Our Mt Whitney hike 8-20-02

[Anonymous]

Just returned from California where we had a great hiking vacation. We climbed Mt Whitney and White Mountain Peak. If you would like to read our trip report and see our photos then check out our personal website at http://www.naturalbornhikers.com :wink: You will find a link to each hike on our homepage for a brief time and then they will be under TRAILS. Thanks and hope you enjoy the site.

 

[Greg]

velodurt - please follow the proper format for posting trip reports. This post is simply a link to non-Northeast hiking site and not much of a TR. Moving it to General Hiking...

 

[Mike P.]

Sierra

Congratulations on what must have been a great trip. I'm heading someplace out west next April hopefully if things at home go well & then out to CA in 2004. Seemed so long ago when I first started looking at this in 2000.

 

[Mohamed Ellozy]

Hiking at higher elevations

Mike,

I have no idea how much you know about hiking at higher elevations, my apologies if you know more about it than I do

I feel that the main problem many Flatlanders have when they go out West (Colorado and California for me) is that they rush to the "big" mountains before they are ready. With a bit of planning you can do one or two very enjoyable hikes at lower elevations before attempting Fourteeners.

Most of what is written on acclimation (books and web) is directed to "real" mountains (18,000 or more feet) and does not apply directly to the Lower 48. I posted a query on tne MtnCommunity board, the replies I got were very informative.

For Whitney you must plan long in advance, optimally in time to participate in the Feb lottery. I know, it is not easy, but if you can it helps enormously. Three groups of our friends applied last Feb and we ALL got overnight permits. One way to get a permit much later is to do a backpack along one of the many routes that go through the Kings Canyon Sequoia National Park, one of the books (it is in NH and I am in Mass right now) gives excellent descriptions of several possible routes. If you are interested I will post the title over the weekend.

I was there last month, if you are interested take a look at my Mount Whitney Trip Report.

I love the Whites, but there are a lot of other mountains out there!