Climbing to the summit of Mount Whitney
Troop 89 from Alameda, Calif., participated in a strenuous hike along the John Muir Trail and up Mount Whitney. Over 13 days, they traveled more than 120 miles.
For some members of the troop, it was the end of a series of Muir hikes over the last several years. For others, their experience on the John Muir trail were just getting started.
Check out the following videos of their climb and then read more about their trek in the July 2012 issue of Boys’ Life magazine.
oh man
Very inspirational! I would be great if someone can give pointers of how to prepare for such a hike.
Climbing mt.whitney is hard i had to give up in the middle of it these guys are very brave
Was there really that much snow and what did you pack?
mt.witney is the tallest mtn in the lower 48 st8s
Good job guys! I’ve hiked all over the John Muir trail and the surrounding areas and I know it’s not easy. You’ve now proven yourselves to be worthy of even greater challenges than this. You’ll be backpacking again, not because it’s easy, but because it’s all worth it. Right?
I can relate to the boys that made the climb to the top of Mt. Whitney. Back in July of 1959 our 1st Recon Bn. of the 1st Marine Divn. made the climb also. We hiked 127 miles from the lowest point in the continental USA, Death Valley at 279.6′ below sea level, to the highest point in the continental USA, Mt. Whitney at 14,496′ above sea level. The hike took us 10 days. The hottest spot was in Death Valley when the temp. rose to approx. 130 degrees in the shade. We reached the summit at 10:00AM with the temp. comfortable and clear skies. By 1:00PM we were hustling off the summit in a blizzard of snow, which turned into a horrific downpour of rain with plenty of lightning by the time we got down to the tree line. Out of 200 Marines that started only one man did not make the summit. When we arrived at the Whitney Portal going up, the Navy Corpsman with us pulled the one man because of how bad his feet were.
We also had conditioning hikes of 20, 40 and 60 miles at Camp Pendleton, which lead up to the big one.