Mt. Whitney
For a long time now I've wanted to post, pictorially, my trek up the Continental United States' tallest peak, Mt. Whitney. It stands 14,465 feet high, a rather intimidating monolith, jutting up among the Eastern Sierra Nevada range. Climbing it has been on the my list of 100 things to do before I die for a long time, and in August of 2005, I did it. My dad and Caleb (at the time just my boyfriend) came with me. We had a great time, and conquered the mountain. Below you'll find a few pictures of the event. If you look to the links in the sidebar at the right, you can go to a page with a more complete summary of our two-day trip.
After more than 3 hours in the car, we can finally see the mountain almost hidden in the range. 
We were up early on Sunday morning, packing and getting ready to hike ...
Dad's ready!
Last chance to turn back ...
We would do this for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and ....
Gotta pause for a few picturesque moments ....
This is actually the area where we camped for the night. Unfortunately, there were no campsites on the grass ... we pretty much slept on granite slab. But the scenery was nice.
See the granite slab? This is early the morning we climbed the summit. I'm standing in our campsite. The day started out cold, but beautiful.
When we finally reached the top, I got to do what I'd wanted forever to do ... sign the guest book at 14,495 feet up. The top of the world. My name is there now! (So are Caleb's and my dad's.)
Me and my dad ... this was his third time up the mountain.
Me and Caleb ... on top of the world.
And then we had to come back down. We walked from the summit to the car that day ... getting back long after dark. We got to Carl's Jr. for dinner JUST before they closed for the night at 10. And then we drove the 3 hours home, every muscle in our bodies longing for a good massage, sleep, spa ... something! However, as sore as we were, we were conquerers, overcomers, climbers, adventureres, explorers. We'd beaten the odds, climbed the mountain, proven to ourselves it wouldn't beat us. That night, we were sore, but we were content. And boy did we sleep well.
