by Homer Tom
From the Immortal Chronicles #3 (Winter 2000)		  
While the idea of roughing it for the average Immortal is a night at the Holiday Inn without a Norm's within shouting distance, there are the few exceptions among this sedendary crowd: following in the footsteps of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Robert Edwin Peary, and Kung Fu's Kwai Chang Cain, Immortal Explorer Homer Tom has trodden far and wide to distant lands where most Immortals fear to tread. What follows is an account of his latest hair-raising expedition where our Brother Ho and two friends found themselves stuck at 12,000 feet in the snow and cold, wondering whether they would ever see their fellow Immortals again and who among them would taste best accompanied by a tart Pilsner....

 BELOW: Our intrepid reporter roughing it out with the Hawaiian Tropic Girls.

Gasping for air at 12,000 feet, I needed to make a decision. One of my hiking partners was getting a bad case of altitude sickness. The sun had already disappeared behind peaks towering almost 2000 feet above us and we had a choice: keep climbing to our campsite or turn back for a two-hour descent in the dark....

How do I get in these situations?

The Dream
At 14,496 feet, Mount Whitney is the highest point in the continental United States. For years I have driven by it on my ski trips to Mammoth, each time wondering what it would be like to look down from atop that mountain. I never seriously considered climbing it, although I have become an avid hiker in the last year. Each week I would go on hikes with the Sierra Club where I met a wide variety of people united by a love of the outdoors. Many of them have climbed Whitney before and, as I listened to their stories, I began to wonder if I could make the climb. After all, many of them were much older than me and didn't appear to be in much better shape. One fellow hiker even mentioned how his 60year old mother summited Mt. Whitney! That was all I needed to hear. I decided that, one day, I would climb to the mountaintop.

While camping this past April, the subject of Mt. Whitney came up again. Sitting around the campfire, the discussion turned to places we would like to visit or things we wanted to do. When I brought up Whitney, it turned out that several of us shared this dream. I suspect the combination of our natural setting and several bottles of wine made a few of us really latch onto this idea.

We began planning how we would do such a trip - how many days it would take, what kind of food and equipment to bring, how to get the hard-toobtain camping permit and the training needed to attempt this climb. We discussed other adventures like hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Pichu in Peru or taking a road trip through Alaska but each time returned to Mt. Whitney, concluding it was probably the easiest, shortest and cheapest to do. Despite this I still had doubts this would happen, especially any time soon.

A few weeks later I got a phone call from John, one of my fellow campers that drunken night. He had told a coworker about this who also jumped on the idea. He was super gung-ho on this and would organize a trip if John and I would go with him. Great, I thought, but when would we go? Camping permits are required from late-May through mid-October and are distributed by lottery each spring. I knew of people who have tried for years but failed to win this particular lottery. How would we get one? "Simple," John said, "Let's go the day before camping permits are required!" I looked at my calendar - that would be in three weeks! I realized it was time to put up or shut up. Not allowing myself to worry about a million different things I answered, "Let's climb Whitney!" I was committed.

Training
I had to get in shape. Over the next three weeks I hit the gym or hiked four times a week. Going to the gym was easy enough since I could go at lunch or right after work, but the hikes were harder to fit in. I did my regular Sierra Club hikes slinging a backpack loaded with 25 pounds. These hikes lasted two hours and covered five miles with a few hundred feet in elevation gain. I did two weekend hikes covering no more than eight miles. John joined me on one of the hikes and also frequented the gym. Todd, the third member of our team, trained by himself. We never took an overnight hiking trip to test our gear nor our conditioning. I never climbed more than 1500 feet on any of my training hikes. Our trek would be a three-day, 18-mile round trip ascending 6000 feet. On top of that, there would be lots of snow since we were going in late Spring. I began to worry. Last year, I spoke with a seasoned backpacker who told me of his many trips to and around Mt. Whitney. I especially remembered him telling me of the time he had to be airlifted off the mountain because of a sudden and debilitating bout of altitude sickness. This brought back memories of John Krakauer's Into Thin Air, the best-selling account of a fatal Mt. Everest climbing expedition. The author goes into gory detail describing the effects of High Altitude Pulmonary Edema.

I decided to see my doctor. What medicines could he give me? He listened to my story without comment then gave me a prescription and advice. The prescription was for an inhaler like those used by asthma sufferers. This would make sure my air passageways wouldn't constrict when my lungs were being exerted. Sounded good to me. His advice: drink plenty of water and take lots of aspirin. This, too, sounded prudent, and my confidence returned. His final piece of advice: take along a cellular phone.

Aaaaah!

