How to Prepare for Mount Whitney (& Wag Bags)

Description

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NOTE: This is not an end-all instructional video on climbing Mt. Whitney. Please remember to do your own additional research and seek out other sources of information.

00:45 The Permit

02:20 The Training

05:31 The Conditions

07:07 The Plan

09:50 The Route

13:30 The Gear

19:28 The Wag Bag

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All of the musical compositions or arrangements and footage in this video are original, and were composed, recorded, and captured by Andrew Lin, Bryan Lin, Robby Huang, and Thomas Sinard

Featuring drums by Nate Laguzza

Original content and music is copyright Adventure Archives (c) 2017

Tags: backpacking,hiking,camping,wilderness,survival,outdoors,travel,outdoor recreation,nature,wild,Preparing,Conditioning,Training,Mt Whitney,Lone Pine,Acclimated,Wag Bags,Plan,Bad Winter,Condition,Trail Cramp,Outpost Camp,99 Switchbacks,Chute,Snow,Stay Safe

Video Transcription

Mount Whitney is the highest mountain in the contiguous us at just over fourteen and a half thousand feet it's also seriously one of the most beautiful hikes you can do here in America last July my friends and I hiked the summit and we were only able to make it because we did a lot of preparing for this but we noticed along the way that a lot of people on that mountain were underprepared so that kind of inspired us to make this video before we dive in I want to stress that everyone's experience may vary depending on the time of year and the weather conditions we summited over the course of three nights and four days in mid-july after a particularly bad winter this video is not an end-all be-all so be sure to do your own research and consult other sources everything we're about to say are things that I've noticed in my planning things that we notice on the trail we've tried to break it down in a way that's best for you so without further ado this is how we plan for my Whitney so you're not even going to be able to make it on the mountain unless you have one of two things a Whitney's own permit or a permit to go on the John Muir Trail and honestly if you are going through the John Muir Trail this video is not for you this is mostly for people who are just trying to get to the top of Mount Whitney as a single trip so let's talk about the Whitney's own permit application system so you have to go to recreation gov and you'll have to fill out an application there you're gonna have to choose the dates that work best for you now you have the option to put in backup dates and I highly recommend you do that because there's a good chance your first picks aren't gonna necessarily happen especially if it's a weekday last year of the 15,000 permits only 15% of overnight permits were actually accepted while 20% of day hikes were accepted so this is honestly gonna be the toughest part for you is getting that permit before you can even get the permit you have to ask yourself question you want to backpack overnight to the top or are you gonna try and do it in a single day now it is possible to do it in a single day it's just very hard and you're probably gonna have to start at midnight to 2 a.m. most people recommend backpacking for one night getting up to trail camp camping and then getting an early rise to the summit the next day and coming down that same day if you are lucky enough to get that permit you have to make sure you pick up the permit at the right area you're gonna have to go to Eastern Sierra interagency visitors center near the town of Lone Pine to pick that up they'll get you all sorted through you can ask about the conditions and it's really a great resource to stop that before you make your drive up to the Whitney portal one of the most important things when you're preparing to climb Mount Whitney is to make sure you're in good enough shape to do it it's a good idea to start your exercise routine about three months before your hike with more intense training about one month out from it the main thing you're gonna want to focus on is cardio about three months out I was jogging about two miles a day four to five times a week at a pace of about six to seven miles per hour a month out from the trip I started incorporating anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes of Stairmaster in addition to the two miles I was jogging and I did this about two times a week in lieu of vet you can also do inclined walking on a treadmill at about 3.5 miles per hour you should go at a pace that you can handle but also you should try and push yourself and increase the pace as you get better you can also do intervals of intense and easy Stairmaster so in addition to cardio I also did leg exercises mostly leg presses I basically had one day dedicated to leg exercise about once a week now leg presses I think prepare you more for being able to hike with a heavy pack exercising your legs is also gonna be good for certain parts of the trail where it's kind of rough and there's rocky terrain and you kind of have to use your muscles to navigate all the weird uneven ground but again cardio is what you're gonna want to focus on most now with any weight training you want to make sure you have some rest days and that you're eating protein so that your muscle can actually build and you also want to make sure that you're pushing yourself and increasing the amounts of weights you're doing it also might be a good idea to take a break from weight training maybe a week out from the hike just to prevent any muscle soreness or any sort of pulled muscles or any problems like that some things to keep in mind while you're training is that you can see cardio improvement in as little as one to two weeks of course you should be working on your cardio much more than that but with muscle training on the other hand it can take up to four weeks if not longer to see any sort of improvement but whether we're talking about cardio or muscle strength you are gonna want to gradually increase the intensity of your workouts as you go on because that's the only way that your body will actually improve it's not gonna make your muscles bigger or your heart stronger if you're only doing the same amount that you've always been doing keep in mind that how rigorous your exercise routine is will depend on your fitness level to begin with if you're starting from a point that's a little less in shape you might want to have a more rigorous routine a lot of the benefits of a workout routine will be psychological so basically when you're on that Stairmaster you're also getting used to the psychological burden of hiking uphill for an extended period of time

