I’m alive!

Apparently some people thought I died on the mountain since I didn’t blog after the first day. My cell phone lost reception when a storm rolled in and I couldn’t call in any more blogs for the rest of the week. Sorry.

Team Mt. Whitney returned on Friday, June 8. We’re all healthy and alive. I’m happy to say that I bagged Whitney. This was my second attempt to summit.

SqueezeOC staffer Jessica fell a mile short of the peak. A combination of altitude sickness, prescription medicine and threatening storm clouds helped make the decision to turn around simple.

I already miss the Sierras. Getting away from the distractions of cell phones, the Internet and TV re-energized me and returned me to the simple life. Every day I filtered my own water, cooked my own meals, breathed clean air, hiked to picture-perfect postcard-like scenery and ended every night staring into the dancing flames of the campfire.

No driving. No TV. No Myspace. No e-mail. No cell phone. Life is good. Life is real damn good.

My fishing excursion wasn’t exactly ideal. The hike, which was supposed to be a 5-mile walk in the park, turned into a 5.5-mile climb gaining 3,000 feet of elevation to Meysan Lakes. Here is a photo of the mountain I climbed to get to the lake.

Six hours later, I eventually reached the lake, which is surrounded by a beautiful meadow and enclosed by sheer granite walls that had a light dusting of snow.

I fished for a few hours and caught a beautiful golden trout. It’s gonna make good lunch.

Not knowing how well trout holds in a backpack, I raced down the trail to cook my fish before it went bad. I end up turning my ankle and sprained it.

The fish was good. It wasn’t worth the eight hours of hiking or the sprained ankle, but I felt very “Survivorman” cooking a meal that I just caught.

To read about how Jessica and I trained and prepared for our Mt. Whitney adventure, click here.

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