White Mountain Peak 14,246ft

1st 14er: White Mountain Peak @ 14,246 ft Friday  March 21, 2014
3rd tallest mountain in California
By: Stefanie Notte

Okay, so blogging... I'm a novice.  Basically this is my journal when I hike or backpack so to reflect on it and transcend back in time, wherever and whenever that may be.  I'm not sure everyone will feel the same way when they read my thoughts, so take it for what it is and I hope you enjoy!   

It all starts when I leave my house in San Luis Obispo at 5:30 am Friday morning, at sea level.  I drive straight through to Bishop, CA and meet my friend Megan who I haven't seen in almost two years.  We quickly get reacquainted, finish packing and make a quick stop at the store for last minute essentials.  We almost grabbed everything we needed...

We drove together up to the Inyo Portal where Moulas Mine is. And then the adventure starts: 

 

Day 1: 

1:52 pm: starting trek @ 5700 ft 

3:00 pm first break, 7200 ft elevation. Feeling good, legs are strong, lungs are good

4:10 pm: 2nd break at 8800 ft. Moulas Mines is where the water was cached, about an hour out from camp.

5:12 pm we are almost at camp and at this moment just realized Megan is carrying a JetBoil with no fuel... We forget to get fuel!! We can't cook!! Haha! Oops.  This actually wasn't that funny, we were winter camping after all.  

5:40 pm at the mine! Weather is happening, flurries!

5:45 pm got to the cache of water that Megan planted a few days prior, at 9600 ft checking out the map and scoping out our home for the night. Descending and ascending is the name of the game, and now, Megan and I are entering into uncharted territory. 

7:50 pm: Got to an epic camp spot, flat, tall dead grass for cushion, view of Mammoth Mountain in the back ground and camping at about 10,000 ft. Pita and hummus dinner with some Indian deliciousness to follow.

*It wasn't easy getting here though, traversing through knee high snow, side stepping over rocky hell, however a gorgeous sunset and a heck of a day tomorrow: 15 miles, 4200 elevation gain, and voila 1st 14er of the year! 

8:39 pm: In bed, about 32 degrees out, and hopefully I'm going to sleep well tonight at this high altitude. I'm feeling surprisingly well for a sea level to 10,000 ft day. Good night!

Day 2:

Camp 1

6:57 am: I have been awake for probably an hour or so, and felt the effects of altitude throughout the night. I feel good but didn't sleep all that well, tossing and turning and such. It's okay, I had a feeling that was going to happen. I stayed plenty warm in my sleeping bag though. Today is going to be a great day, we've got roughly a mile or two of crazy navigating (basically finding our own way in a blanket of crusty snow) and then 7 miles of trail to the top. We are then going to come back down and camp at 11,000 ft. The sun is out and things are setting up for another great day of hiking.

8:35 am I finally gave in to the urge to pee, compromising my cozy situation, realizing that it got way below freezing last night... All of the one gallon jugs of water are frozen solid! Our boots that were in the vestibule: frozen. Now we are waiting for the sun to come up over the ridge so we can start the thawing out process. I can't believe how cold it got. Well, actually, maybe I can. First things first... Iced coffee with a cinnamon bagel and frozen banana for breakfast.

10:15am leaving camp one, next stop: trailhead. 

11:18 am: We got to the first ridge, every time I look over my shoulder I have an epic eye level view of the Eastern Sierra, soon I will be 2000 ft above them.

11:28 am: at about 11,000 ft and taking the first water break, checking out Mt. Tom, Mt. Humphrey, Mammoth Mountain and the rest of the snow covered Sierra (Megan pointed out these peaks, I had no idea, really). 

2:02 pm still not at trailhead, and the frustration is setting in... We have been walking forever on the side of this mountain range, post-holing in shitty crusty snow, with wet boots and the finish line getting further and further away.  I can feel myself getting HANGRY and decided to hold back from Megs a bit so my negativity wouldn't rain on her parade.

She's cute when she's (h)angry... 

2:44 pm: at the trailhead (FINALLY). Changing socks for part 2 of the day. I've let all frustrations go, I'm myself again! We are at 11,800 ft and have less than 2500 ft up to go. Seven miles and a trail covered in a foot of snow. Hmmm.  Just to note: that last section we hiked was longer (distance and time wise) than anticipated, we had to navigate around some crazy unforeseen terrain and there was much more snow than we anticipated. 

