I started my weekend off by driving to Mammoth Lakes Friday, I got out of work early so I arrived close to 8:30. I timed the drive so that I would hit 120 in Yosemite late afternoon. It was the perect time to hit Yosemite, the crowds were minimal and it wasn't too hot. I had never been through Tioga pass, so I was covering new ground!!  Anyways, I crashed because I wanted to wake up early so that I would be able to sleep early Sat. night.  So 4:30 am, I was up and running.  I headed down to Devil's Postpile National Monument.  I hit the parking lot right around sunrise so I was on the trail at first light.  Needless to say, I didn't see anyone, I had the whole trail to myself.  Devil's Postpile is really really cool.  Basically it is a lava formation of hexagional columns.  It was so unique.  I had never seen anything like it.  I guess there are other places in the world like it, but it is crazy cool.  The hike to the post pile is really short, so we continued on to Rainbow Falls.  This brought us into the Ansel Adams wilderness.   I think we were too early for the rainbow effect (the falls were in the shade) but the falls were nice anyways.   So after the hike back to the car, we went grocery shopping and headed on to Lone Pine.  Oh!  before grocery shopping we stopped at a natural fault line in Mammoth Lakes.  It is a big crack in the earth's crust.  Another new sight!  Anyways, we checked into our campsite, got our Whitney permits for the next day and headed to the trail head.  The trail is fairly obvious (there's a big sign).  I wanted to hike the first part of the trail because all accounts of the trail indicate that it is kind of confusing, and I would be starting in the dark the next morning (3:00 am).  So, to get to the Mountianeering route you take the Main trail to the North Fork of the Lone Pine river and you follow the river up to the base of Mount Whitney.  Easy, right?  Not so much.  Trix and I get way off the trail.  Eventually we are climbing this canyon of rocks above the river and we stop and look down at the trail.  We weren't even close.  It's kind of late in the day so we head back down and refigure our plan for the next day.  I decided to wake at 4 which would put me on the trail at 4:30  which means I would hit the confusing part at sunrise.  We were in bed by 8 and completely out.

We wake up on schedule at 4:00 bright eyed and bushytailed.    We had slept well and were ready to go.  We got to the trail head around 4:30 as planned and begun the climb.  I had food and water to feed an army, appropriate clothing, I'm wearing my heart rate monitor, I have a gps, trail description, a map, and two head lamps.  I'm well hydrated as I sucked on a gatorade all night.  The first part of the trail is the main whitney trail.  It is a well worn path that swithbacks up the base of the sierras.  I't dark as I'm coming up this park of the trail, but is is well marked and easy to follow.  I get to the head of the mountaineering route right as the sun came up, so it was perfect timing.  The first part of the trail wasn't too bad, I saw where I lost my way the day before and I'm making pretty good time.  It's steep, but tolerable.  It's cool because it's still early morning.  We follow the trail up to the first river crossing where we make some adjustments and take a drink, we had been on the trail for about an hour.  A very nice couple passes us here, which was good because it ment we were on the right track.  We follow the trail up the river (its marked by piles of rocks) till we t-bone a giant boluder.  We can hear a water fall and our trail directions say we have to cross a water fall, but there's no obvois path.  So we bush wack to the stream and cross these rapids (knee deep) to come up against rock wall.  We bush wack our way up stream along the wall, until we fnd the path again (somewhere we had lost it)  Then we follow the real path to the ledges. 

