Whitney

Friday, June 6
Mile 767, Crabtree Meadow (again)

Lilac predawn as we head for Whitney.

Today feels surreal. 3am wakeup, instant coffee mixed with granola, headlamps in place, and my three-woman team headed for the summit of Mt. Whitney. At 14,505 feet, it's the highest mountain in the lower 48. And it's only a 9-mile hike off the PCT. How could I resist?

The image of the ascent that stands out is the silhouetted amphitheater of ridges against the stars, reflected in on the glassy surface of Timberline Lake.

T-Bow is a snow ninja!

And then the climb! The altitude nearly got me, but we summited around 8am to a 360 panorama of peaks, all freshly lit gold. We hung out at the top with a couple groups of day hikers, along with Billy Jack and Beeline, two ex-ATers we've been leapfrogging with this section. Relish and Toto arrived later, and when we told them we were running low on food they told us they would leave a bag with a bunch of their extra food at our camp! So sweet of them.

The view from the top of the continental US!

When I came back down to Guitar Lake at the base of Whitney, I found The Zone staring intently in the river. A few minutes later, she plunged her hands in and after some struggling and laughing, pulled out a fat, writhing trout! While she held it still, I killed it mercilessly with a rock, probably helped by my hunger. Gratitude to these fish, of course! After an hour, T-Bow and I each caught our own fish, and we strutted back to our base camp with our haul, feeling like badass mountain women. Early dinner of pasta from Relish and trout we snagged ourselves and fried up in coconut oil and fresh garlic from Billy Jack? Bliss.

Trout trout trout yumyumyum

We later found out from Bunyan that the fish were probably illegal to catch and keep, as native gold trout. I felt a little remorse, but was less bothered by the information than I would have been before the hike. I think it stems from a sense of home on the trail. In my mind, I'm as entitled to those fish as the bears. I'm no longer a visitor to these places I'm moving through; I belong there. Of course that doesn't mean that I'm abandoning all Leave no Trace ideals, but it does change the way I view and interact with these wild places. And those trout were freaking delicious.