Horseshoe Meadow to Whitney Portal

On Tuesday Patches and Garrett hiked into Horseshoe Meadow where Patches' friend Moonbilly was waiting with a car.  Patches and Moonbilly are both from Seattle and they were planning to hike the John Muir Trail together (the PCT through the High Sierra).  Moonbilly drove them back to KM to pick up a package at the general store that hadn't arrived earlier and me.  We all then drove back to Lone Pine (where the road from Horseshoe Meadow comes out).  In Lone Pine Patches went to the doctor to check out a hurting foot.  Turns out that foot actually had a broken bone on the top!  He had just hiked 50 miles on a broken foot.  Consequently, Patches had to abandon his thru-hike attempt.  We decided to continue on with Moonbilly for a short section to test out my foot and see the snow conditions.  We set out from Horseshoe Meadow headed for Whitney Portal, a 41 mile section.

After climbing up from Horseshoe Meadow, we look back down at it from Cottonwood Pass.

Water abounds!   We are in the Sierra for sure now.

Camping at Rock Creek with Maverick, Moonbilly, Garrett.  Great camping spot.  We were a crew of 10 or so by the time everyone got there.

We didn't bring out tent on this short leg, opting to save weight and cowboy camp.

Deer grazing near Crabtree meadows

Stopping for a lunch break with Moonbilly.  Torillas and string cheese...mmmmmm

We got sufficiently scared into gearing up for this leg with ice axes and micro-spikes (slip-on crampons).  I found my ice ax used at a sporting goods shop in Lone Pine and Garrett borrowed Patches'.  No snow yet in this picture, but we are making our way toward Whitney.

And there's Whitney, up there somewhere.   

We camped for the  night at Guitar Lake, a beautiful spot at the base of Mt. Whitney.  When we got there we were greeted by six Golden Trout that Maverick had caught.  We got to Guitar Lake early enough in the day to enjoy the scenery... and the fish.

Golden Trout eggs

Guitar lake

mmmm, fresh fish

Still thinking of our cold, tent-less night we scouted out this rock  cave for our shelter at Guitar lake.

It was super cozy and out of the wind.

Tom from Kennedy Meadows wants this alpaca Spongebob to go all the way to Canada with different hikers.  I have it for this leg.

More fishing at the base of the lake.

Another thru-hiker and his adorable dog, Kia, looking up at Whitney.

Two pictures from dawn at Guitar Lake 

Our ascent up Whitney the next day began with 29 degree temps and a 3000 foot climb across switchbacks  on the ridge pictured behind Garrett a few back.

It was slow moving at the high altitudes, but we plodded along.

View of Guitar Lake from near the top... look how tiny!

Looking back at the trail we've just switchbacked up.

The top of Whitney.

My reaction to reaching the top.

There were several of these snow fields that we had to cross.  This one was rather textured and only moderately sloped.  The scarier ones didn't get photographed because we had other things on our minds.

So after reaching the submit (which is behind me), we came back down the trail to find one of my pink crocs on a rock after it had fallen out of my pack.

 Most PCT hikers would continue back down the trail to Guitar Lake and rejoin the trail.  We had decided to go out the other side of the mountain to Whitney Portal in an effort to by-pass Forester Pass, which by all accounts was rather imPassable.   The Portal side of Whitney is an 11 mile, 6,000 ft descent with 99 switchbacks in the first two miles.

This part of the descent was flooded with snow and a sketchy cable system.

Moonbilly and I put on our micro-spikes for this portion.

Looking back up at Whitney.  We crossed the snow chute  stretching to the  top  left near  its top.  We opted to not take the "sledding" route which dropped about 1,500 feet straight. down.

The rest of the descent to the Portal was very pleasant with trees, meadows and waterfalls.

Back in Lone Pine where the Portal road ends.  Mt. Whitney overlooks this quaint town.