3:31 pm: hitting the trail. Frostbite danger with the toes, but we are layered up and recalculating our plans as we go. Barcroft Station is our next point, about 3 miles. 

5:21 pm reached Barcroft Station. Due to snow, we had to trek the last 3 miles on the walls of the trails, walking on bushes, big rocks, and boot packing in knee high snow.  Aaagh, my swamp feet are in trouble. We creeped around long enough here to find the upstairs door at the station unlocked!! With like 10 bunk beds! Bitches be roughin' it on bunk beds tonight! The fear of losing my toes to frost bite has subsided, for now. I'm rejuvenated. Time to devour a frozen Clif Bar and move our butts. 

6:02 pm, we just warmed up in our castle, got our wits about us, and are going for the sunset summit push! We got this!! Woohoo! I'm thinking we're at 12,000 ft but will check the map to be sure.

7:31 pm: Well, we made a real big decision today, one that I have never made before... with less than an hour to get to the summit (we think) we stopped to assess the situation and turned around.  Yes, turned around.  This decision wasn't taken lightly, we thought we had an hour to go, but it would have been more like 2-3 hours, and would have been impossible in the dark.  The last 300 feet or so was a rock scramble on loose, snow covered talus. The deciding factors were: night was quickly approaching, there's no view from the top; we had a high risk of getting lost and didn't have the proper gear in tow; weather rolled in with light snow falling from the sky; I was suffering from a bout of dehydration which may have triggered some light AMS symptoms.  Oh, and I can't forget to mention, my damn headlamp was low on batteries (amateur move, I should have checked it before the mission).  I was out of my comfort zone in every way imaginable.

8:41 pm: We returned to Barcroft, and that slight descent from about 13,000 ft made a world of difference. Other than being soooo very cold, my symptoms subsided for the most part. Oh, and I can't forget to mention the mountain lion encounter!  It had probably been tracking us from Barcroft en route to the summit, but once it was dark and we had about a mile to go to get back to camp 2 (Barcroft), it's eyes reflected in Meg's headlamp and was only about 30 ft away! Sneaky little creature. We started screaming and chucking rocks at it and watched it run off; that's when we were able to confirm it was a feline... A mountain lion. Rooooaaarrr!! (or do they meow?) Whatever, we won.

Us on the left, mountain lion on the right

9:18 pm: in bed. My feet are still so freaking cold. If we didn't come across this room with beds I would probably be in quite a lot of trouble. However, we are going to pull through this. We are going to reattempt the summit tomorrow, and if we make it, waaaahooooo! But if not, it's for another day. This hike has been one of the most difficult (mental, physical, and emotional) challenges I have ever endured to date and wouldn't change any of it for a second. Wait! That's a huge ass lie, I would have brought 10 pairs of socks, my North Face snow boots, snow pants, foot warmers, fuel for the JetBoil and a cheesecake or something. Throw in an extra day to acclimate and maybe a HOT bean and cheese burrito. That is all. One thing is for sure, the trekking poles were clutch today! No doubt. Megs was awesome to share so we had one each. Okay, time to attempt sleep, we have a big day tomorrow.

The night of the failed attempt, so close yet so far

Day 3

4:29 am: I woke up about 30 minutes ago from being too hot! What a great problem to have! I slept sooooo goooood last night. So good!! My feet are back to normal body temp, thank the universe. They do hurt today, mind over matter, I'll have to assess them before I stick them into those damn frozen boots. One thing is for sure, I will never again underestimate the detrimental effects of hiking roughly 15 miles with cold, wet, heavy feet. I also learned yesterday that I just don't like traversing on the sides of mountains; whether it be post-holing through knee high snow or even walking in boot pack, or walking on the unforgiving patches of talus, I freaking hate it (okay, I'm being overly dramatic... Megan wanted to go on the side of the mountain, and me, well, I wanted to go up and over). I like walking up mountains, not around them!!  Side note: A funny observation regarding the boot pack, Megan's hips are externally rotated, and mine are internally rotated; we could definitely notice a difference walking in each other's boot pack.
Yesterday was a difficult day all together. However, I enjoyed most of the challenge, (as I lay here on a bed in Barcroft, in not one, but two sleeping bags, sheltered away from the elements) but am so glad it's over. Today is another big day, because of the failed summit attempt, we are tacking on about another eight miles or so to our 32 mile excursion for a total of 40 miles. Not bad for a weekend hike, not bad at all. 

