On June 24th, a strong 5.8R earthquake struck near the foot of everyone’s favorite California 14er, causing massive rock falls and naturally, road and trail closures. Even without road and trail closures, getting permits by lottery to climb Whitney is difficult. Sometimes Whitney… just isn’t an option. SMC wants to know: are you heart-broken because you were set on climbing Mount Whitney? Can we help? […]
We often get asked how a person should get ready to climb up the high peaks of the Eastern Sierra, especially Mount Whitney. This can be a tricky question to answer, because each person has factors which influence how well they will do, and their own judgement on what is comfortable or "acceptable." Nobody can predict what will happen at elevation where the air is thin. Sometimes fit hikers fail to summit, while less fit hikers do well. Such a difficult endeavor lays open to surprises. There are things a person can do to plan ahead and prepare, and head off some surprises. Obviously if a hiker has never hiked [...]
We have been working with Rock Creek Pack Station to set up the JMT in stages as a pack supported trip. This allows people who want to do the JMT but do not want the heavy packs to spread the journey out over four years and to have a relaxed memorable vacation along the way. This year our first section was from a start at Kearsarge to a finish at Onion Valley. Along were Geoff Snyder, Donna Smith, Mardi Swords, Martha Moore, Phil Moore and SP as hiking guide. We also had a full time cook Andy and packers Mark and Terri. The trip started with some ran and thunderstorm [...]
We have been working with Rock Creek Pack Station to set up the JMT in stages as a pack supported trip. This allows people who want to do the JMT but do not want the heavy packs to spread the journey out over four years and to have a relaxed memorable vacation along the way.This year our first section was from a start at Kearsarge to a finish at Onion Valley. Along were Geoff Snyder, Donna Smith, Mardi Swords, Martha Moore, Phil Moore and SP as hiking guide. We also had a full time cook Andy and packers Mark and Terri.The trip started with some ran and thunderstorm activity that [...]
This week I was lucky enough to get to do our most popular trip in a two-day mega push with Luc Peltier. On our first day, climbing a little higher than usual, we made it to about 12,000 ft. At one of my favorite spots we set up camp: a set of rock ledges with snow melt for water and a great view of both the North Fork drainage and Mt. Whitney. During the day the weather was warm, and the snow felt soft under our feet. Expecting a change in weather that evening and for the next day we weren't surprised when the temperature started dropping with the sun. That night [...]
This has been one heck of a spring in the Sierra. One day is a perfect spring day; the next four are full on winter. The snow pack is still not melting and we have had to cancel trips because of the quantity of snow. But we have been lucky on Mount Whitney and managed to get to the summit on all of our trips including this one. We have worked with Katsuhiro Yamashita, a Japanese IFMGA guide, before and this year he brought a group of five women and one man to climb Whitney in a quick one week trip from Japan. All of the group was older with [...]