Final Preparations
We arrived at Whitney Portal on a Thursday night to set up camp at 8000 feet, spend one night getting acclimated to the altitude, and try to get a good night's sleep. We had eaten a huge steak dinner in the tiny burg of Lone Pine, our last chance for real food before eating freeze-dried meals for the next few days. The weather report sounded mild: highs in the 70s, lows in the 30s and a slight chance of showers to the north in Mammoth. We spoke to a ranger who said the snow was patchy at the lower elevations, deep in some spots higher up and because it was late Spring, the snow would be very soft mid-day but passable.

In any case, we came prepared - maybe a little over-prepared. In addition to our regular backpacking gear we each had ice axes, crampons* for our boots, and ski poles. We had two water filters and a four-day supply of food and snacks. John brought a Global Positioning System (GPS) transmitter that could pinpoint our precise location and altitude to within 10 feet. Todd brought his cellular phone and a spare battery.

* Ed. Note: We're not quite sure what crampons are, but we're fairly certain they have nothing whatever to do with feminine hygiene.

Sitting around the campfire, we reviewed our plan: Six miles the first day to Trail Camp at 12,000 feet. Get up at dawn to take the summit and return to Trail Camp before the snow got too soft. Spend the rest of Saturday basking in victory and back down to Whitney Portal on Sunday. Convinced we had a fine plan, we went to sleep that night confident of success.

The Climb
The next morning we finished packing and prepared to set out. After filling our water bottles and strapping on the climbing gear, our packs weighed over 40 pounds! Realizing this was a bit much, we all ditched a few items (including the GPS) and put them in the car. We set off at a deliberately slow pace to get warmed up and take in the incredible view of the Owens Valley below us. The steep trail, altitude and heavy packs soon had us huffing, and we stopped frequently to drink water and catch our breaths.

At 10,000 feet we started to see patches of snow on the trail. It wasn't really snow, more like runoff that melted and refroze each day. The morning sun was shaded by trees so the snow was still firm and we traversed these patches easily. Then we hit our first steep canyon that not only was covered in snow, but it was a deep powder covered by a thin crust of ice on top. With each step, your boot might break through the crust and you would sink in up to your knee.

We broke out the ski poles for stability. I passed my inhaler to everyone. Following the trail was easy since the hikers before us left either footprints or deep holes where their boots had fallen in, called "post-holing." Each step became a decision to either step into a posthole - slow and exhausting - or step on unbroken snow and risk plunging through. We cleared the snowfield dripping and aching.

Fortunately, we soon reached our lunch stop, Outpost Camp. John complained of a headache and didn't eat much. We made sure he took aspirin, drank water and rested for 90 minutes before setting off again. John maintained a good pace at first but with the first deep snow he slowed down again. His head pounded and he began feeling nauseous. Todd and I began to get concerned and we considered turning back to set up camp at the lake, but John urged us to keep going as long as we took frequent breaks. Our pace slowed to an agonizing crawl as we climbed above the treeline.

We passed a few hikers as they were coming down, asking each how much further it was to Trail Camp. Almost to a person, each said it was not that much further and the trail was snowy but passable, with only a couple of tricky areas. I soon realized how subjective these replies were. "Not that much further" may have been true, but the trail got steeper and became more and more a series of switchbacks1 skirting below a series of peaks. "Tricky areas" turned out to be two spots where we had to traverse across the face of a snowfield that was steeper than an advanced downhill ski run. Each of these areas was over a hundred feet wide and required following the postholes of other hikers. For this, we broke out the ice axes to plant in the uphill side and give us something to grab onto if we slipped.

Looking down the face of these snowfields, I could see the only thing to interfere with a thousand foot slide was a few jagged rocks sticking out. I didn't look down again. Todd and I kept John between us and made sure he rested before each traverse. Even so, each step came painfully to him and he appeared a little unsteady on his feet.

As we got closer to some of the lower peaks, the trail became more of a stream for the snowmelt runoff. We hiked on the edges of the trail, forcing us to step in more and more snow. The postholes were deeper here, some even thighdeep. Not only that, at the bottom of some of them I could see running water! We chose not to follow the postholes. Our progress slowed even more and we still could not see the lake beside Trail Camp.

Gasping for air at 12,000 feet, I found it hard to make a decision. My hiking partner was getting a bad case of altitude sickness. The sun had already disappeared behind the peaks towering almost two thousand feet above us. Should we keep climbing to our campsite or turn back for a long descent in the dark? When John said, "I can taste blood in my throat," I knew that we had to stop soon and that John was in no condition to even go down. We decided to climb no more than 30 minutes and set up camp regardless of where we were.