The Ledges are a really fun part of the trail.  These ledges form the edge of the canyon above the river and you climb from ledge to ledge until you are at the top and the trail continues.  The dog had a bit of a hard time here as it was a class 3 climb and he's not really suited for rock climbing.  we came up with the arangement that we would put the front paws up then I would lift his butt up and that's how we climbed up the cliff.  It was kindof scarry as it was straight down to the bottom.  At this point I realized that it was taking us longer than I had anticaped, so I made the executive decision that I wasn't going to climb to the top.  I was going to head to Iceburg lake for the day and just enjoy my hike without the pressure of trying to make it up.  So ater the ledges the trail continues up to Lower Boyscout lake where we stop again for food and water.  The trail is quite steep, there's no switch backs or any of that nonsence, it goes straight up.  So at this point  I'm fairly confident that I know where I'm going as you can see the stream going straight to Upper Boyscout lake.  So after my heart slows down (I tried to get it to 100 bpm)  we pursue on.  As we head up to the next lake we encounter the first of the "mine fields".  This mine field is a steep hill litered with talus rocks and sand.   Basically you take one step up and the whole hill falls down behind you.  There was no indication of a trail there were piles of rocks everyware.  It is here where we get passed by 3 guys.  It was nice to have them ahead of me because they kind of lead the way, but evenutally having them in front of of me was illrelevent because the trail was missing and I simply headed in the right driction and took one step foward to slide two steps back.  Talk about a work out!  We struggled up the hill until we saw a semblence of a trail on solid rock.  Alas, we came upon the trail.  We were still headed straight up, but at least is was on solid ground.  The trail led to a snow field, which continued up to above upper boyscout lake.  Once upper boyscout lake was in view we took another break, ate rested and rehydrated.

Here it got kind of confuing...  Iceburg lake is on a plateau above Upper Boyscout lake.  The gps said to go infrout of this face of rocks and the trail description said to go behind it.  I knew where the lake was (it was fairly obvious, based on the terrain, but I didn't know the easiest way to get there).  I decide to follow the trail description.  This means more mine fields.  We struggle up into a dry canyon.  I catch a glimpse of the 3 guys in front of me so I know I'm on the right trail.  The trail is not marked at all.  There are no foot prints and I don't know if I can get to Iceburg lake going this way.  We continue up the mine field until we come to a little snow field.  There's a giant (manmade) pile of rocks and footprints through the snow!!!  Yea!!  We follow the footprints through the snow and climb up a little ridge.  Here you can see the edge of the plateau that Iceburg lake is on, but it's not obvious how to get to the top.  Again I see the 3 guys rock climbing (class 4/5) to the top.  I can't take that route with the dog so we continue along the ridge until we came across another snow field (with more footprints)  These footprints were coming from the right direction so I decide to put my crampons on to see how far I could get following them.  Well they led up and up and up until I was bsically climbing a wall of snow,  It was like a ladder or a staircase of snow.  This worked well with the dog as he just climbed footprint to footprint ahead of me.  It was short and we could see the top.  So, we make it up and follow a sort trail to iceburg lake.  We made it!  This is as far as I was going to go that day.  Well, once up, I realize that I would have a hell of a time going down the snow, the minefields, the ledges, all with no marked trail with the dog.  So we stop and eat lunch and rest.  It's 11:30 and I had a salamie sandwich for lunch.  Here I meet the three guys I had been following.  It turns out they are Hungarians from the bay area.  One lives in Alameda and the other two in San Jose.  This was their first accent too and they had some climbing experience, climbing shasta and some other mountians in the sierras.  They were planning to go to the top, but weren't sure, as it looked kind of hairy from our vantage point.

