| Running on Empty Part II: Boundary Peak to Whitney’s Summit Trip Report |
Geography Parents  Loading... Trip Reports
| Running on Empty Part II: Boundary Peak to Whitney’s Summit   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: California, United States, North America Date Ridden: Apr 6, 1996 Activities: Cross Country Season: Spring | Page By: junodirtrider Created/Edited: Dec 1, 2009 / Dec 7, 2009 Object ID: 273634 Hits: 404 Loading... Page Score: 89.23% - 11 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Hi and welcome to Biker’s Dream! How would you like your ride? Baked, broiled, and boiled?The rotation of the earth forced a blaring spotlight called the moon to descend and fade into dawn’s hour of twilight. Travel time arrived too soon, but what a deep sleep it was. I removed my sleeping bag and air mattress from atop the door that I had laid out on two spare tractor tires in the far side of the yard. I stowed the door back in the shed where it came from and loaded my bike with all my possessions, thanked the big lab for the well kept storage, and passed him along a couple pieces of beef jerky for his constant surveillance of the property. As I mounted my bike, I noticed the dog was happily wagging his tail. While shaking a handful of Tibetan bells in salutation to the big galoot, I rode out of the long driveway and onto state highway 6 and headed south towards Bishop.
In the first six miles, the bike just seemed as though all it needed was to get rolling and then it coasted all the way to the California border produce check point. From there, the day heated up and the road became very flat, to a point. Small hills from ancient landslides interrupted the southern horizon about every eight miles. The 90 degree radiant heat hazed up the strip of black tar that paralleled the mountain range and divided the green pastured hay fields that filled the valley. The paved straightaway lasted close to 45 miles in length without a significant bend and the only shade I could take a break under came from a four story tall roof used for hay storage. Open on all sides, it was here, in the middle of nowhere that I stopped for lunch. Midway through the afternoon, the road bleeped to the west and crossed the Owens River, just outside of Bishop.
The small town of 5000 people offered all modern accommodations and Burger King was the top choice of convenience for me. After checking in with my mom by way of the obsolete pay phone, I took my four Whoppers and plowed through two of them while pedaling ten miles south of town to some natural hot springs up on the west slope of the valley. I arrived after dark, but found the knee deep streams and pools with the help of the numerous car campers and the headlamps folks were using to get around. I donned my own and relaxed the night away submerged in the warmth of the waters and a blanket of starry skies.
The next morning, it seemed best to continue soaking the body in the crystalline stream. I had perfect justification because I found myself firmly beaten down physically from the 100 plus miles of bicycling and the 11,000 vertical feet of riding and hiking accomplished within the last 72 hours. Here I should state that although commuting by bicycle to and from work was the norm for the past four months, I did not train for this one man expedition as one would train for Rainier or Denali, per say. Yeah, when I departed Santa Rosa a few days earlier, I leaned heavily on a big dose of desire, the stubborn strength of my youth, and a good blessing from God to get me through this endeavor safely. So, what happened next, indeed, seemed nothing short of a miracle to me at the time.
A guy who soaked in an adjacent pool overheard me telling some strangers about my adventure and explained that he was a carpenter subcontracted to do some work in Lone Pine. He then offered to drive me the 40 miles I needed to make in pursuing my next big aspiration, the summit of Mount Whitney. Without haste, I accepted and awkwardly enjoyed a lift in his small pickup truck. The little engined truck from the late 70’s purred smoothly over a small pass and then whizzed us down into the tiny, non-booming metropolis of Lone Pine. The day was a Sunday and it seemed as though everything was closed. The guy dropped me off at the USFS headquarters where I proceeded to string out all my gear for a good reorganization. Before I could get halfway through the job, I found myself laying down on the cool confines of the shaded patio and stuffing my fleece pullover under my head for a pillow. From what I could gather, a few hours must have pasted before I awoke to find my gear untouched and a setting sun disappearing behind the eastern Sierra Mountains. Without delay, I cleaned up shop, grubbed down my last leftover Whopper, and saddled up for a 4000 foot, 13 mile climb up to the Whitney Portal.
Stage race you say? No thanks!!For those who have never heard of the Portal, it is not your everyday approach road. The Portal is an American classic for road cycling. The Portal rises up out of the high desert up valley gaining the slopes of Mount Whitney, which, at elevation of 14,496, is the highest mountain in the lower 48. The grade gradually increases as the rider rolls out of Lone Pine and begins the climb through the historic Alabama Hills. By the numbers, this thing is staggering. The Portal Road is 4,580 ft in elevation, 11.3 miles in length, averages a 9% grade for the last 5.5 miles, and takes most riders about four hours to complete. One website said, “Whitney Portal is very similar to the famed French climb of the Madeleine, a monster frequently used in major cycling classics including regular appearances in the Tour de France.”
