(NM-AZ-NV) California: Mt Whitney, Highest point in continental US

Last but definitely not the 'least' was Mt Whitney, the highpoint of California. Having picked up a hikers permit the day before I had gone to bed before realizing the notion that I was going to attempt The highest mountain in continental USA the next morning. The clock rang quite mercilessly in the morning for some improvised breakfast in my room, and then a 1.5h drive to Whitney portal.The sun was rising along my whole ride and at 6.30 in the morning I was almost ready to start hiking.

Magnificent vistas presented themselves within the hour, and waterfalls mixed with pine forest and spectacular rocky mountains were presenting themselves everywhere. Of which you can see all three in the photo below.

Going upwards I was well aware of the fact that I had started many hours after the second last dayhiker had departed, but my lack of rest the night before and fear of sore legs meant I felt it better to keep a high steady tempo when I finally got started rather then setting of at a time in the morning where I would be anything by cheerful. The sun warming up the mountainside was a good extra motivation without presenting any excessive heat. Within just over an hour I had reached lone pine lake which is the first of 3 lakes to pass on the Whitney trail. Likewise 3 small lakes would be passed on the Mountaineers route  but I decided against it in the morning considering my late departure and the chance of being below all other climbers on that route with much loose stones. I could also leave ice axe and crampons behind then. Although it turned out I could have used them also on the main trial, but managing without them was no major challenge.

About 1 third of the 11 miles upwards were passed after 2h and it looked ok, considering I had decided to set a hard turn around time at 2pm at the latest. I did save some weight without ice axes but I did notice that I was almost alone without walking sticks. As for walking itself I like keeping balance without sticks unless winds go above 40 mph. But when facing a high number of streams like the one below, which required balancing and tiptoeing even on submerged rocks (water depths often above a foot), some balancing tools would have come in handy. I stayed mostly dry though so no harm done...

Below is a minor video taken on the ascent, at which time I was still on very good vigor, and I was also just about to pass the first people going up rather than just meeting a few people going down from the previous day and over-night camps.

Quite early one can see the needles that is the west edge of the ridge that Mt Whitney belongs too, and while the keep many thousands of feet above you with an extremely steep face in your direction it is somewhat curious as to where one will go up the trail when not actually look at a more detailed map outlining it all. The "lower" peaks in the center left is where we are heading...

At about 9000 ft, or 2700m the first snow started appearing, and the forecast for the peak was a high of 42 degrees (6 degrees C), so at higher altitude one should expect snow. What I never imagined though in July was to see lakes filled with massive ice chunks. Partly because any lake would have to be quite a bit lower in altitude and partly because when hiking in the sun it was very agreeable weather especially at up to 12 000 ft (3 600 m) where the Consultation Lake is situated and pictured below. It is also the location of Trail camp which is the higher of 2 camp sites along the way. Note that a night at that altitude will be very hard to take without some acclimatization on the way!

Shortly after the camp starts the 99 switchbacks which is what brings one up to the ridge while climbing a fairly steep, and partly snow and ice covered trial. The trial itself is a work of art considering it's location and the work it must have required the men to make it. A look up the east side of the mountains can be seen below.

Finally up on the ridge it is a "easy" 2 full miles to get to the peak, where the rail first goes down a bit to intersect with the John Muir Trail. Getting over the ridge one has a great opportunity for some really stunning views to the west.

As can be seen from my smile I was more than comfortable still, and it wasn't until close to a mile from the top, that I started to feel the adverse effects of the altitude! The first part of the hike along the ridge was  not very exposed to winds either, but the later parts forced me to put on some additional clothing.

The high sierras do offer some good views even driving around in the valleys. but they are truly inspiring when looking out form a ridge or point of higher elevation! Seeing glaciers, ice lakes, valleys with 100 degree temperatures (40 Celsius) all in one view is truly remarkable.

I had brought a good topographic map that showed that one side of the range was essentially a steep cliff, the other side however seemed to have much more spaced out contour lines suggesting much less inclination, by a factor 3-5. However as can barely be seen from the photo below, the east side really is extremely steep...

And 5 times less steep on the other side is like going from 88 degree inclination to 80. Meaning still steep as heck as can be seen from the photo below which is taken on the same spot as the one above! but in the opposite direction. The path was still fairly wide at 5-10 feet when counting the surrounding rocks, but that is still narrow if one happen to trip sideways...

Nothing bad happened on the ascent nor decent though. And after a about 2 miles crisscrossing but with a mild gradient upwards, a plateau presents itself and the mountain flattens out somewhat as can be seen in the picture below of the final stretch.