finally keep in mind that altitude is also a factor that you might not be able to account for depending on where you are to deal with this we spread our hike out over the course of several nights so we started in Lone Pine which was about 3,000 feet and then we camped at a campsite that was about 10,000 feet or so and so on and so on you'd also camp at the Horseshoe meadow campground which is at about 10,000 feet in elevation and is reachable by car from Lone Pine now if you're lucky and you happen to live in a place with mountains that's gonna be your ticket I live in Los Angeles and I have a great range of mountains to hike on a weekly basis I recommend doing 10 mile hikes Mount Baldy Mount Cucamonga San Gorgonio San Jacinto all those are great places to start what's really important though is you start practicing your elevation gain all of those have about over 4,000 feet elevation gains so you'll be starting to kind of get yourself a hackle made it a little bit to those higher altitudes when it comes to the conditions of Mount Whitney you have to understand Mount Windy's a beast if its own right by the time you get the permit in mid-april you should already know if it's a bad winter or a good winter when I say bad winter I mean a heavy snowfall record-breaking numbers or if it's a good winter it is a light snowfall if you have a good winter most of the snowpack and the snow field should clear up by mid-june sometime early July if you are experiencing a bad winter like it was for us those snow fields could last well into July and even into August when you have a bad winter you're gonna have to make some adjustments to your plans you're gonna have to bring additional gear you're gonna have to come up with some extra contingency plans and you're gonna have to adjust the course of your training there are some great resources to go online to see what the conditions are my personal favorite is the Whitney Zone forum there are a lot of locals who live nearby that update the status and provide trail reports on a regular basis they're a great resource you can ask them questions you can read other people's comments really if you get a chance to check it out take their advice and that is probably your best place to start outside of the winter time and the margin between summer where you might have that snowfall your other biggest hazard when it comes to conditions is going to be thunderstorms once you break the treeline and you're up near Trail Camp if a thunderstorm rolls in you have no place to go and if you are prepared and you have hiking poles you're basically a walking target lightning a lot of people underestimate this and it becomes incredibly dangerous the National Park Service will tell you to get off the mountain and go below the tree line if this happens and I can't stress how important that is you are incredibly exposed up there and you are really one of the only things that can hit you really shouldn't be going up Mount Whitney unless you know exactly what you're gonna be seeing along the way that means you have a good sense of what the milestones are what the markers are what the campsites lakes all those that you'll be passing and if you don't I really recommend memorizing those and knowing what to expect along the way for the most part in the summer time you're not gonna have a problem finding the trail where this gets a little dicey though is when you add snow into the equation if you watched our video you'll know that one of the parties that we met up with lost the trail early in the morning when it was dark because the snow covered the trail up towards trail crest and even for us we lost the trail for a moment when we encountered our first snow field well we didn't show you where the other parties of hikers that were either lost took the snow field too far had to come down for medical emergencies or lost part of their group members and I can't stress this enough this hike is not for everyone it should not be taken lightly and you should know what to expect when you start this hike so here's a list of tips just to kind of keep in mind before you start hiking first off you're gonna need a map and you're gonna need to know how to use it I want to make sure you know the major campsites the major trail markers all along the way because it is absolutely critical you don't get lost don't cross snow fields unless it's absolutely necessary for us in our case the trail was completely blocked up ahead so we did have to take a snow field when you are taking a snow field make sure that you don't go over thin ice when you hear a stream below I believe last year a woman did die because she fell through some thin ice and she was swept underneath the current in the winter time always make sure you're using the right equipment if you just bought an ice axe or crampons make sure this isn't your first time using them this is not the time and place to be experimenting with those things if you did just get some trail crampons then you want to make sure you try them on beforehand these are pretty intuitive to use but make sure you know the difference when you use trail crampons and when you use real crampons if you follow the Whitney form they will be able to tell you what to use and what not to use another great reference is the park itself and other hikers coming down another important thing to keep in mind is know when to get off the snow when we were hiking there was a gentleman who went too far down and ended up on the other side of the stream and a park ranger actually had to go across and rescue him bring him back so that actually leads into my next point which is don't leave your group that gentleman who took the snow field too far down actually got separated from his son his son ended up going all the way down to Whitney portal while he was stuck on the other side of the stream make sure you don't leave your group and finally the most important thing is no one to call quits the first time I went I went with a friend and by the time I got to trail camp she got very sick she told me to keep going but I could tell that she was not gonna do well so I decided that it was best if we both went down together rather than split up as a group it's better to leave now stay safe come back another time and stay on the mountain forever so while you're preparing for this hike you're also gonna want to know the basic layout of the route you're taking first before even heading to the trailhead you might want to stay at Lone Pine which is about 3,000 feet in elevation of the night before at Whitney portal which is about 80 300 feet in elevation you'll see these wooden arches that designate the beginning of the trail your first trail marker will be a stream crossing at the North Fork Creek this can be really deep and if you want to keep your feet dry you're gonna want to use your hiking poles to keep your balance and make sure you have good waterproof boots more on the gear later eventually you'll reach a set of log crossings that are going across the Lone Pine Creek and this will lead you to the Lone Pine campground which is a really beautiful campsite with a nice little Blue Lake there and you can camp here if you choose to do so beyond this you'll keep hiking along the trail until you encounter a big open meadow a few stream crossings later and you'll be at outpost campground this is a really nice campsite big and open with lots of towering pine trees and a good place to stay just beyond that after hiking through some brushy willows and going uphill some more you'll find Mirror Lake and once you pass that you'll start to go up hill above the treeline you'll notice the tree is thinning out and the rocks becoming more and more bare you'll continue on this bare rocky trail for quite a while and another option is to take the snow we actually had to do this because the main trail had a dangerous portion up ahead where you had to jump over onto a snow field now once you hike up all of this you'll start seeing a lot more snow it'll get colder and you'll reach consultation lake not far from consultation lake is the kamme now this is a campground a lot of people stay at before somebody in the mountain

