JMT Day 21: Mount Whitney

Thursday, August 11, 2011
	Destination: Whitney Portal Starting Location: Guitar Lake	Today's Miles: 15.00 Trip Miles: 228.40
Thursday, August 11, 2011 Destination: Whitney Portal          Today's Miles: 15.00 Starting Location:  Guitar Lake         Trip Miles: 228.40  We woke up at around 2:30 am. We didn't even set up a tent last night. We started our hike up Whitney. We saw a few headlamps way in front of us and a huge group behind us. We thought the group behind us was catching up to us. It turns out we caught up to the ones in front of us, some fellow JMT'ers Josh and I hadn't seen since Silver Pass. The moon went away and we made it to the junction and dropped our packs. We quickly made our way to the top. The sky was beautiful and very clear. We missed the sunrise by a little but were still the first group to the top (Austin was first). Actually some people had stayed the night up there. It was a great view and felt great to complete my first thru-hike! We spent a few hours up there enjoying the view and saw a few other hikers we'd seen on the trail. There was cell reception so we made some calls. Mt. Whitney was certainly one of the highlights of the journey. My dad had hiked it years before and it was a great culmination to the hike! The descent, however, wasn't as satisfying! One thing is true: I'm very happy we didn't have to hike up Whitney Portal. It'd be doable, but pretty intense. On the way down my feet were giving me some trouble. Eventually we made it to the Portal, got some great food, and hitched to Lone Pine. Our thru-hike was complete!