Toby Guillette: Athlete, Adventurer, Social Media Expert

After my late season peak running the Grand Canyon, I switched focus to functional strength and conditioning and maintained endurance while getting stronger through the holidays instead of totally blowing it and setting myself back like I have in recent years.




Well before the holidays began, Josh “Monsoon” Monson and I decided on a weekend in January to attempt a winter ascent of Mt. Whitney’s east face. I’ve been into the Whitney wilderness area 3 times before this trip. Twice were failed attempts to scale the Moutnaineer’s Route (MR) on Mt. Whitney in the winter. Josh had already been to the summit via multiple technical climbing routes in summer conditions. My other visit was my first big climb: Mount Russell, CA (14,086'), via the Fishhook Arête (5.9) in the fall of 2007.



Staying functionally fit over the holidays Rocky style

Mt. Whitney (14,505’) is the highest summit in the contiguous United States and we had to plan for the unmaintained Whitney Portal Rd. that was snowed in to 7000’, according to the ranger we called. The map showed that to be ~2 miles from the trailhead.



Thursday: We left San Diego Friday afternoon and with little traffic, arrived in Lone Pine around 10pm. We parked the car at snow-level which was actually 6,400’ and began the ~3-mile hike into the trailhead.



Friday: We got to the Mt. Whitney Portal parking lot at ~8,400’ via the snow-covered road wearing crampons just after 1am. Temps were comfortable. We set up camp right away and I was asleep by 3:45am. Josh got even less rest than me.



We were up at 8am, chatted with another team heading up the trail before us and then we were on the sun-covered trail by 9am.



We shouldered our 55lb packs and did work up to Lower Boyscout Lake where we made the calculated risk to ditch 22lbs worth of climbing gear in the woods. This decision voided our chances of climbing the East Face and made the MR our only potential summit option, assuming we didn’t need to rope up at any point.


Doing work

We pressed on with 45lb. packs and made it to basecamp (11,800ft.) at sunset.


Our own light show.. see the heart?

After dinner, we prepped for summit day. When melting snow into drinking water we discovered one of our isobutane-propane fuel canisters to be a dud and were left with the only option of asking our neighbors for spare fuel or we’d be forced to bail the next day due to having no water. Miraculously, they hooked us up with a near-full canister, single-handily saving our summit attempt. Problem solved and to sleep by 8pm.

Saturday:  “Take it to the top”

We woke up at 7am stoked for summit day and left camp at 9am with day packs on, traversed the gully with crampons and mountain axe, gained the ridge to Iceberg lake and were at the base of the MR in 1hr45min (12,800).





I gave Alicia and my folks a call, posted a quick photo to Facebook and Twitter and then Josh and I started up the chute with temps dropping from 45 to 20 degrees.

The chute got steep quickly and our buddies who hooked us up with the fuel passed us on the way down.



They described the conditions that remained between us and the summit as quite nice and since they carried no axe or trekking poles we figured we made the right decision to ditch the rope the day before.


The abyss below if you screw up.. don't screw up.

My Garmin GPS battery died at 14,200ft and in the final 200ft to the top I got on the the gnarliest winter climbing I've ever done: easily a 60% slope and with axe and crampons, we used a trekking pole shortened without snow basket on as another axe to climb these 200ft of steps like a ladder.



Wind was howling up from below and into my face when looking down for every step and each kick sent a spray of snow up into my face, under my glasses into my eyes and in my hood. So intense!!!!



We reached the 14505-foot summit at 2:15pm and I had tears in my eyes I was so stoked! I got to call Alicia and my folks from the top too which was really special.


One of my favorite photos from the trip

The way down the 200ft snow face was scariest. Down climbing was the safest way to go but my neck cramped up and I became dizzy from the weird angle. Then I got a little sick to my stomach and missed a crucial refueling opportunity before descending the chute, which was freezing cold with blustery wind gusts.



Once we got down to Iceberg Lake, I was totally bonking and pretty much stumbled my way back to camp. Thankfully after Josh took my day pack and we lost elevation rapidly, I felt better by the time we got back to camp. We were both beat but after refueling on couscous with olive oil and some salmon, we were relaxed and were finally super stoked on our accomplishment.



Sunday: We slept in, casually broke down base camp and hiked all the way from 11,800ft down to 6,400ft. It was a tough descent, even with glissading every slope we could. My left foot was rubbed to a blister beyond repair on the outside of the big toe while the outside upper ankle on my left leg became bruised from my boots. Every step was painful for the 5 hours it took to get to the car but the feeling of crushing my dream was far more intense.



After dropping the 55lb pack for good and changing into fresh clothes, we cruised into Lone Pine to refuel and hit the road for San Diego. Mission Accomplished.



A big thank you to: Josh for being such a great climbing partner, Jarod and Andrew for saving our trip with the fuel canister, James for helping me dial-in my training plan I put together for over the holidays, the www.pullharder.org crew for all the alpine inspiration and info, Jake and Austin for loaning me a few crucial pieces of gear, SkinFit for the super-warm base layer, CLIF bar for the delicious nutrition and Camelbak for the winter hydration solution. I’d also like to thank Alicia and my family for supporting my efforts to stay fit over the holidays and helping me reach my goal. And thanks to you for joining me on my first big adventure of 2011!


Next up: I take on the new "King of the Hill" trail run event series, which combines summit running with various fitness tasks along the way. The first event, King of the Hill: Mt. Woodson, is on the last Saturday of this month so my fitness should carry over perfectly once my left foot feels better. I’ll be sure to post a race report from the event so stay tuned!

Take it to the Top in 2011!
~T