it is really barren really open the sun's gonna bear down on you really harshly so make sure you've got sunscreen but there is also plenty of water sources that you can use to filter and drink water now connected to trail camp is the beginning of the 99 switchbacks as you can imagine this is a pretty grueling hike depending on the conditions and the time of year you might want to opt for the snow chute in fact you might have to because the trail might be covered in snow now even if you are able to take the switchbacks there are some portions that will be snowy and in this case you'll want to Don those micro spikes and use those poles again finally you'll hit the trail crest where you're at the top of the ridge of the mountains it'll be really beautiful and a little bit further is the John Muir Trail Junction from here it's a pretty long hike across rough bouldery sort of trails it's still a little bit uphill and you're gonna want to keep an eye out on the trail and on your footing but it is also a really beautiful scenic area finally you'll reach the summit of Whitney you'll see a Shack you'll know you're there take a moment to rest enjoy the view pat yourself on the back for your accomplishment and they get ready to do it all in Reverse when you finally get back to Whitney portal you can go to the portal store and eat some huge burgers and pancakes and drink some well-deserved beer I mentioned this earlier but when it comes to the conditions of the trail you have three great resources the first is the actual Park Service they provide great updates you can call them and you can get latest information they have to offer the second source is the internet I mentioned Whitney's own forums they're a great resource they have fantastic trail reports especially when hikers are more frequently going on that mountain and the third is something you can really only do when you're on the mountain is ask the hikers themselves did you make it to the top what's the conditions like what's route did you take after you get past Trail Camp depending on how bad the winter is you might have to make some adjustments to your route if the snow is too bad

snow will actually cover this part of the 99 switchbacks called the cables so that means your alternative is gonna be the chute the shoot is this patch of snow that goes all the way to trail crest it is about a thousand feet elevation gain and you have to do some mountaineering there the chute should never be your first pick unless that's the only option when you go down you have to make sure you understand how to self arrest this is where some serious injuries can take place lacerations broken bones I can't stress this enough if you

