Mark an urban awakening.

Sanny, myself, and our friends Theo and Sushmita decided to brave the wet 3 day forecast this past weekend and carry out our plans to backpack. We got a late start Friday night and did the two mile hike from the car to our first campsite, Spruce Camp, in the dark with fog and rain (see first 3 photos where we are waiting for our food to finish stewing).

Waking up the next day we found blue skies.

And with a little shady maneuvering I convinced the group that making it ten miles to either Cruikshank Camp (or thereabouts) was totally doable. We agreed to make a decision once we reached Lion Den (something we guessed was about 4-5 miles uphill with a little over 2k feet of elevation gain -- the map was proving to be a very unreliable friend when judging distances). But the trail was severely overgrown and upon reaching Lion Den none of us had any desire to work our way back down and through the jungle we just escaped. We ended up at Cruikshank Camp. There we fixed up a great meal of curry and quinoa as we sat around the fire and had some brownies we packed in to celebrate Sushmita's birthday. A steady rain wouldn't start until midnight or so by which time we were all cozy in our tents.

The adventure of the 3rd day eclipsed everything of the first two; I think I'll save it for a future post. For now, it's enough to know that it took a turn for the crazy.

By the end of Part I we were just making our way to Iceberg Lake, the last water stop until we reach the summit and head down again. 

The stretch from Iceberg Lake to the summit is where this route really earns its name.  Looking up from the lake it was hard for us to imagine a route to the top was even possible.  What we would be doing is climbing the chute to a point known as the "Notch".  To give you an idea of the route and also a sense of scale, I've drawn on a photo taken on our approach -- Whitney itself is of course the tall peak on the left. 

Once in the chute, it became apparent a route was possible -- just slow going.  While there were stretches where we could scramble over granite boulders which provided great footing, the majority of this stretch is made up of unsettled scree: bits and pieces of rock that would like nothing more than to shift and slide to the bottom, with you their chauffer.  Of course there were bigger rocks strewn about as well, and we had to be constantly vigilant to keep them settled as they could do serious damage to people lower down should they roll (which a few of them did, of course).

I think all in all, it took us close to 2 hours to clear this stretch and reach the Notch.

For reasons relating to time constraints and concerns of safety, we opted to traverse the back side of the mountain rather than continue the Mountaineer's Route for the last 500M stretch (the most technical and exposed stretch of the route).  To be honest, though, I thought the traversal was scary enough in it's own right that we might have been better off finishing with the climb.  This stretch was a sea of shifting scree and boulders.  At one point, Sanny grabbed a desk sized boulder with her left hand only to have it and the entire surrounding area shift roughly six inches.  The three of us who were there to see this happen had a look of fear on our faces you could have seen from miles away.  No, this part was really not much fun at all.

And finally reaching the summit itself, which we were all very pleased to see (even if we weren't all that happy knowing we still had a 10 mile hike to get back down).

That's Iceberg Lake that Benny is looking down at. 

So this turned out to be way crazier than Sanny or I expected even after reading descriptions of it beforehand. But it was way cooler as a result.  We only went to the top of the first peak (which was the highest) but we have a strong desire to return and knock off the last two -- which are more technically challenging than the first -- on a subsequent effort.

The first 3/4 of a mile or so on the trail was your typical "single track through tropical paradise."  But then you connect with the ridge of the first peak and it kicks sharply upwards while becoming disconcertingly narrow (for us anyway, who have no background with such).  I'd guess the last half mile is spent on a trail no more than 2 or 3 feet wide with a thousand foot drop on either side (at least it's covered with vegetation -- I'd guess if you fell you could probably grab hold of a tree).  From that point on you were basically scrambling and climbing -- making liberal use of foot and hand holds provided by roots and rocks (or the ropes secured by previous hikers).  And just before the top was a 20 foot vertical wall.

The views were amazing! And we met a very cool local (the man with the purple hair) at the top who reminded us a bit of Cabalo Blanco (sp) of "Born to Run" fame.