Tag: guitar lake

Day 21: On top of Mt Whitney

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0.4m north of Guitar Lake to Whitney Portal

Mileage: 16.8 miles, total 210.4 miles

Max elevation: 14,505 feet (Mt Whitney summit)

I woke at 3.15 AM to the sight of headlamps snaking their way up the mountain. It reminded me of Kilimanjaro and, whilst I briefly wanted to charge up there after them, I was happy with our decision as otherwise we would have had to rise at midnight. This way we got some sleep at least.

The trail initially climbed up via some steep switchbacks. It was nice climbing by the light of our headlamps and that of the moon but the day soon brightened enough that we could walk by the oncoming dawn.

The switchbacks were nice and long and easy but we kept our pace as slow as possible given the altitude we were climbing to. We came across a group who said they had bumped into a pair of hikers earlier who had to abandon their attempt on Whitney due to altitude sickness. In addition, we came across blood which had dried on the trail apparently from someone’s nose bleed, another sign of altitude sickness.

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Day 20: Guitar Lake

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Tyndall Creek to 0.4 miles up from Guitar Lake

Mileage: 11.5 miles, total 206.3 miles

Campsite elevation: 11,658 feet

Last night ended up being quite cold at Tyndall Creek. It was the first night on the trail which I have had the sleeping bag zipped right up and wore long clothes to sleep in. It didn’t warm up until the sun rose above the mountains.

Today was basically a day to get us set up for the ascent of Mt Whitney tomorrow. Although it could technically be done in a day, there is too much of a risk of dangerous thunderstorms occurring on the summit in late afternoon. Whilst the forecast for us was good, we thought we would go the safety first route and camp at Guitar Lake before our summit attempt in the morning.

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