ben.parmeter

It’s official – I’m going to be climbing Mt. Whitney again. And to make things even more awesome, my brother Dave is flying out from Brooklyn, New York to conquer the summit with me. It’s over a month away, but I’m still getting really excited about it. Last night we went to a seminar hosted at our local REI, given by Paul Richins Jr. He’s they guy who wrote arguably the most complete hiker/climber guide to climbing Mt. Whitney. (Mount Whitney: The Complete Trailhead-to-Summit Hiking Guide, 2001, by Paul Richins, Jr., Mountaineers Books, April 2001) I calculated that he’s probably late 50′s or early 60′s but he appears to be very fit and is still very active (he climbed Mount Whitney less than a month ago). During the seminar he answered alot of questions from people about permits, packing for overnight trips, bears, etc. At the end of it all he went through a slide show of the different hikes in the area. Just looking at the pictures made me nostalgic for the previous two times I’d climbed the mountain. I remembered having almost identical snapshots from my little digital camera. I’ve been inspired and I think I’m going to pack in my mini-tripod for this next trip. I’d like to get more of the sunrise shots that aren’t blurry (my current shots are all very blurry, except for a couple lucky shots).

And I couldn’t remember, if on the last overnight hike we had any bear canisters. So I specifically asked Paul if we had to bring bear canisters in. And he confirmed my fear. We do. I’m not sure why I blocked this particular thing out of my memory, but after reviewing my photos we absolutely did have bear canisters. How could I forget hauling those unwieldy, heavy hunks of plastic and metal up the mountain. Who invented these things? They are most certainly not designed for backpacking. Pat and Cynthia piped up at this point and told everyone about the UrSack (you know Ursa = Bear) which is a lightweight bear proof container. I’m not so sure I’m ready to crank out fifty bills for a bear proof container. I guess I’ll be lugging that dumb plastic/metal torture device up and down the mountain.

Also a bit disappointing is the fact that this year, Inyo National Forest Service(hehe… Inyo), has removed the solar toilets from both camps on the way to the summit. Which means we’re going to have to poop in a bag, and pack our waste out. Gross. Last time we attempted this hike, I convinced the fellas to take some Kaopectate (ismuth subsalicylate) normally used to treat diarrhea. My brilliant idea was that it was going to effectively slow my digestion process and perhaps I wouldn’t have to make any twosies on the mountain. Well, for Anthony and Dave, it just didn’t work. For me, however, I have an innate ability to hold off the urges and for approximately three days, I stayed strong. There’s probably more to that story, but who really wants to hear about that?

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 6:59 pm and is filed under camping, family, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.