Mountaineering /n./ – slow walking uphill while not feeling very well…
Mount Muir is located just off the Mount Whitney Trail, which means it’s in the Whitney Zone, which means it’s a PITA because of the Whitney Lottery. Last January, I collected names and exclusion dates from 3 friends, picked 10 2-night windows, and then sent in my application – and actually got a set of dates.
I misread the dates, thought it was August, got all the parties lined up for that window, then for some reason picked up the permit again early morning July 2 – while planning a different trip to Colorado and Nebraska – and oh, crap, the dates are in July and only 2 weeks away. Carol was flexible but I lost everyone else; long story short after casting a wide net I found 4 people (Michelle, Hugo, Delia and Justin) to make use of the 6 permit slots.
Another big oh, crap – living at sea level and having done no hiking or aerobic activities at all, we were ill prepared for the 18 miles and 12,000 feet of elevation gain and loss involved in getting from the Whitney Portal to Mount Muir and back – 12 miles and 8,000 vertical feet of that with backpacks.
The good news is, we’ve played this Fourteener game before, and know what works for us to get acclimated.
Sunday 7/10 – packed, loaded Trebuchet in the truck, headed for the Sierra Eastside via Highway 120 through Yosemite. Near Tioga Pass, I said something about “we should at least get out and stretch our legs today”; Carol noticed a sign that said “Mono Pass” so we parked, grabbed gear and headed out. Nice, easy hike (apart from fording some flooded streams) and great views along the way. Camped for the night at one of our favorite spots in the Mono Basin. I won’t say where, ’cause I don’t want to find you there. 😛
Monday 7/11 – Mono Pass looked interesting from the west side; let’s go see what we missed on the east side of the pass. The hike starts at Walker Lake and climbs up through Bloody Canyon. Before we started, I assumed Bloody Canyon was named for the iron oxide in the rocks – not too far in, we decided it was named for all the bloody mosquitoes – Carol got to moving really fast once we hit the mosquitoes (of course our bug shirts were back in the truck). There were beautiful, Douglas Iris-filled meadows, but no one wanted to give enough blood to take pictures, so we kept moving. We ran out of food and water at Lower Sardine Lake, which was well worth hiking up to, and turned around. We had some fun along the way doing a short glissade and wading flooded streams with our boots around our necks (“Do not drop that boot in the water!”).
Tuesday – rest day.
Wednesday – Mount Dana. 13,000 feet, flowers (including one of our favorites, Sky Pilots – one of the Fourteeners, Polemonium Peak, is named for them), pikas, marmots, incredible views from the top – and a great test piece for high altitude acclimatization. We had never failed on a Fourteener attempt if we had climbed Mount Dana first. Great day out, Carol had her best Dana climb yet, snow fields to climb (and glissade on the way down), Charlie the Mount Dana Marmot was there to greet us at the top for the second year in a row. After snacks and some time spent enjoying the views, we made our way back down the mountain. One BIG highlight was getting to glissade down two long snow fields – number one, fun and number two, easy on the legs. Back at the car we headed for Lee Vining and Nicely’s restaurant, which produces the best fried chicken I’ve had anywhere (sorry, Mom) as well as an amazing bread pudding. We’re all about food rewards when we feel we’ve earned them.
Thursday / Friday – rest, drop Trebuchet off for boarding while we’re in the backcountry, meet up with Michelle and Hugo, get permits set up, camp at Lone Pine campground.
Saturday – Parked at the Whitney Portal, Justin and Delia found us, we finalized our packing and headed for Trail Camp at about 8:30 a.m. Justin and Delia lagged behind to finish packing and playing with their camp stove. We made the long grind from 8,000 to 12,000 feet over 6 miles; entertaining cascades, flowers, marmots, birds, people on the trail in various states of altitude sickness (that didn’t make the peak) or euphoria (made the peak). Made camp, took naps, pumped water, found that snow melt flooded our spot while we were pumping water (we wondered why such a great spot hadn’t been taken), moved camp, found Hugo, Michelle, Justin and Delia, spent an essentially sleepless night (at 12,000 feet sleep can be elusive).
