Mount Whitney Update Day Two

Day Two of the winter climb was to involve going from 10,200′ to about 12,200′ in preparation for summit attempt on (my birthday) Saturday March 7th.  It was a bloody long day after waiting for the sun to come up and warm things up a bit.

It was a totally endless day and involved some 7-8 hours of climbing through deep drifts of snow where getting purchase was near impossible.  We wore snowshoes for much of the way, which helped in sinking-in, but made travel difficult and long.

It was a fight between staying warm and covered up from the sun beating down and reflecting off the snow.

We finally got to high camp, and again, the guides helped set up the tents.

The night before the summit is always the most stressful – for me and sleep does not come easily.  We had to get our crampons ready, mine were in a different shape from the Everest Millet boots I wore on Denali and took a long time with Deb to get them right.

We were supposed to get everything ready the night before so that we just had to “strap-on” and move out as soon as possible after the 3am wake-up call.  I try to organize everything for the next morning like food snacks, extra clothes, lipbalm/sunscreen, gloves, hats and everything else needed in case of – well – anything.

I was up at 0145 – unable to sleep – and laid awake in my sleeping bag, just waiting for 0300 to come, a mixture of dread and excitement and stressing that everything would be ready and that the weather would cooperate and we would do as well as we could on the big day …….