Mount Whitney, East Face, solo

My first trip up the East Face of Whitney was this summer with the partner who had recruited me to climb Mount Russell. He graciously offered to do the East Face again, which he’d done before, with me. I remember thinking at the time that it was a really fun route that would be really scary to solo (although people often did).

Fast forward one month. I am jonesing for something I can do fast and solo. And big. I’ve done virtually no free-soloing (ropeless climbing) on rock, but this route seems perfect. And I can do it fast… I am in reasonable trail-running shape and the route has a six mile approach. It’s a tailor-made combination for me… long run and easy climbing, mostly 3^rd and 4^th class with four pitches of 5.5-5.7 climbing. I resolve to do it and start looking for a day. After several misstarts because of weather I settle on one hot Sunday in August and blast over to the East Side.

5:02 am, Whitney Portal. It’s taken me a little longer than expected to get up, have breakfast, and get ready to go. But doesn’t it always? I start by hydrating – almost two liters of Gatorade before 5am. I exchange pleasantries with a bunch of guys headed up the Whitney Trail and I sprint off by headlamp.

6:02 am, Lower Boy Scout Lake. The crux from a speed perspective, I figure, is not getting lost in the dark on my way up the route. I have to negotiate the Ebersbacher ledges, where I got lost in broad daylight descending my first time. The Supertopo compensates for my horrible sense of direction this time, though, and I make my way up to Lower Boy Scout Lake in about an hour.

6:45 am, Upper Boy Scout Lake. I have been trail running as much of the approach as the terrain would allow, but somewhere around Upper Boy Scout Lake the altitude begins to weigh on my pace and I slow down a bit. I find that something vaguely resembling a walk-jog works best above a certain angle of terrain, and I try to forget that I must look pretty goofy.

7:31 am, Iceberg Lake. I reach the base of the route about two and a half hours after I started. Faster than my approach with a pack by a factor of 2+, but certainly not on pace to beat the four hour car-to-car record. I fill up my camelback nearby and take a break to gather my wits.

8:02 am, Tower Traverse. A short scramble up and I reach the first technical section of the climb. After changing into my climbing shoes and drinking a little water, I say a short prayer. This is where the business starts. The Tower Traverse is 100 feet of traversing 5.6 capped by a short chimney; at one point you step from right to left over 1000+ feet of exposure. I take a deep breath and begin, rather unceremoniously. I have been wondering what this feeling will be like, what will go through my mind as I contemplate the exposure of the moves with such dire consequences. The answer is, “nothing”. My mind becomes a completely blank slate as I become more focused than at any other time in my climbing career, maybe than any other time in my life. Every move is deliberate. Every placement careful. Every hold tested and eased on to. And I don’t have to think to make it so, it’s as if my body has come alive with it’s own carefulness that overrides my own control. It’s neither fast nor slow, and I feel perfectly in tune with the rock and the mountain, more a part of the environment than interacting with it. And no sooner than I begin, the traverse is over and I am back on 3^rd class terrain. I remember thinking, “Is that it? That was easy.” And up I go.

8:31 am, Fresh Air Traverse. Some 4^th class climbing brings me to the crux of the route. My focus and sense of equilibrium with the mountain don’t fade as I move into the second traverse. This pitch (really a series of two pitches) is much longer, with more significantly more technical climbing, as I traverse over 1500 feet of exposure for 100 feet then up successive 5.7 chimneys. I am relaxed and razor sharp as I move up and over. At one point I lean and ease my body weight left as the expanse of the lower mountain sucks at me. What would I think about during a 1500 foot fall? But that only occurs to me later as my body, of its own accord, effortlessly finishes the traverse and moves into the chimneys, which are shortly dispatched as well. As I move back onto easy terrain I realize something that makes me sad and somewhat ashamed. I like free-soloing. A lot.

9:09 am, Summit. Some more 3^rd and 4^th class wandering. One more technical pitch separates me from the summit, really only one move. I match hands in a bomber and slightly overhanging 5.7 crack and mantle up. Some more 3^rd and 4^th wandering and all of a sudden it’s over, and I am standing alone on the summit marker. I scream and applaud and generally feel as happy as it is humanly possible to feel.

9:21 am, Summit descent begins. I hang out on the summit for a bit and sign the registry. I am the first person on top today, before the crowds that will follow up the trail, before the bolder who come up the Mountaineer’s Route, my route, or a host of other more technical choices.

10:00 am, Iceberg Lake. I make it down the Mountaineer’s gully and prepare to head down to the car by drinking and eating a bit. I have stayed really hydrated, with no hint of altitude sickness, and I have the descent energy fueled by the elation of a successful trip up.

11:23 am, Whitney Portal. I fly weightless down the trail, running almost the entire way. I get lost descending through the Ebersbacher ledges but find myself again rather quickly. The people I run by look at me with either admiration or disgust, and I never pause to sort out which is which. The last bit of trail is like a freeway and I am at full run when I hit the sign marking the end of the route. Even the pain in my knees, which feel like they are ready to explode, can’t damper my elation.

Total time, 6:21. I reflect on an incredible day, definitely one of my top 20 days in the outdoors ever. The route was fantastic, and the solitude and challenge and athleticism the climb offers seem to fulfill every pore of outdoor desire. As I am describing the whole experience to a good friend as I drive home, though, I gravitate to the spiritual aspects (as I always seem to do) of the climb. That state of focus and concentration and emptiness is unlike anything I have ever encountered before, or rather at a volume I have never encountered before. It seems like the Buddhist notion of emptying the mind to reach a state of peacefulness, and the best manifestation I have experienced of what I think the Psalmist meant in Psalms 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” In that state everything that stands between us and the Divine falls away and we are completely reliant on God. How often do we as Christians fail to place ourselves in such a situation? And what does that speak to our faith? Of this I am convinced, that touching God so closely changes who we are. And maybe that’s the point.

By and by your attention becomes so intensely focused that you no longer notice the raw knuckles, the cramping thighs, the strain of maintaining non-stop concentration. A trancelike state settles over your efforts; the climb becomes a clear-eyed dream. Hours slide by like minutes. The accumulated clutter of day-to-day existence - the lapses of consciousness, the unpaid bills, the bungled opportunities, the dust under the couch, the inescapable prison of your genes - all of it is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overwhelming clarity of purpose, and by the seriousness of the task at hand. At such moments something resembling happiness stirs in your chest…

--John Krakauer, describing solo climbing

from Into the Wild