Day 1 - Click on Map
Day 1 (July 26) took us from Whitney Portal to just above Trail Side Meadow. We started the day at the hotel in Mammoth and we all drove down to Lone Pine in the 4 Runner to pick up the permit. Mike and I skipped breakfast, which turned out to be a big mistake later on. Got the permit from the new Interagency Office, and the rangers were quite impressed with Mike's knowledge of the trip itinerary and the names of each night's stay. We then proceeded up to the portal, making our way past several support vehicles for the marathon from Death Valley to Whitney. Found a place to park the car amid all of the marathon groups and got our gear over to the trailhead for pictures and goodbyes to the wives. It was weird for me to say goodbye to the wife for 16 days knowing I would not have a chance to talk to her until we hit Red's Meadow in 13 days! In the future I will invest in a satellite phone rental to ease our minds!

We got onto the trail around 10:30 in the morning, with a hike up the trail past Carillon and Lone Pine Creeks. We had great views of the Alabama Hills and Lone Pine below. We stopped for lunch at Lone Pine Creek and ate some tuna and tortillas along with some Top Ramen. After lunch we started up the next climb towards Outpost Camp and here is where the lack of breakfast caught up with me. I had a meltdown and needed to rest for about a half hour to build up the blood sugars and stuff. Munched on dried mangos and nuts until I felt better. It was there that I wondered if I had what it took to do this trip. Maybe my body was trying to tell me something of the days ahead.

We proceeded up the climb and made it to just before Outpost Camp (Bighorn Park) when the first of the rain and thunderstorms hit. We both donned our Dri-Duck rain jackets and made cover under a tree until the rain let up some. At that point we headed to Outpost Camp and set up the tent to get out of the rain. Mike headed back down hill aways to see if he could use his cell phone to call the wives but had no luck on the reception. I took the time to lay in the tent and look out at the peaks and views. Quite a sight! About 5 pm or so the rain clouds started to clear so we made dinner and packed up the tent for a couple of hours of hiking towards Trail Camp. Our original goal was to hit Trail Camp the first night so we figured we still had some time left to make it. We made it past Mirror Lake and got as far as Trail Side Meadow before it started to get kind of dark so we started looking for a site just above Trail Side Meadow.

We found a nice spot along the trail just above the meadow and set up camp and started to settle down for the night. At about 10:30 that night we heard noises and saw lights flickering in the distance. A group of about 6 hikers came by with their headlamps and we found it quite strange. In hind sight, it turned out to be very normal, as the procession continued all night long with at least 7 or 8 other groups coming through until we got up at 4 am. During the night we also heard two rock slides on the far side of the creek and saw sparks from the rocks coming down the mountain. That made quite a sight, along with all of the stars out that night!

To view photos of our trip please refer to the Photo Albums section of this site!