Sunday – up with the rest of Trail Camp when the people that don’t know how to behave in the wilderness start talking at the top of their voices and banging pots, etc. Oh well, we didn’t expect solitude on the Whitney Trail, plus we needed to get up and started off anyway. A couple liters of water, snacks and most all of the clothes we had in our packs or on our bodies and we’re off. First on the agenda is to climb the “97 switchbacks” to Trail Crest. It’s a 1,600 foot slog, but somewhere along the way I noticed
the first sky pilot and then suddenly we were surrounded by sky pilots – we agreed we had never, ever seen so many in one place – and we saw our very first pure white sky pilot; the only one. Not sure whether it was albino; we can find no reference to white sky pilots. Happy makers. Next we know we’re at Trail Crest and there’s about a two-step difference between shirtsleeve comfort and windblown “put on all the clothes” freezing.
We made our way down the trail until we found the junction with the JMT, then started counting steps as Mount Muir is “500 yards” up the trail from the junction, according to the guidebook. Somewhere over 700 yards, we decided to head up the nearest talus slope, sure that it was our mountain. At the top of the talus slope, looked over the edge and yikes, there’s a knife edge with huge drop offs on the right – made our way around to the left and found a class 2 way to get to the bottom of the summit blocks. At the bottom of the summit blocks, we could look down and see an easy talus chute with the Whitney Trail about 200 feet below us. Oh well, first thing at hand is to summit. From afar, the summit blocks had looked pretty intimidating, but up close we could pick out lines of weakness to exploit, and up we went. The climbing was reasonably easy – absent 14,000 feet of altitude, frozen fingers, hiking boots and deadly exposure (“we CANNOT FALL here”) it would have been
trivial – and after a time we found ourselves sitting on a maybe 40 feet square summit block. Awesome.
It was amazingly cold and windy, plus we (and by that I mean me) were kind of stressed about down climbing what we had just climbed up, so we took a few pictures, Carol signed the peak register and then we started making our way down. Slowly and carefully we climbed down, retrieved our stashed gear, then made our way down the talus chute to the main trail. We talked about going on to Mount Whitney, but we had both been there before via the Whitney Trail and couldn’t gin up any interest – personally, if I climb Whitney again it will be via the East Face or some other technical route – so we headed back for Trail Crest. About 50 steps down the trail, Delia came around the corner, then Justin, both on their way to Mount Whitney, so we stopped to talk and get a group photo, then went our separate ways.
Back to Trail Crest, snacks and water, then down, down, down the 97 switchbacks and after a while we were back at Trail Camp. We basically demolished most of the rest of our food and decided that there was no way we were going to spend another sleepless night at Trail Camp and 12,000 feet. We packed up camp and got on our way and a few hours later were back at the Whitney Portal – sore and tired, but looking forward to a food reward.
Back in Lone Pine, I broke my trip-long beer moratorium with two Indian Wells Lobotomy Bocks, which I used to wash down a bacon cheeseburger and fries, followed by ice cream. At that point, Life Is Good. Found a flat spot in the Alabama Hills, camped and crashed.
Monday/Tuesday – up and off to Bishop, picked up Trebuchet, went to El Ranchito for breakfast, then contemplated our next move. Having gotten acclimated and hardened up a little, it seemed like a good time to try our hand at Mount Russell. Camped overnight in the Mono Basin (we get our best rest on the Eastside in the Mono Basin) and then next morning drilled in on the fact that Mount Russell permits can be obtained no where but in Lone Pine. I called the Lone Pine ranger station and learned that there were no reserveable permits for the rest of the week; our only option was to show up in Lone Pine at 11 a.m. and hope for a walk-in permit. At this point, the logistics (with a no-sure-thing permit in Lone Pine and Tre’s boarding in Bishop) got too complicated, plus we know we’ll be back in the area soon, so we headed home.
Epilogue
In case you missed the links to our pictures:
If you go to climb Mount Muir, I’d sum the trip up like this: ’18 miles of trail slogging + 12,000 feet of vertical change + 200 feet of talus slope + 45 minutes of “we CANNOT FALL here” free climbing that somehow totals up to Just Brilliant Fun!’
Hugo and Michelle left the Whitney Portal at the COD Saturday, hiked up to Trail Camp and dropped packs, summited Mount Whitney and hiked back to Trail Camp all in the same day. Awesome.
Delia and Justin were also aiming primarily at Mount Whitney.
I had been beating myself up for not climbing Mount Muir in 1997 when we climbed Mount Whitney – in the event, we discovered that there was NFW we would have climbed Mount Muir without our bouldering and rock climbing experience over the past couple years – so now I can let that go!
We’re always looking for an excuse to head to the Eastern Sierra to do most anything. One of the best excuses is when friends or family want to go and explore, so help us out and propose a trip!
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