A quick summary of a journey through the East Sierras by some truly elite mountain men. These guys are just about the most skilled group of hikers you’ll ever meet (who needs ropes lol).
The plan was simple: drive up to Whitney portal Saturday morning (6ish hours), hike up to Meysan Lake (5-6mi, 3,000’ gain), put our packs down, summit Mt. Irvine (13,780’), and return to the lake to set up camp and eat dinner by dark before hiking out first thing the next morning. Ok, maybe not so simple. But these guys didn’t really think things through at the beginning. This will be a recurring theme.
The trail up to Meysan was well marked and maintained, but this didn’t make the vert any less challenging. Shreyas struggled a bit more than Ben and Chesson. Partway, during a short rest, some more experienced Sierra hikers (including a “failed” therapy dog <3) crossed paths with the crew. They shared that, much to everyone’s dismay, that there was actually still quite a bit of hiking left, and the hardest was yet to come. This made the boys reevaluate their initial plan a bit.
At another resting point (pictured with Gromit), Ben proposed an alternative plan: hike to Meysan, set up camp/eat dinner early, and go to bed at sunset. That way, they could wake up before dawn and try to summit before sunrise. This piqued everyone’s interest, so it became the new plan.
Within the next hour or so, they had made it to Meysan Lake. Camp was set up quickly, and someone (Shreyas? Ben?) had the genius idea to set up their sleeping bags outside, sitting up against a smoothed rock, and eat their hot dinners inside of them. After a day of sitting in the car and walking, it was heavenly. Ben feasted on grilled dogs with fresh peppers (who needs to be ultralight??), which he graciously shared with Shreyas and Chesson. Shreyas also had a surprisingly tasty/nutritious bagged meal. Chesson insisted on finishing as many of his Knorr pasta sides as possible, which are famously calorie-low and sodium-rich (1 gram of sodium per pack, no joke). Twice in a row, he used too much water and was left with soup. He also insisted on sumping the remaining liquid each time (ask him yourself if you don’t already know what this means).
Once the sun set, Ben moved into the tent while Shreyas and Chesson stayed outside to stargaze. The moon rose early in the night and was astonishingly bright.
At 3:45am, our soldiers awoke to even more stars than before. The moon had set, so they’d have to face their summit with even less natural light than when they had fallen asleep. Ben seemed to have a plan: follow the ridgeline clockwise from below, then cut directly up to their left to reach the ridge once feasible. Finally, stay on the ridgeline, now moving counterclockwise, to make the final ascent. Apparently, he had noticed a place to cut in towards the ridgeline the day before. Finding that place in the dark was now almost impossible.
Shreyas and Chesson trusted in Ben and followed his lead, but they kept getting stuck just below the ridgeline. In hindsight, the plan wasn’t really all that fleshed out. It’s not like they could’ve done any better, though.
By around 5:45 am, they had made a tough decision: to abandon Irvine and try to find another spot to watch the sunrise. They eyed a good-looking spot in the distance, and given the amount of climbing they’d already done, there really wasn’t much vert left to cover to reach it. They also had a very finite amount of time until sunrise (~6:30 am), so their pace quickened dramatically.
As the lowest bit of sky began to glow, they realized there was a pole sticking out of the spot they’d made a beeline for. It was a bonafide summit! According to Ben’s map, it was Candlelight peak (12,077’).
When the sun finally did dip over the horizon, it was a deep, blood red. Dark enough that you could look right at it with no health repercussions (they hoped). They all agreed the view was well worth the struggle.
After plenty of nice pictures, they headed back to their camp. This, unsurprisingly, was way easier in the daylight. Enough so that they felt very silly knowing the route they’d taken to get to Candlelight. They knew they wanted to make it home before nightfall, so they packed up quickly, took a dip in the lake (you couldn’t call them elite if they didn’t do the polar plunge), and sped down the mountain. Because the trail was so smooth, they raced down in just over 1hr 45min, including breaks. Much to Chesson’s delight, they even ran part of the way.
This time, instead of stopping for grub at the portal, they went to Mt. Whitney restaurant in the town of Lone Pine to get their burgers. They were somehow even less tasty and more overpriced than at the portal. The milkshakes had the consistency of shaved ice.