Charge it! (aka Mt Whitney)

Over the weekend I headed down to Mt Whitney with Jeremy and Emily. It was a mere 7 drive each way. Jeremy and I both wanted to try out hiking at elevation (the peak of Mt Whitney is the highest place in the continental US) and get the full story on getting permits for multiday trips up Whitney (yes I've heard of the series of pipes and tubes, but the Whitney permit site is pretty bad).

So we headed out early Saturday. Got into the area and got some info at the ranger station, made our way to our campsite, set up and then headed to Whitney Portal. Hiked for 3 hours then headed back to camp while it was still light and not raining too badly. I definitely felt the altitude (we were at about 9,000 ft at that point), but I was hiking really fast. I strongly felt my heart beat in my head and started to get a bit of a headache (even though I was drinking a ton of water). As soon as we started heading down hill everything cleared up.

That night it rained fairly hard so we did a simple dinner then hung out in my tent before heading to bed. Again my fancy new tent kept me and my stuff nice and dry.

The next day we did another 3 hour hike. The altitude had far less impact that day (got to about 9,500 feet). I wasn't hiking as fast although we did take a more challenging trail (some scrambling up and down rocks).

For lunch after the hike we went to a pizza place in Lone Pine (the town next to Whitney) and the two guys at the table next to us started talking to us about hiking/climbing. They used the term "charge it" more than once per sentence to describe anything from hiking to climbing to driving. When we asked about what is labeled a challenging climb, their opinion was "if you've ever climbed before, then you'll be fine, just charge it".

Hiking around Mt Whitney was cool especially since it looks more "mountain like" than the hills along coastal California. There is a valley lined on either side by mountains which was nice to look down at from Mt Whitney.

One thing I didn't expect is in that valley is where one of the Japanese internment camps was located. There was a small museum although we weren't there for long so we didn't visit. But it was a reminder of how little is taught about that event in school. I was also surprised how small the museum looked.