So once at Iceburg it is very obvious how to get to the top.  There is only one way up and it is straight up a chute of snow.  The hungairians decide to go for it.  So I time them as they accend.  They go fairly quickly up the first part of the snow chute.  They slow down as it gets obvoiusly very steep, but they don't look like they are struggling.  Its close to 1 at this point.  I decide it doesn't look any harder than anything we had just come up, and it would be easier to climb up to the top and decend the main trail than to attempt down clmbing the mountaineering route with the dog.  The trail goes up the snow to rocks to more snow to more rocks to the back face of whitney.  Well, I knew it would be steep, but I had no idea how steep.  We climb up and up  and up till we are at the same point the Hungarians were when they slowed down.  At that point it was straight up.  one slip and you are back down to icebug lake.  So we are climbing this wall of snow.  The dog would climb about 20 feet up, wait for me and climb 20 more,  We hopscotch like this to the top of the snow chute where we come up to the first rock portion of the climb.  This was by far the scariest point of the climb for me.  The rock part was another mine field, except it was straight up and I had the dog knocking down the mountain in front of me.  At this point I realize there's no turning back.  We could make it down the snow if we had to, but we couldn't make it down this mine field.  Inertia would take over and my climbing carrer would be finished.  The whole scramble up the mine field I felt like I was on the edge of slipping to my demise.  I couldn't be happier to hit the second snow chute.  This was probabally as steep as the first one, but compared to the last mine field it was a nice walk n the park.  We climb up this to the final rock portion (we skip the notch as it was filled with ice and snow).  The final rock portion was a class 3 climb (again we do the paws up butt up manuver).  We get up ok, but I wouldn't go down it with the dog.  We climb to the top of the chute exausted, scared, and just ready to get to the top so we can go home.  And guess who's there?   THE HUNGARIANS!!  I have never been so happy to see anyone.  See, see at this point the climb is no longer 'fun', we are just ready for it to be finished.  Its 3:30.  We had been climbing for 11 hours straight up a mountain.  Just seeing these guys revived me and gave me the adreneline to keep going.  Our elevation is about 14,000 ft so we still have the final accent up the back side of whitney.  All acounts indicate that this is the easy way (the notch is the hard way).  Just a short climb to the top.  We can even see the top.

Easy.  Riiight.  The accounts never mentioned the 6' of solid ice that we have to cross, which is why the Hungarians were stalled.  They had 3 guys and 2 ice axes, I didn't have an ice axe. so there were 4 of us with 2 ice axes.  We decide that the best way around the ice is to cross in the snow under it, climb some rocks (class 3, paws up butt up)cross over it, climb more rocks, and climb another steep snow chute to the top.  Climbing under the ice was particulary harrowing, there was nothing to grab on to and it was straight down.  And crossing over it was equally bad as you had a nice slab of ice to slip on.  all without an ice axe.  We took it slow and crossed under then one of the guys decided to rock climb to the top while the rest of us decided to cross back over and climb the snow to the top.  So we crossed back over and began our final accent.  We were comming up to 14,500 and I wasn't sure how I would react to the altitude.  I ended up being fine, but one of the guys started feeling nausus.  So we climb up.  it's straight up. we'd take a few steps, rest, take a few more.  The snow is really soft as it is late in the afternoon and we keep sinking.  Finally about 50' from the top Trix plants his butt in the snow and decides he's had enough.  he's not climbing any more snow (we had climbed aboout 2000' of snow).  So to add to climbing the ladder of snow, I have to literally pick the dog up, turn him around, shove him up a few steps, climb up and repeat.  He helped a bit, but he made it very clear that he was finished.  The guy who had rock climbed made it to the top first.  It was nice seeing someone at the top.  It made me realize how close to the top we were.  We made it up.  The top is a nice sloping plateau.  We walk to the actual summit, take some photos and head down immediately.  It was 5:00 when we sumited.  12 hours of climbing and we still had 11 miles to go.

The decent down the main trail was so refreshing.  The trail was a nice well worn path.  There were no mine fields or snow chutes.  I started getting a headache along the back side of the keebler ridges, and one of the hungarians stopped and waited for me, gave me advil and encouraged me on.  It was so nice to have company on the way down.  After the trail crest there are 97 switchbacks which lead to the trail camp where I finally took a good sigh of relief.  I replenished my water supply ate, we were at a lower elevation, and I finally felt we were home free.  The hike down was easy.  it was dark, but with 4 head lamps we easily found our way.  We made it to the car at midnight.  19 hours.  My HRM said I averaged 135, with a high of 185, and I had burned over 15,000 Calories.  (thats food for 10 people).  Basically my body had been jogging for 19 hours.  I crashed.