The hike wasn't bad at all (but I think they like switchbacks). The variety of rock was nice as you descended into the earth.
On the way back to the rim the sky began to darken.
It began raining when we reached Indian Gardens. As we continued upward the rain came harder and faster and soon hail was pelting us as well combined with lightning strikes. Water flowed down the trail at mid calf level in a cataract. I stopped to wait and Tiffanee apparently did not hear me for she bolted up the trail. I quickly caught her and we put put on our warm clothes. When the precipitation stopped I got the camera back out. Waterfalls cascaded off the canyon walls even as the rain stopped. We were soaked completely, but the hike up was nice and cool.
From there we headed to Las Vegas were we slept. Then we drove to Mt. Whitney by way of Death Valley.
We had planned to climb the mountaineers route up Whitney (since the easy route is crowded and needs a permit), but Tiffanee was nervous about it. It turned out there was a lot of snow still though and there was only one other person at the base. When we set up our tent the guy next door came and chatted with us. Apparently he hiked up every year, but his friends had all canceled due to more snow cover than was normal. He was nervous because he had not used an ice axe or crampons before. He had extra space in his permit (because everyone else bailed do to the snow) so we joined him in hiking up the regular route.
We started up and I found my recently charged batteries in my camera were dead. Apparently the batch had an internal short, but at the time I did not know. It severely limited the number of pictures we managed to take. I attempted to use the batteries from the GPS, but the camera took 4 so it was not very useful to put 2 charged batteries in with 2 dead batteries. The camp was at around 12,000 feet. All through the night the wind hammered at our tent and kept Tiffanee awake. We were the only people there though. We woke up in the morning and headed up the mountain. The trail was covered in snow so a more direct approach was useful. We put our crampons on and headed up the snow field. Tiffanee's crampon came off the boot for the second time that trip, so we cranked it down even tighter. It feel off on relatively flat ground so wasn't a big deal, but cranking it down led to blisters worse than normal, and normal for Tiffanee is terrible. Later out found that the toe bail was on upside down for some unknown reason...
I wanted a picture, but given the battery situation I left the LCD off hoping I could sneak out a few photos. I took a lovely picture off Tiffanee, but did not notice I was blocking the lens since I had the LCD off. It was the last picture I was able to take. It is pretty amazing I managed to block it not with the usual thumb or finger alone, but involved the strap as well.
Tiffanee gamely trudged up after me and eventually we reached the ridge (near 1000 feet higher than we started) and the trail. We took our crampons off and pressed ahead toward the summit. The trail was mostly clear on the west side of the ridge, but the summit hut was still full of snow.
We got to the summit and the guy we met had a throw-away camera and took photos of us which he promised to send. We turned around and headed down, packed up camp and headed down again. We glissaded down the snow field. It was much easier and faster, but made Tiff a bit nervous.
Finally we got to the car, drove to Lone Pine and ate a dinner which the guy we met paid for. He then hopped on his motorcycle and drove away headed toward the vicinity of LA. We headed north, but were completely exhausted. We stopped at a hotel finally giving up and without getting anywhere significant. We hoped the guy we met was safe in his travels. The next morning we headed toward Yosemite only to find the pass closed from snow. Later when we got home the next fall a packet of photos came in the mail. Sure enough he arrived safe and was nice enough to mail the photos to us. So we are lucky enough to have a summit photo on top of the highest of the lower 48 despite our own failure at the 6 Ps.