And all of a sudden the Smithsonian hut appears close to the peak. It is a really significant landmark, but you will not be able to see it from far down, nor before getting within a few hundred meters of it...

The picture below shows the approaching path that follows the small peaks from the south. The trail itself is also visible on the relatively flat part of the left side (click to enlarge photo).

The approaching valley of the Whitney trial is here seen together with pinnacle ridge going out from the left to right, ending in Thor peak.

The top shot was made in the Captain Morgan pose. Although I could not find my barrel of Rum, which was probably good, I would have loved a celebratory drink, but with 5h to go down, that would likely not have been the best of ideas. So instead it was fresh banana, energy bar, dried banana and some energized water that I feasted on. I should mention that the top was quite crowded at close to 30 people, and that continued from the last part of the ascent to about 12 000 ft on the decent at Trail Camp where the crowd then thinned out quickly.

Being a 22miles round trip (35km) the decent took me down at a good pace, although my legs started protesting with 2 hours to go and my feet started complaining especially the last hour, but rather than then the first hour when hiking for 12h! As can be seen below my taped and bruised feet were quite thrilled to be out of their shoes later in that evening.

This bottle was emptied around 12000 feet, and at the hotel at 3000 feet elevation the increased atmosperic pressure had done a good job illustrating just how much less air there is at higher altitudes, and adding 5000ft more elevation difference would show the difference from my home state Michigan to the top of Mt Whitney...

Lots of snow in the surroundings, but not too much on the path. 22miles round trip (35km), which took just under 12h to complete.

Full update to come.

Stats:
State: California
High point: Mount Whitney
Elevation: 14 494 ft (4 417 m)
Date: July 14, 2011
Total elevation to date: 149 668 ft (45 618 m)
Access: Hike, class 1 (up to class 4 exposure) 12h round trip minimum. 22 mi/35km round trip.
Difficulty rating (of 10): 7
Potential Difficulties:

(NM-AZ-) Nevada: Boundary peak (-CA)

Third state on this road trip was Nevada and Boundary peak. There exists some confusion regarding Nevada's highest mountain/point. The highest freestanding mountain is Mt Wheeler, named the same as the peak in New Mexico. But the highest point is Boundary peak,, named from being close to the boundary of California, and connected to the higher Montgomery peak, so while boundary peak is a isolated topographic high point there is a higher point not much more than a mile away, although that peak is in the state of California.

Enough trivia... I decided to camp at the trail head on about 9000 ft elevation, reason being it is in the middle of nowhere and required a 15mile very slow trip on a gravel road, which at parts was not really worth the title "road". The rental car took a minor beating, but I was mostly happy not to slide off the sides of the roads which whould have ended in a stuck car in the middle of nowhere (or worse). The trail head marks the newly created wilderness area, and it's residents which range from flies and cows to bear (rare sightings though). One note though I arrived in the afternoon to very pleasant and almost overly warm weather, the night proved to be very different though with a couple degrees below freezing indicated by ice on the rain-fly of the tent. It got me so hypothermic that I had to sit in the car and warm up for over an hour to mend the shivering. Once the sun came up the quicksilver jumped upwards for a beautiful morning and day to hike in without any other people around apart from some people fishing in a dam slightly below the trail head.

In the evening I did a minor hike just to check out the terrain for tomorrow. being a more obscure peak there is a number of faint "trails" or routes one might take. The first part follows a lush valley along a small creek, the deep saddle on the right above is then one option to go to and then follow the ridge for over 2000ft elevation. alternatively one aims for the second ridge to the left and then go to the left and find Boundary peak hidden behind the peak on the left.

 The zoom above shows one of the 2 main obstacles on this hike: major rock outcroppings which one needs to climb around, navigating them is somewhat tricky though so on the ascent it is common to take a steeper than necessary route to follow the ridge, while form above going down, one can identify  that some can be avoided by walking below them on the scree on various sides depending on which is too steep.

The second obstacle can be seen in the picture below. The side of the mountain is compromised of loose scree and gravel at inclinations of 20-25% meaning it's a game of 2 steps forwards three steps back on the way up, and the way down is more of 1 step forward, 10ft of gliding downwards in loose scree. As an illustration it took 4h to the top, and less than 1h 45min down, of which close to an hour was the top scramble, and the rest consisted of the very quick and amusing (as long as the leg muscles keep up) decent. The inclination can also be seen from the starkly dark sky looking upwards at high altitude with less atmosphere to look through.

Getting up to the ridge one can make out Boundary peak on the picture below, some snow is left on the northern sides, but not much considering it was close to desert landscape around the mountains.

