Life of Wry

Saw this photo today. So dramatic. So beautiful.

And I remember when Jim, Peter and I climbed Whitney in August of 2010. Here are a few pics:

We’d camped at Trail Camp after spending most of the day climbing up from the Whitney Portal trailhead — 4000′ in 6 ish miles, with packs and a 12 year old! Had a cold night in the tent and woke up to gorgeous alpenglow on the mountain:

It was icy cold (and slippery) on the 99 switchbacks…

That made it challenging for Peter, but he hung in there! Here’s a shot along the switchbacks looking down at Trail Camp. (Note: the shot above of wintertime Whitney accompanied a story about a fatal fall a couple days ago of someone who’d slipped on the ice on the 99-switchbacks part of the trail).

This is probably at Trail Crest. This is where you swing around to the back side and make the final ascent. You get great views East toward Nevada and West over the Sierra.

Here’s P approaching the “windows.”

Here’s P and me at one of the windows:

We’d left Trail Camp at 6:00am. Four miles, 2500′ of elevation and four hours later.. we made the summit!

Peter brought some of his friends. Could NOT leave Little T, Big T and Honk behind!

Glad to have done it in August and not December.

Note: Peter climbed it again summer 2024 with Eli as part of their John Muir Trail adventure. It was a bit of a dicey undertaking as thunderstorms threatened (that’s another story… prob documented in Life of Wry!), but they made it!