My journey to hike Mt. Whitney began almost 1 ½ years ago, on June 9th, 2022, when I first entered Horseshoe Meadows in Inyo National Forest, starting off at 10,000 ft (3,048 meters), to begin the climb with my dad, and the entire Pipkins family. Already the scenery was breathtaking walking through the woods for the first few miles. Everyone had a positive mentality, excited for the 5-day Journey ahead.
After hiking for some relaxed four miles, we finally reached the upper meadow over the valley, we only had 2 ½ miles left for that day, but they would be quite steep, and it was starting to get slightly darker as we only got to the trailhead at 5pm that day to begin our adventure. Half a mile later, we saw the sun going down and the opportunity for a shortcut. We could either cut across the meadow and towards the campsite, or go around the meadow and up and down some elevation. So we decided to cut through the meadow. It turned out to be a massive rock field with huge boulders, and it was already too late to turn back, so we had to cautiously navigate over them to arrive at our destination without falling into any cracks. We had chosen a massive detour. During that time it got quite dark so we had to bring out our headlamps. We finally made it to the campsite at Long Lake at 10:30 pm due to the detour. Some of us ate, and some of us just went straight to bed after setting up our tents.
The next morning we were all well-rested, and ready to go, enjoying the scenery we could not see the day before due to darkness. We knew that this day would be one of the toughest we would have throughout the entire trip. We had to hike up the legendary New Army Pass and then enter a steep descent into the valley below. In the image on the right, you can see our view from the top of the New Army Pass.
The triangular lake in the middle of the picture is Long Lake. We were tempted to make a side excursion to hike Mount Langley but decided that we still had such a long way to go, so we continued on, only going further down into the valley. We all had this sense of accomplishment once we had reached the valley, and into the shade. We only had roughly 3 miles left for the day, and they were all pretty straightforward. We ended the day off at the beautiful Soldier Lake. I wish we had only had more time at Soldier Lake so that we could fully take in the spectacle that it is. We all enjoyed a great meal, including fun desserts, concluding day #2.
The next publication will give you Pt. 2 of this adventure!
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