The summit awaits
One of the most fascinating characteristics about mountains is how different they look from different angles. Take Mount Whitney, for example.
Sitting here at Guitar Lake directly below Whitney's massive west face, the mountain looks nothing like what you see in postcards. As opposed to the famous east face, which rises to the sky like a sharp fang, the west face is composed of a never-ending series of broken cliffs, ledges and loose rocks called scree.
It is still an impressive sight, however, completely dominating my field of view.
Storm clouds have threatened to rain on our parade all afternoon, but right now the bright sunshine is keeping them at bay.
Hopefully the trend continues as we plan to summit Mount Whitney by midday tomorrow, then spend our final night out at Trail Camp. It has been an incredible journey, and I can't wait for you to see the photos that Tomas Ovalle has taken. Hopefully his satellite phone, which so far has been as useless as perfume on a bear, will work from the summit and you will be able to see the sights that we have experienced on this trip.
Comments
Glad to hear that you will go for the summit. Yes, the west face of Mt. Whitney looks VERY different from the east. Most people never see what you have seen. You should get excellent satellite reception on the summit. Hope you have clear skies!
Posted by: John | September 2, 2006 11:24 PM
I am glad you are taking the same trails that we Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiutes used to take as we travailed across the Sierra Nevada. We Paiutes used to trek these trails way before John Muir. Many of these trails were called "Mono Trails". Have fun. We Mono Paiutes had many trails when we would enter Yosemite.
Posted by: R. Dandridge | September 3, 2006 01:32 AM
We Yosemite-Mono Paiutes used to call Half Dome Tsokono which describes what we Paiutes thought Half Dome looked like. To us, the original people of Yosemite and Mono Lake, Half Dome looked just like one of our Paiute cradleboard hoods or shades that cover the willow baby baskets. You can Google Paiute cradleboards and under images you might be able to see what I am talking about. Half Dome looked to us Paiutes like a hood or shade of one of our cradleboards.
We Paiutes would enter and camp in Yosemite.
Posted by: R. Dandridge | September 3, 2006 01:44 AM
Hey Marek, Wish I could have gone to the top of Whitney with you guys. Next year... Great blogs from all of your team. Your accounts are getting me excited for our puny Half Dome jaunt in a few weeks!
Posted by: T. Novelozo | September 3, 2006 02:13 PM