Well done man! You covered the most important aspect of this hike quite well, I experienced the exact same feeling solo for my first time up mountaineers route, kinda scary at times till the final push. I ran low on water and a headache ensued ended up on the switchbacks and returned to portal by 8:30 pm. Thanks for sharing your journey. Try Shasta from Cold Creek Trailhead
"California, I don't really like you....Sierras....you're great!" Could not agree more!! Perfectly said. The Sierra is the ONLY thing that get me to go to Cali. Great video!
In 1970 I was 16 years old, and I wanted to climb Mt. Whitney with my friend. We went up the mountaineer route and camped at lower boy scout lake. Got up first light the next day, and headed up. Made it to the notch, and started the class three to the top. It was late summer as I recall. We had no equipment with us at all. We were part way up the final pitch to the top, and it started snowing. We barely made it to the top, and realized there was no way in the world to downclimb those rocks with snow on them. So we kicked it into high gear, and started hiking down the regular trail. Went fast trying to beat darkness. So went almost to the bottom of the trail, then back up the mountaineer route to get back to our campsite. Basically we did Mt. Whitney in a day by accident......
Way to bag it guys ! To us "Old Guard" its known as the Muir Route ~ Muir was first to bag Whitney straight up Lone Pine Crick. Frozen lake you showed is EAST FACE LAKE (Old Guard 💪🏾💪🏾) , 2nd highest lake in contiguous states. Sierras RULE !!
It looks easy because he skipped some of the hard parts. The MR is navigated with trail markers called "cairns". They are small piles of stones to mark waypoints on the trail. There is very little worn trail to follow so you have to locate each cairn from point to point. My first time up the trail I lost the trail 3 times. The beginning at the bottom is the most difficult to navigate, and I don't recommend starting in the dark.