8:02 am: Okay summit, here we come!

10:08 am: We are at the base of the peak, about 15 big switchbacks to the top. I got my first glimpse of the east side of the White Mountain range, they are not nearly as impressive as the Sierra, not  even close.  But White Mountain Peak, she's beautiful, a total misfit. She belongs across the valley with her cousins. 

 the summit

And at 11:29 am Sunday March 23, 2014, we bagged our first fourteener of the year! Oh the success! The clarity!  We did it, we DID IT!!!!!!!  It is nearly impossible to capture this moment in words.  We were both brought to tears, and then we stripped down and became one with nature.  There, take that! I'll never forget this feeling, for as long as I live.

Taking it all in 

11:49 am: We descend. Holy hell, we've got quite the trip to the car. Ugh, the descent would be so much better if we could just snowboard down.

2:00 pm got to Barcroft, time to move it, we are out of water till our next cache and low on food (Low on food? Shit, we were almost completely depleted). 

We came across these guys: big horn sheep 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Nevada_bighorn_sheep 

2:31 pm: Leaving Barcroft, 4 miles or so to the next stop, swamp foot and all. I can't wait to take a long hot bath (and eat hot food, and drink hot drinks).

3:23 pm: We made it to the hut, the would-have-been camp 2 and we now have H2O!! Next is the 4 hours of hell, traversing in a shit ton of snow. HOLD UP.  Dammit, our water that was buried in snow is in solid form. That's just great. Welp, keep on truckin. No time to cry about it. Oh wait, Megan just cracked it on the rock, it's only semi frozen, we've got agua!

6:09 pm: We made it to camp one. Fuck! That last part of the hiked sucked so bad. My feet hurt so much more on the way down. But on the brighter side, we are getting another sunset out of this deal. At this point I realized that we are a solid 12 hours behind schedule, with a few more to go, all we can do is hope our emergency contact hasn't jumped the gun and contacted S&R.

7:29 pm: We made it to the water cache barely before dark, yay! Almost there, five miles to go!

10:09 pm: We made it to the car, the second best feeling of the day! Those last five miles were brutal, my poor feet. Now, off to Denny's since the Indian place, and any other decent one for that matter has closed long ago. 40 miles in 3 days: 6, 14, 20 miles per day, respectively, and 8800 ft of vertical hiked (probably more if we included the failed attempt on day 2, but who needs that reminder?!). Dang! I'm impressed with us, with me. Unstoppable! Determination is an amazing thing. And summit fever? Oh, it's just the beginning.

So all in all, this was one of the most incredible hikes I have ever done, and one of the most challenging.  Megan and I are so bad ass, and I can say that now as I lay here in bed at my house, two days later enjoying every last moment of my pseudo spring break (Cal Poly spring break, but my Cuesta class is still 100% in session).  A funny note, we get off the mountain, and eat some shitty Denny's food... I'll admit, the HOT french fries were crunchy and salty and  delicious, possibly the best thing I've ever eaten in my entire life, and then I had to hit the road and drive back to SLO for my physiology class Monday morning at 11:10am.  I had to take two sleep breaks on the way home, I was exhausted.  I slept much longer than I intended, and knew I wasn't going to have time to go home and shower before class, but go straight to school... I was a hot mess, use your imagination.  I pulled into the Paso Robles Cuesta campus at 10:50am, with 20 minutes to spare.  I used this time wisely as I wet wiped bathed, brushed my teeth and hair and formulated a "car outfit" consisting of something that looked pretty damn good!  I didn't have my computer, my book, my notes or a pen.... but I was there, I made it.  

White Mountain Peak, I respect you.  We came to you from the valley floor, pushing ourselves beyond unimaginable limits the entire way.  You almost got the best of us, but it was two against one, and you never really had a chance.  

xoxo
Stefanie 

P.S.  We started this trek at 2pm Friday and completed it at 10pm Sunday night.  It was a 40 mile out-and-back trip from the Valley...  This was, without a doubt, the most adventurous way to summit this mountain, keeping in mind most people drive nearly the entire way up. The "easiest" of the fourteeners could potentially be one of the most difficult for me.  Only time will tell.