Out of town, my pace was brutally slow. I was able to ride up a ways beyond the 6000’ marker, but then the inclination grew to stiff for my scrawny shanks to pull me through. Once again, I strapped the bungee to the bike rack and to a gear loop on my backpack and began huffing it up the road. I hiked the Portal Road’s high switchbacks by the light of the moon. Whitney switchbacks are nothing to balk at as they go about a mile to the right or to the left before cutting back around. Eventually they tighten up and on senses that the arduous ride’s end must be nearing. The 8500’Portal campground couldn’t come soon enough and I ended another day’s journey very late in the night.
When I woke, vast faces of white washed granite abruptly protruded from the sliver tight gulch’s floor. Further choking the drainage stood fatty lodge pole pine spires throughout. Shadows from these giants stretched toward the hilltops in the west beckoning one to look upward and away in search of horizons. Gray and blue jays filled the crisp spring air with pesky and jubilant chatter of a warming morning and something good cooking in the next campsite. About face, the slopes flowed out into the valley floor, concaving down into Father God’s mother earth. After stashing the bike and some goods, I took off in Whitney’s direction.
“Well, I keep a moving... moving on. Things are bound to be improving.” – Jackson Browne Even though I packed light, once I hit the trail it’s easy to say that I did not do a whole lot of skipping. The pace seamed slow, and it was! The pace was that of a heavily burdened swagger. Moreover, it was a bloodying, blistering, chug along, non-stop heart pounding trudge. The high level of work elicited deep bodily mourning, which begged my soul for more rest and down time. Hiking up and out of the trees opened up swathes of shade less blue skies and vast, blaring white snow fields wedged between thrones and ribs of granite. One four stories tall, Quonset hut-like series of rock protruded off the floor and down the mountainside like a gigantic larvae caterpillar the size of a football field. Come evening time, I snugged up underneath a garage sized boulder and pitched camp about one half mile away from a 1000’ couloirs on Whitney’s southern ridge line. It was a very restful night and one I needed indeed.
The long night’s rest paid big dividends and I headed out the next day feeling high spirited and almost frisky. At 60 degrees, the couloirs seemed like a buff monster, but on this day I was feeling great and took the strides of a man seven feet tall. My heart raced beating 3-5 times per second and my respirations tripped over 100 per minute at times. It was great climbing, as fast as I could go and my spirit relished! To my amazement, I realized that I clipped up the crux in just under ¾ of an hour and from what I could remember, I had never hiked harder and faster in my life! From atop the ridge, the trail traversed the west side of the range and left me with just three miles to the summit of America.
The view beneath me to the west surprised me. This mountain was not the Teton-like shark tooth formation I thought it to be, but rather an uplift of a once incredibly large, flat piece of ground. The forests beneath me looked like pancaked foothills at best. The topography lacked any sort of the expected drama that one witnesses on the east side of Whitney’s apex but was still a marvel in its own right. To the north, uniformed layers of rock formed giant pinnacles that jettisoned into the skyline fronting Mt. Whitney’s summit plateau. Cutting amid the towers, couloirs fell away like cascading waterfalls. Fright riveted through my body as thoughts of falling filled my head. Harrowing drop offs racked my brain with amazement and disbelief as I scanned to the east. The cliffs were unlike anything I had ever seen and I felt good by staying away from the edge!!
Whitney’s summit was impressive and melodramatic at the same time. The cabin remained snowed in, so the registry could not be signed. There was no wildlife to speak of and just as the rest of the day had gone, I was alone. It was pretty typical I suppose. There were a few pictures, a bit of wandering, a snack, a prayer, and then gazing out on the horizons. Nothing special there, but I was enlightened and enriched with the great, misunderstood emotion that for one day in my lifetime, I was higher than every other human between and beyond the borders of Mexico and Canada. There I stood… a billion Americans beneath me and only my creator above. That thought was pretty special.
In two almost out-of-control butt-slides, I made it back down the couloirs safely. I stopped once to readjust myself, and then off and away again I went. With slush spraying in my face and my knees bouncing up at my chin like a stringed puppet, I whooped joyful noises that bounced off the mountain’s walls, echoing as I descended in a splashing streak of snow. Using someone else's slide path really made the difference and I hauled some serious ass! I was back in high camp just a couple hours after the summit and reached the Portal just before dusk. The computer pegged my coasting speed at 40 mph during the ride back down the Portal road (with exception of making the switchbacks) and I made the mistake of scuttling down into the town of Lone Pine, rather than camping out in the hospitable confines of the Alabama Hills on the outskirts of town. I thought I had chosen wisely when I pitched my sleeping bag next to the brick wall of a local church that provided a nice, soft green lawn to camp on. Unfortunately, I was rudely roused in the middle of the night by a damn sprinkler system raining on my sleep. The scenario was very confusing. In the sky I could see twinkling stars, but water was pelting me from every direction. “Great,” I thought, “just great! What am I going to do now?”
Images |
|
