Mt. Whitney

Randy pulled up to the apartment to grab me around 1 PM PST on December 12 2025, like we have done a few times by now. We kind of nervously say our hellos and try not to let on how excited or anxious we are. We pop the trunk of Randy’s 4Runner open and get our gear piled in. In a few hours, it will be dark, and we will be making our way up Mt. Whitney.

This trip, unlike others we had done in the past, really stood with great magnitude. We were getting ready to climb the highest peak in the contiguous United States, in the middle of winter, with 45lb packs and some of our most critical gear from Amazon.

First Night:

The first night set the tone for the next few days. We pulled in and parked in this forgotten dirt lot just outside a gate that was closed. We had no clue where we were in relation to the trail, but around the corner we saw a bit of a track, headed straight up the side of a 1,000-foot climb, and both kind of figured that must be the right direction. We punched out, and I figured out the batteries on my headlamp were dead (The lion is definitely afraid). We saw lights from eyes all around us (mostly deer), got turned around and lost the trail after 3 hours, and ultimately slept in the bush somewhere near a trail. It was cold.

Day Two:

We woke up late, realized we slept like 500 feet from a bunch of seasonal houses, and if we had walked another 20 minutes, we would have been at the base camp. Solid start. When we got to the base camp, we realized that the trail had actually not started yet. We had been forced to park miles outside the trailhead because the road was closed due to landslides lol. So all of last night’s effort was kind of a shot. All good though, day two we put in miles. We walked until it was dark; we stopped often; we fell into the groove that happens when you just have your mind set on something. We thought we would make it to the Horseshoe Meadows campsite by dusk, but called it early when we realized we were short on daylight and starting to get really cold. I think this was kind of the moment we realized we were really out in the wilderness. There was no one out here. I mean we saw one other day hiker, not a single other group with packs on. So we knew it was whipping winds and a rough night ahead of us, and that it was.

Day Three:

We woke up and realized we had slept about 20 minutes shy of Horseshoe Meadows. I think we each slept maybe an hour or two throughout the night; the winds were horrible, and our tent was not cut out for this. We tried to shovel the snow in a way that would help, but to be honest, we were exhausted and wanted to get in the tent and dry our boots.

Today we decided to stow our packs, they were just too heavy, and we figured we should try for the summit really quickly and then race back down the mountain. I think there was an element of hesitation on our part. We stepped out late, stopped for breakfast, stopped for lunch, and butted up against what was certainly going to be the worst part of the trek, the 100 staircases or whatever they call it. We sat in contemplation and sunlight, enjoying not moving and the feeling of thawing out. We had reached a point in the day and in our hike where a decision was made: haul ass and go for it, risking being on the mountain an extra day, or turn around and start our descent. We chose the latter.

Early this week, a young man had gone up to the summit and passed away. I think the idea of being up there with him, or sitting around where he might have ended up, kind of got in our heads.

Either way, we enjoyed this beautiful area; I mean, it felt like another planet. We had done something so difficult, and come so close, and we had done it together. It was so nice to be there in that moment.

The way down was hard; there was so much ice that it made it difficult to work down the steeper sections, and our ice axes made some appearances as we glissaded down the smaller embankments. At the end of the hike, we returned to that same lot, again in the dark, and got in the truck with smiles on our faces. We did something radical and spent some time getting our asses handed to us. We may not have summited (stand by for next year), but we learned a lot and had some good laughs along the way.

Thanks for driving, Randy.