My first alpine experience was a pretty epic introduction. In
November 1998 we tried to due the mountaineer's route in a day from Whitney
Portal, but whiteout conditions and other factors I will address later forced
us down the Muir Trail. I ended up bivi-whacking(invading someone's tent) some
poor souls trapped at Trail Camp. Sleeping with nothing but a puffy was hell.
I would of done anything for a sleeping pad. I knew I would be fine during the
whole epic, but I was really worried about others less prepared. I learned a
whole mess about group dynamics on this trip.
First don't let others dictate the weather for you. Everybody
else insisted the storm would hit Sunday, which matched the weather reports
exactly(note blue skies in the picture). I thought the we were cutting it to
close. As it turned out I was sadly right.
Second don't trust the group, find one person to trust. On the
decent my crampons broke and I sat down to fix them. When I looked up....err
down the mountain nobody was in sight. I ended up traveling alone in white out
conditions by myself for over a hour. It can be disappointing to find out your
friends would rather you freeze all night than brave the cold and come back
for you. Now when I'm on similar trips I find one person I trust and buddy up
or if the group dynamics deem it, I watch out for person number 1.
Third democracies suck. Three hundred feet from the top two of
use wanted to descend down the mountaineer's route the other four wanted to
summit and go down the Muir Trail (of which none of use had been on). Of
course the democracy choose to summit. Had we not summated we could to the car
and on our way to a pizza before the white out. Instead we end up trying to
find a trail we never have been on before of which is buried in
snow.
Forth a map and compass goes a long way.
Finally, it doesn't matter how close you cut it if you survive
some people consider it a huge success. A couple of the people in the group
didn't care how bad it could of turned out, didn't care how poor our style was
and they refused to think we made even one wrong decision(after all we are all
here and fine right). People who can not or will not admit to mistakes kill.
If they don't kill you, they certainly will kill somebody, or at the very lest
themselves. You must burdened these light souls with your standards of
safety.
With all this said, I now will have to declare it was on hell
of a fun trip. Epics are why we adventure into the mountains. Epics teach us
about our character. Epics help us find thing we never we never could find in
normal sittings. But one should never forget, epics should never, never ever
be repeated.
Route Description
