Mount Whitney: Taking the Mountaineers Route to the Highest Peak In the Lower 48

we're at a parking lot at a Home Depot ready to head to California we're gonna plan on driving like 20 hours in the next 48 we will sleep eight and hike for six to eight we're in our tents all packed up ready to go tomorrow the best part is all of us sleep in our own tents which is just ridiculous so there's three of us and there's three tents at this campground the grown man should not share a tent if he doesn't have to ten o'clock time to go to bed 4:50 a.m. I think all three of our alarms went off simultaneously so alarm and stereo today we're gonna be starting at the Whitney Portal trailhead at about 8,500 feet and then we'll be taking the Mountaineers route up to the top of Mount Whitney which is around for 2500 feet then we'll be taking the John your trail over to the descent down the 99 switchbacks back to the trailhead 14,500 feet is pretty high and it'll be interesting to see how all of us deal with that type of altitude and also the weather there could be some afternoon thunderstorms and I'm no scientist but I think that 14,500 feet is not a place you want to be during a thunderstorm but right now we're gonna pack up and eat breakfast and drive to the trailhead honestly last night was so rough we just ate crappy fast food the whole way here and I was up all night fighting off naja thinking I was gonna throw up I know once we get hiking and I'll feel a little bit better but I'm excited like when we pulled in last night that mountain was breathtaking and I can't wait to start hiking up and see what kind of view you get from up there and where I think we're in for a treat today should be really fun [Music] [Music] got started what we wanted two sons coming out behind me kid this place looks pretty reroute today's gonna be an interesting day we're going to be gaining today 6,000 feet in five miles roughly right so that's the tough let the tough five miles things are going great I could all change around 13,000 feet [Music] blake isn't feeling so great last night he had diarrhea he just barely slipped and fell into a stream and he's just not feeling great overall the thing about Blake is that he hardly ever dies and he always finishes what we started so I'm not too worried because even if he does collapse Aaron and I could still summit because we feel great but this is one steep trail about it just over a thousand feet of climbing per mile [Applause] got our first glimpse of the shoot of the Mountaineers crowd and to me it looks slightly less steep than in my imagination things are always worse in my imagination here at the bottom of a snow chute on the Mountaineers route going up to Whitney doesn't look either steep as I thought it was gonna be I'm sure it'll get Sleeper up there further nausea level has gone down to probably a three now which is good so that pill that vana gave me worked once we get up this we make a left-hand turn to the summit I think right now we're about a thousand feet from the summit [Music] the crow glider wasn't as steep and icy as we had imagined but so far the weather's held the snows been great things are coming up Danny Blake and Aaron for sure so Danny in the area behind me and for the first time that snow has gotten pretty icy it's just kind of sketchy because if you were to flip at this point you would probably go quite a long ways until you could stop yourself glad we brought the ice back because I didn't because gonna use it but super glad I brought it [Music] some of it yeah bro yeah for what there's not a felt somewhat I'm so pumped I'm so high right now so pumped on friendship and mountain climbing Ellis freakin awesome and there was no fault summit and it's right automatically I just forgot how terrible I felt all day [Music] all right we just got to the summit of Mount Whitney 14,500 feet the highest peak in the lower 48 and it's like we won the weather lottery there were warnings about storms but I mean the weather here is just unbelievable great hike all around not too hard not too technical glad I brought the ice axe slipped there at the end could have resulted in a gruesome death it's amazing up here the views go on for days for miles and now we're gonna go down the main portal route which is right behind me now if you little squint you might be able to see the 99 switchbacks [Music] so bad but anti-pill and it just kept going I was able to kind of rebound and I feel pretty good but after the high of some budding and hanging out up there I just got a massive headache and Danny and Aaron decided to go give a couple little bonus peaks on the way down and I decided I just head out Aaron and I are partaking in some gratuitous peeking we come down from Whitney summit you know we're going up these little spires to the East Lake refuse to participate and this dog and pony show down this is me biggest drop headed it's a long ways down a couple thousand feet glad that I climbed that to this point and got some pictures of Aaron this is an amazing view Aaron and I keep waiting for that moment when we're not going to be enjoying this trail in this hike that hasn't come yet for us but for Blake he's gone on ahead so he can wallow in his misery all by himself trying to catch up to him but you got pretty far ahead while we climbing up those Peaks it's Liz are they saying that people are just sliding down this well as you can so the truth right there yeah which is what we should do okay cool that's why I waited here all right we've decided to slide down which i think is a good decision [Music] slidings nice just dropped about 800 feet and our knees will thank us for it [Music] so Whitney something I've always wanted to do but didn't think I'd have the chance to do it until about two or three days ago this might be one of the longest drives two miles covered on foot ratio that I've ever had who started to finish that was an awesome trail it felt great all day I know it probably pains Blake to hear that when he felt so crappy but at the end Blake was running as far as I could tell as fast as he could that run was hard for me I was feeling sick most the day got super high at the top and then a huge letdown a lot of switchbacks a lot of switchbacks and they say there's a hundred of them hey I could swear there's more than there's a lot of switchbacks it was awesome totally worth doing what a cool mountain range

Channel: Mediocre Amateur

Views: 178,036

Rating: 4.878788 out of 5

Keywords: mountains, steep, california, sierras, mount whitney, whitney mountain, tallest peak in the united states, tallest peak in the contiguous united states, trail running, travel vlog, adventure vlog, running, hinking, mountaineers route up whitney, jon muir trail, whitney portal trail, whitney portal, california mountains, 100 miles from nowhere, ultimate direction, motivation, inspirtaion, vlog

Id: fRei7-oIpUM

Length: 11min 34sec (694 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 04 2018