take this shoot make sure you have the correct experience the correct equipment and only do it if it's absolutely necessary next we're gonna talk about everybody's favorite subject the gear and before I get into this let me just say that you should make sure you have all the essential items you need to make sure that if you get into a survival or emergency situation you can make it out alive so this includes things like your fire starter your knife your headlamp or some other way of lighting up the dark a way to filter or purify water and also drink it shelter an insulation a compass or some way to navigate and maybe some cord you might also want to consider bringing one of these emergency GPS devices that can send an SOS signal out to a satellite now as for gear that's focused on the Whitney hike first I'm gonna start off with the clothes that I wore on my body so first I had a synthetic hiking t-shirt some good water-resistant hiking pants some performance boxer briefs and finally wool socks now you don't need these items exactly as they are but what you'll notice is that they're all lightweight materials that also wick away moisture and dry fairly easily if they get wet and that's really what you're looking for on this sort of hike now of course if you're hiking up a mountain the weather's gonna vary quite a bit and this depends on the time of day how high in altitude you are how rigorous your hiking is and also just whatever weather pattern the mountain wants to throw at you so for extra clothes I first have some sort of outer shell now this is something that's rain proof in case of inclement weather but it also helps break the wind in a chilly situation next I also have a down jacket which is really lightweight but also really warm and it packs down to almost nothing I usually use this when I was sleeping at night but it's also really useful for that last portion of the hike when you're going up the 99 switchbacks and getting to the top next I have some base layer clothes including pants and a long-sleeve shirt I put this on underneath everything else when I'm sleeping I also bring an extra pair of underwear just in case and a couple pairs of extra sucks now how many pairs of extra socks you bring well will depend on how long you're gonna stretch your hike over I generally like to have an extra pair of socks for each night but you can also get away with just bringing two pairs one for the day that you're okay with getting wet and one for the night that you keep dry so your feet will be warm I should note that I like to pack my stuff really efficiently you can do this by rolling things up with your socks inside and then stretching the socks over your clothes and I store this in what I call a Yoona sock which is basically a stuff sack but it's also a good way to keep your feet warm night you just put this hat over your feet and close the drawstring so next we'll talk about the rest of the gear that'll go in your pack I should start out by saying that I brought a 40 liter trail pack that I usually just used for day hikes or just traveling around outside of the wilderness the reason was because this was a lot lighter than my usual pack which is 85 liters and it shaved at least two pounds off of it I would really recommend maybe somewhere around a 50 or 60 liter pack for a Witney something that would still be pretty light pretty easy to carry but still have enough space for all the things you need so the first thing is a sleeping bag and I would recommend something that's at least rated 220 degrees because it can get pretty chilly at nights especially when you're higher up in altitude next I would definitely recommend bringing an air mat it's gonna pack down really nice but it's also going to provide comfort which you'll need because most of the campgrounds you're sleeping on bare sort of rough rock also in my pack I've got my outer shell that I mentioned before and I want this somewhere where I can access it pretty easily because I'm gonna be putting it on and taking it off a lot during the trail and then I've also got the rest of my clothes the down jacket I put in here but sometimes you might want to leave that out as you get higher in altitude next I've got food and snacks which we'll talk a little bit more about later I've also got my first-aid kit with all the essential items like bandages antiseptic cream etc and I also have a three litre water bladder and I would really recommend this size of water bladder because it's gonna give you a lot of water all at once but it's also not gonna take up too much space I should mention that someone else also carried a water filter I didn't have it in my pack but with a 50 liter pack you could easily put that in there now in addition to all this I have so strapped a tent to the bottom of my bag and I also brought hiking poles which are pretty essential for this trail a lot of backpacks have a way to attach them to the back when you're not using them but if you're not filming the trip you'll pretty much have them out all the time and it's even better if you have these little baskets on the bottom of them because that'll help a lot with the snow but we actually did okay without them I also had micro spikes that I hooked on to the outside of my pack with a carabiner they're pretty lightweight they don't take up much room and finally of course a headlamp which I kept in the top of my bag and you're definitely gonna want to bring one of these no matter how long of a period you're stretching your trip over there's likely gonna be a point where you're hiking at night so that's all this stuff I had in my pack but there's still some extra notes about gear I should mention again waterproof boots are going to be really important because there are a lot of stream crossings and even sections of the trail where you're hiking in the stream

