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Day 14 September 11th Start - Guitar Lake Summit Day We woke up around 6:00 AM after a sleepless night because of the wind storm. It was still windy and cold in the morning. We needed each others help us to take our tents to keep them from blowing away. We started up the trail from Guitar Lake at 7:15 AM. It’s your typical long, long, long switch back all the way to Mt Whiney Trail Junction. It took us about 3 hours to get to this point. Once there, the wind started to pick up and the temperature started to drop. It was cold. My hands started to freeze. I could hardly manipulate my fingers to close the zipper on my jacket. At this intersection, many people drop their packs and only take a small backpack or fanny pack for lunch and water at the summit. This is just what I did too. We started the 1.9 mile climb from the junction to the summit at 10:30 AM. As I mentioned, this is my 2nd time climbing Whitney so the trail was familiar to me. I can only think that for someone’s first trip what they were thinking. The trail is very narrow in many places. There are 2 spots when you area actually hiking on the ridge and for about 10 feet you can see on both sides of the mountain at the same time. You should really be careful at these 2 windows, because the wind is so strong you can be blown 13000’ on either side of the mountain. We reached the summit at around 12:30 PM and all celebrated by signing the log book and taking pictures. The official ending or starting point of the JMT is at the summit. Lunch was of a can of Sardines in hot sauces with the crackers. Hum Hum It’s hard to describe the feeling I felt to finally finish the JMT. Hiking the JMT in only 14 days happens be the hardest physical and mental challenge I have ever done in my entire life. My wife and son were my real motivation to complete the trip. My new found friends, Bob, Richard, Jon and Debbie from Alaska were also a motivating factor. I thank them all. We start hiking back the 1.9 miles from the summit to the junction at around 1:45 PM. Once at the junction we put our packs back on and start the long 2.20 mile down hill switch back to Trail Camp. Some where close to Trail Camp, coming straight out the mountain is a natural spring. The water is the best water I have ever tasted. I think they call this part of the trail the “25 switchback”. I filled up my water bottle and extra 96 ounce platypus to use at camp and for water the following day. There is a solar toilet at Trail Camp but unfortunately it was Out of Order as well as Out of Odor. Ha ha There is a notice that says it reached it’s maximum capacity for the season. At least we have our handy dandy pooper bags we picked up at Crabtree. Oh yeah. Many of the individual camp sites are built like machine gun bunkers. Somebody built stone walls either complete around or half round the sites. Looks something like a kid would make playing army with his friends. Really, they are built this way to block the wind. I find a nice site with a ½ round wind block. Just right for the size of my tent. Knowing how it was the night before, I make my tent bomb proof. Place huge 20 pound rocks on top of each stake. I’m not going to have to re-stake tonight! Zero time entries in my log book |
