California - Hiking Mt. Whitney

This weekend my wife and I spent 2 days going up Mt. Whitney. On saturday we went up to base camp and spent the night there. Unfortunatly I had a problem with my knee and was not able to make it all the way up to the summit, so I waited at our tent while my wife went up in the morning on the second day. After she descended from the summit we packed up all our gear and walked down to the car and drove back home.

View from the visitor information center, right of the highway 395


Driving towards Whitney portal




Pictures from the trail


Stream near mirror lake


Mirror lake








Peak behind mirror lake


View from our tent


5:30AM view


On the way to the top




Top of Mt. Whitney




Campsite in the morning


Stream


Marmot on the trail. There were lots of them at our campground, rangers told us to leave our tents and backpacks open so they can go through them if they want. Otherwise they can tear them to pieces


Small stream near trailside meadows


Here I am on the way down


Hikers coming down


Small waterfall


Crossing a stream


Bear warning sign


More photos from the hike are on my website.

I wish I could have made it to the top, but I decided not to since my knee was in pretty bad shape. After a couple of days of wearing a brace, it's better but I will still need a couple of weeks before it's back to normal.

On the way up to the summit my wife took the d200 with the 17-55 with her and some water. She told me many people were surprised that she was carrying such a huge camera all the way to the top