basically next I want to talk about down versus synthetic materials down as a great material and it's gonna be really useful on this trip we had down jackets and they packed down really small they're really lightweight but they were super warm at night and also at the time I had a synthetic 20 degree bag but when you compare it to my new down bag which is actually rated for zero degrees Fahrenheit the down bag packs down to way smaller which would have been really useful at the time also the down bag weighs three pounds one ounce while the synthetic bag weighs three pounds 14 ounces so you're almost shaving off an entire pound of weight and also getting a warm or sleeping bag we already talked pretty extensively about clothes but just I want to reiterate that you want layers of clothes and you want to be able to pull them out of your pack as you're hiking up and down because conditions are gonna change you're gonna get really hot as you hike time of day and altitude will affect it you should also bring some sort of medicine for altitude sickness things like Dramamine motrin tylenol ibuprofen stuff like that is really gonna help during our trip Robbie got a really bad altitude headache right when we were about to summit he was actually worried he wasn't gonna be able to make it but he took some medicine and felt a lot better but we did see a lot of hikers who had to turn around because of altitude sickness you're also gonna want sunscreen and chapstick once you get above the treeline there's not gonna be a lot of shade especially at trail camp and you'll be surprised at just how much the Sun drains you of energy a lot of times it might feel cool but the sun's still gonna be burning you it's also a really dry environment so for food at the time we had a lot of dehydrated meals that we bought and we reheated them in some water over a stove now you can also make your own or you could also get away even with bringing food that you don't even have to cook if you want to go really lightweight and opt out of the stove for snacks it's a good idea to bring things that are really calorie rich so for example nuts just a small handful of that pass a lot of calories so you're getting lots of energy for less amount of space and weight now of course if you're eating that's all gonna have to come out somewhere and this is where a lot of people who are really enthusiastic about climbing Witney start to hesitate a little because on Mount Whitney what you have to do is poop in a bag now this bag is called a wag bag and the reason for this is because in most places there's very thin layer of soil if any soil at all and once you get above the tree line you're pretty much just hiking on granite and obviously if people were just pooping all over the place it there'd be no soil or microbes to biodegrade that and it would just end up washing

into the water that people drink from now I know it sounds inconvenient but really it's not that bad the bag is really big so it's really hard to miss the bag itself also comes with an additional ziplock bag so that it's double layered but we actually triple layered it with another bag but I should note that sometimes the smell did seep through when the Sun was really hot and shining on us now inside each bag there's sand that basically absorbs liquid so it sort of helps clean up any sort of messes but I should note that if you're gonna use your wag bag make sure that you pee outside first because you don't want to be peeing into the bag while you're also pooping because that's just gonna add extra weight extra mess and make a potential leak even worse each bag can be used multiple times and it's probably a good idea to use the multiple times but I should note that they only come with enough toilet paper and wet wipes for one poop in fact toilet paper that comes with it is pretty stingy and pretty thin we kind of made the mistake of not bringing our own toilet paper or hand sanitizer and had to really ration our use I would really really recommend bringing your own toilet paper and hand sanitizer now again this is a very necessary thing because so many people hike Mount Whitney and there's only granite up there and it's really sad and annoying because at a lot of these camp sites you'll see wag bags that people have just stuck into crevices or hidden behind trees and I mean we saw like dozens at the campsites make sure you carry it with you all the way back down to the trail head so you can dispose of it properly I mean it's really a terrible thing to do to just poop in the bag and leave that plastic and human waste out there littering the whole area it's one thing to leave trash that someone hikes out but no one wants to hike out your human waste if you leave your whack bag you're kind of a terrible person and we're gonna be judging you from afar and honestly it's really not that bad I mean I know that it's kind of weird and it's a squeamish thing to talk about but I just carried mine in the outside mesh pocket of my backpack that way it's separate from everything else it's getting some air I can keep an eye on it if I need to it's really not that bad so in a nutshell that's pretty much everything we have to say about Mount Whitney but we can't stress enough that it's really important to do your own planning and your own research so thanks for watching if this video is helpful for you please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our Channel and also consider watching our full episode for Mount Whitney where we hikes the entire trail you can see everything you can expect and you can see all the trials and tribulations we went through ourselves [Music]