Secondly, if any of you guys are interested in attempting this hike, come talk to me. I'll talk you out of it fast.
This trip can be summed up as an adventure of misadventures.
The week we were leaving, we started calling around to reserve a campsite. Why we didn't reserve one as soon as we got our permits, I have no idea. We found out there were a couple of walk-in sites, and decided to wing it.
The drive took roughly about 8 hours. We drove through Yosemite and stopped for some pictures.
The back side of half dome...
Some pretty lake
(Misadventure #2) We were planning on doing this hike in one day. Starting at 4am and approximately ending around 8pm. After reading numerous books on Whitney, we realized we never read the one actual piece of information that was the most important: the permit paper. It said that day hikers must pick up their permits from the office by 5pm on the preceding day of the hike. Luckily, our permit was for an overnight trip so our pick up time was extended til 10am the day of our hike.
This meant that instead of 1 hour of hiking in the dark, we were possibly in for 2-3 hours in the dark.
When people talk (complain) about Whitney, the first thing you hear about is the 97 switchbacks. But people never talk about the switchbacks the first 4 miles, the rock stairs after that, and another 2 hours worth of switchbacks after the 97 switchbacks.
(Misadventure #3) After the first 4 miles of switchbacks, we reached Mirror Lake but lost our way looking for the rock stairs. We spent about an hour "rock climbing" trying to find our way.
Here is Ashley being a trooper and checking out the route for us
After about an hour of this, we finally found the trail. We looked up in the sky and saw this (and took it as a sign)
After the 97 grueling switchbacks, we were greeted with this view
We thought we were over the major grind, but we didn't realize we had another 2 hours' worth of hiking ahead of us. At this point, we were so exhausted... we knew we'd make it, but we could care less if we made it or not.
Proof that we made it
We started at 8:40am and ended at 11:40pm. Neither of us threw up from the altitude, but it definitely had an effect on us.
I think I'm done hiking for a while. :)
