After leaving the Bay Area almost at noon, we spent the night at the Whitney Portal campground, and hit the trail the next day around 9. The plan was to reach the Trail Camp, spend a night there and continue to the summit the next morning.

The trail rises from 8,300 ft at the trailhead to 10,500 ft at the Outpost Camp. There were nice views back down the valley toward Lone Pine. I even had a wireless signal for a while allowing me not to get away from it all. We set a leisurely pace, but gradually the altitude got the better of Jason. We reached Outpost Camp relatively late, around 1:30pm.

Beginning of Mt. Whitney trail	Backpack trio	Fall color	Pine trees		Whitney Zone
Approaching Outpost Camp	Wotans Throne

Due to Jason's mild case of altitude sickness, our four men party split up into two. Justin and I proceeded up toward Trail Camp while Laku and Jason stayed behind at Outpost Camp to acclimate better to the altitude. The trail climbed steadily and the vegetation became sparser until it disappeared virtually altogether. It took Justin and I about two hours to reach the Trail Camp at 12,000ft above sea level. Our concern about a lack of a good campsite proved to be unwarranted. There were still plenty of them and Justin's tent could be staked down easily in the sandy site we picked. Shortly after pitching the tent, the sun dipped behind a line of peaks to the west and the wind picked up. We retired into the tent soon after cooking dinner to get out of the cold.

Trees	Tree-line scenery	Wotans Throne	Lone Pine Creek Valley	Justin
Consultation Lake	Lake at Trail Camp