The picture above shows some of the magnificent rock formations one found on the mountain slopes. The photo is taken in the direction of Nevada and the valley the trail came from (on the right). The car and tent awaits less than 3 miles away (bird's route).  Below one can see Montgomery peak which is in California, the state boundary is actually passing more or less in the middle between the peaks in each state.

The top register actually had a nice flag showing the location and elevation nicely. So that lead to a good Photo opportunity, and a pretty irrefutable sign of being above 4000m elevation again.

Weather was nothing short of fantastic, and the SPF 50 which was reapllied about 5 times saved my fqace and nose from a lot of future pain.

Finally there was a section along the trail which had eerily looking trees which reminded me of the Ents going to war in the  Lord of the rings movies. Most of the was quite a bit away from the trail, but below is one nice one that was close to the trail and clinging on to the side of the valley.

As I reached the car I started heading towards California to find a place for sleeping and possibly visiting Yosemite or another park in the Sierras, however, luck had it that I could get a pass to Mt Whitney, and I had 5 minutes to decide where or not to accept it and hike the highpoint of all of continental US or rest or go to some mild scenic climb like half-dome in Yosemite. Considering the phenomenal altitude acclimatization NM,AZ,NV had given, I could hardly turn that opportunity down...


Stats:
State: Nevada
High point:Boundary Peak
Elevation: 13 140 ft (4 005 m)
Date: July 13, 2011
Total elevation to date: 135 174 ft (41 201 m)
Access: Hike, class 2, 6h round trip
Difficulty rating (of 10): 5
Potential Difficulties: Loose scree and sand will make ascend hard. Even in July, camping at trail head can lead to hypothermia.

(NM-) Arizona: Humphrey's peak (-NV-CA)

Arizona's Humprey's Peak was next on the list. And after New Mexico the previous day the effects of altitude should be less severe when this mountain was about 500 ft (150 m) lower.

Most of the early parts of the hike was in forests up on the slopes of the now extinct volcano, which is also the home to Arizona's only ski resort: Snowbowl. There wa s much damage to the trees in what looked like the effect of a strong storm, but could also be the long term effect of pollution and acid rain making it hard on the trees.

At about 11500 ft the nature opened up at can be seen above and it was possible to see some of the ski slopes and connected ski lifts of the region.

This also marked the first possibility to see and hike on the ridge of the volcano. Meaning the general inclination was lower on the final parts, but that still took a long while with adjusting to the thinner air and scrambling across boulders here and there.

After some heavy rains in the morning while approaching Flagstaff, AZ the sky was now clearing up, which was a blessing since it made thunder storms much less likely. Below you can see the Assisi peak to which one of the chairlifts go very close to, however, visiting that peak is not possible due to the sensitive alpine nature and the fact that no hiking is allowed outside the trails.

The final mugshot at he peak don't quite show how hard the elevation was getting to me, but the rest was very welcome, and the knowledge that the decent is normally much easier did help tremendously!

Stats:
State: Arizona
High point: Humphreys Peak
Elevation:12 633 ft (3 851 m)
Date: July 11, 2011
Total elevation to date: 122 034 ft (37 196 m)
Access: Hike, class1 6h
Difficulty rating (of 10): 5
Potential Difficulties: weather, although a desert state, rain and thunderstorms are common on the high plains near Flagstaf.

New Mexico: Wheeler peak (-AZ-NV-CA)

On a vacation trip in south west US, which would turn out very successful, I started off by going to New Mexico's highest mountian: Wheeler peak, which stands just over 4000m (13 100ft).

Having slept in Santa Fe at over 6000ft (around 2000m) elevation I hoped that I had somewhat acclimatized to the coming altitude. And during the early parts of the hike which went through pine forest around 10000 ft in elevation, that was also the case.
However a few other difficulties presented itself. The forest was being shut sown by fire rescue units, which I met a few of. The last period have been extraordinarily dry, so for the sake of safety for people and forests they completely shut down regions under administrative control such as  national forests and park. The kind firefighters allowed me to continue onwards while they proceeded to mark the trails and put tape up indication the shutdown.

At higher altitude the nature is more of an alpine tundra, which does not present much of a fire hazard, but the mountains are known for notoriously bad thunderstorms, such that lightnings are a common cause of fires and devastation. As seen above that was something that did not phase the marmots occupying much of the high elevations.

The path to the top was supposed to be a scramble over cross country and loose scree on a slope. However, there was a recently established new trail, which switchbacked its way up the mountain. it does however extend the distance of the hike. and at a time when AMS (acute mountain sickness) started to kick in with the common symptom of shortness of breath, headache and nausea. Also my fingertips were turning surprisingly purplish, much in accordance to cyanosis, since usually cold makes my fingers loose color and turn pale rather than colored. It passed away though after having reached the top.

