walking past the summit building where there was one hiker standing there, and he was waiting for the a hiker that was coming up right behind us, so around 9am, there were four people on the summit, including us.
You can hear my breathing and sniffling in the wind in the video below. It took us 6 hours to reach the summit from Trail Camp. Normally that distance is not a problem for us to cover, but clearly the altitude, at least noticeably, slowed us on this journey. When we reached the top, we stood higher than anything else in the lower United States for several minutes. We had done everything as planned to reach the summit successfully, and now we were there enjoying the summit.
It was an amazing feeling to stand on the summit of Mt. Whitney. Lots of hard work and planning, and experience gained paid off. It was special to share it with my brother. I've seen the views from many many mountains in the Northeast, reached 4000 foot peaks over 200 times, but there is no words to describe what the view was like above 14,000 feet. We shared words of amazement on the summit, asking each other how could we really be here? This was the most incredible thing that either of us had seen...
After about a half hour on the summit, we started to head down. On the descent, we were much less affected by the altitude, therefore we had an opportunity to further enjoy almost all of the beautiful sights once again. We took much better photos, especially of the windows and down to the lakes and Trail Camp from high up. We had to stop at Trail Camp to break down our tent and repack all of our gear. We spent an hour at Trail Camp then, and we arrived back at Whitney Portal around 5:30pm. It was a tough descent, but hiking down Mt. Washington in full packs in pouring rain helped us prepare for that, it felt the same, and was no doubt tough on the knees and legs.
 |
| Trail Camp from the switchbacks |
 |
| Nemo Tenshi 2P at Trail Camp after the descent |
|
| Trailside Meadow |
 |
| Waterfall near Outpost Camp |
 |
| Mt. Whitney Accomplished |
We were elated but exhausted when we reached the end of the trail. We didn't feel like driving back to Vegas, so after a couple of tries elsewhere, we got a motel room at the Dow Villa Motel. Directly across the street and outside of our window was Mt. Whitney. I woke up the next morning to watch the sunrise on Mt. Whitney one more time. The hotel was clean, the staff set us up in no time, and we really got a great night sleep. There was wi-fi, so we were catching up with family and friends to share our success, which was great. The next day on the way back to Vegas, we spent the entire morning and afternoon touring Death Valley. We stopped at Badwater Basin and had gone from the highest point in the lower United States all of the way to the lowest at 282 feet below sea level. I was amazed by our tour of Death Valley, and will also be sharing that with you in a later post.
 |
| Badwater Basin - lowest spot in North America |
Thank you so much to everyone who shared a comment with me, followed us, advised us, and/or congratulated us. Thank you again to Blake at
Nemo Equipment for the Tenshi 2P Mountaineering Tent used on our adventure. Sharing my adventure with everyone and engaging you brings an added element of excitement and adventure for me, and it was all of that and more on this incredible adventure. It was the hike of a lifetime....and until next time...