As we crested one peak, we finally saw the lake that preceded Trail Camp. The camp was probably another half mile away and down through a snowfield. "Can you make it?" we asked John. "No," he responded "I can't go another step." Todd and I were at this point tired, worried and frustrated to be so close to camp. More than just reaching our goal, I had hoped to stay in camp to be near other people in case John got much worse. No, we had to camp right here, on this peak. Luckily, this spot turned out to be pretty nice. We found a level spot that not only was snow-free but had enough dirt for us to drive our tent stakes. At 12,500 feet, we had a grand view overlooking a frozen lake on one side and dwarfed by a sheer face of granite on the other.

Perhaps it was because I was tired, but maybe the altitude was affecting me since I had difficulty deciding which of the tasks to do first in setting up camp. Setting up the tents and getting John into his sleeping bag was the top priority. We had drunk most of our water on the climb and needed to melt some snow in order to cook dinner. The temperature dropped quickly and we needed to put on warm clothes. Someone needed to keep an eye on John. I set up the tent for John and me while Todd started on his. Todd soon began to struggle with his tent and confessed he had used it only once before. Finishing up our tent, I got John squared away then set up Todd's tent. Tired, cold and hungry, I realized how thin the air was just moving around camp and doing simple tasks. Even moving my backpack a few feet left me gasping for breath and I had to rest after taking off my boots. And this was after I used my inhaler.

I threw on some warm clothes and asked Todd to help with preparing dinner. By now he was inside his tent and sleeping bag and refused to come out. Why? When lightening his pack that morning, he took out most of his extra clothes. He was in his sleeping bag, wearing all the clothes he had brought and he was still cold! That meant I had drawn cooking duties too.

Todd and I got a chance to talk over dinner - he, from the comfort of his tent while I got a chance to rest, finally, on a rock. John was silent inside his tent, presumably asleep. I didn't want to discuss this before with John nearby, but Todd and I had to consider our options. "I hope John sleeps well tonight," I said, "and we'll see how he feels in the morning. Maybe we can still make a summit attempt." That was the hopeful side of me. The cautious side considered the worst-case options. "Todd, why don't you check your cell phone to see if you can get a signal." This was my final play if things got really bad - we'd call 911 and have him airlifted out. It would probably cost a few grand, but he'd be rescued. Todd looked at me blankly for a second and then replied, "It's with the rest of the gear I left in the car."

Aaaaah!

That night the temperature dropped to the mid-30s. John and I were cozy in our tent, but Todd's was more of a three-season tent and he froze. In the middle of the night, the wind picked up. Since we were on a peak far above the treeline, we were blasted. The gusts probably topped fifty miles an hour as our tents shook and flapped throughout the night. As comfortable as I was in my tent and sleeping bag, I slept fitfully, worried about John and how secure our tents would be in this gale.

The winds died down before dawn and we awoke to a clear crisp morning. The bright sun warmed our tent but the air kept its chill. I stepped out to an incredible view before me. About a half-mile away lay the most challenging portion of the climb, a stretch called 98 Switchbacks. We could make out the zigzag trail as it wound its way up a sheer face of mountain. The ranger we had spoken to mentioned that the Switchbacks were rocky and covered with ice and advised us to not even attempt them. Instead, we should go straight up the mountain by taking a snowfield next to the Switchbacks. This meant a technical climb as crampons and ice axes would be used. Any misstep meant a long slide down to the frozen lake below. We could see the tiny specks of a team of hikers already on it and watched as they made their way up at a snail's pace.

John had slept off and on for over 12 hours and felt a little stronger but his head still pounded and he had no appetite. He had barely eaten anything in 18 hours and it became clear he was in no condition to continue. We would not make it to the top.

Breaking camp in silence, we packed up and soon were headed down. An amazing thing about altitude sickness is how quickly you can recover. We had been descending maybe 30 minutes and John realized he was hungry. We stopped, ate a snack and kept going down. After another 30 minutes, John felt noticeably better. By the time we reached Outpost Camp - the point where John first felt ill - he had almost fully recovered. The rest of the hike down we talked about coming back and trying again. Next time, we would be better prepared: more conditioning hikes at altitude, spending an extra day at 8,000' to acclimate, and carrying less food.

I should note that of the dozen or so people we met on the mountain, only two made it to the top. The others turned back due to sickness, exhaustion or just ran out of time. While that 60-year old woman made the climb during the Summer, our climb was in much more difficult conditions. With this understanding of the mountain and of ourselves, Todd, John and I have vowed to return to Mt. Whitney in the New Millennium. We'll make plans over our next bottle of wine.

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