On the top it was not only marmots (ground hogs) that fought for my attention, but also chipmunks which were adorable untill it started to nibble on my backpack in search for food...

The picture above shows the ski slopes far in the valley where the trail started, and it also shows the ridge to the right on which an alternative, less steep, but longer trail goes to Wheeler peak also. Below is a photo showing me happily at the top, together with the monument and register to be found there. Lack of clearmindedness though made me forgot to sign the register to mark my 27th highpoint and second ever peak above 4000m. That turned out to be a more common event by the end of the week though. with the addition of 2 more 4000+m peaks.

Finally the shot taken below shows 2 curious animals, one being a large deer (hint: search for the white butt), and also a ground hog (hint: on the lookout).

The downhill path took quite some time even when compared to the ascending. Partly due to the ascending going very smoothly up to about 3400m/11300ft, before the altitude started to affect me more severely...

Stats:
State: New Mexico
High point: Wheeler Peak
Elevation: 13 161 ft (4 011 m)
Date: July 10, 2011
Total elevation to date: 109 401 ft (33 345 m)
Access: Hike, class 1, 5h round trip
Difficulty rating (of 10): 7
Potential Difficulties: New Mexico weather! Avoiding thunderstorms on the peak during monsoon is important. Having the forest "closed" due to extreme drought and fire danger is even harder to predict though!

(IL-IA-MN-) Wisconsin: Timms Hill

Wisconsin's Timm's Hill was the fourth and last highpoint of this road trip. It's an easily accessible high point with a moderate height. The access road is actually one-way, so depending on which direction one arrives from it could lead to an extra detour.

The last walk up to the Lookout tower doesn't offer much in form of challenge apart from the random tree obstructing the path. Below you can see the base of the wooden lookout tower as well as a steel structure in the background which is a taller fire lookout tower, a number of which I saw along the roads in Wisconsin.

The views were nonetheless very nice in the summertime even if this specific high point is not that much elevated above the surrounding nature.

A mandatory mugshot at the top was taken in fierce combat with the mosquitoes which by now had gotten the blood scent which followed me after the attacks in Minnesota earlier that day... A word of warning regarding the drinking fountain at the picnic site... I have rarely tasted a more foul water, mostly being infested with heavy iron taste and other pleasant odors.

Stats:
State: Wisconsin
High point: Timm's Hill
Elevation: 1951 ft (594.7 m)
Date: July 3, 2011
Total elevation to date: 96 240 ft (29 334 m)
Access: Drive-up, walk
Difficulty rating (of 10): 2
Potential Difficulties: Park/road closing at dusk, getting sick from water fountain...

(IL-IA-) Minnesota: Eagle Mountain (-WI)

Minnesotas Eagle Mountain was next on the list, and this really require some remote driving, since it is located north of Lake Superior in the direction of Canada, this it's is not very close to any other highpoints apart from Wisconsin's.

After driving some very well maintained gravel roads, the 6 mile round trip hike could commence. Nature was beautiful with much resemblance to the Nordic countries. Including some planked pathways above some small marshes.

As usual there is the mandatory lake close to the highpoint, in this instance Moose lake. The year have been reported in media as one of the most mosquito infected years to date, and this specific hike was already touted in guide books as possibly the fastest one of all due to the nuisance of mosquitoes...

Luckily the temperatures were a bit milder up north so keeping some covering layers of clothing was not exactly pleasant, but it wasn't too torturous either. And the nice views definitely made up for much of the flying pests. Close to the summit one should take care looking for stone cairns marking the trail dividing into a spur leading to the highpoint.

The high point was marked with a USGS marker declaring the roof of Minnesota, and also a large plaque with information about Eagle Mountain (of which there is several in the state).

On the way back along the lake shore of Lake Superior there were plenty of beautiful scenic areas including a number of waterfalls going down towards the massive water reservoir containing around 10% of the worlds surface freshwater (and more than the other 4 (3) great lakes combined). Note the people happily playing around close to the cascading waterfall, which had 3-4 20+ ft drops.

The Minnesota HP marked my official 'half-way done mark' with the 25th state highpoint ascended. Iowa would be the halfway mark for continental US which many complete rather than the full 50 state list.

Stats:
State: Minnesota
High point: Eagle Mountain
Elevation:2301 ft (701.3 m)
Date: July 3, 2011
Total elevation to date: 94 289 ft (28 739 m)
Access: Hike, class 1
Difficulty rating (of 10): 4
Potential Difficulties: MOSQUITOES! There are so many that you can actually get anemic within an hour or so...