Day 26 - the BIG final!!

above Guitar Lake to Whitney Portal  8379ft elevation. 

We climb Mt. Whitney 14505ft

We climb trail crest pass 

Today we traveled: 15.77miles. 3189ft elevation gain 6411ft elevation loss. 

JMT mile marker: 210mile +

Over all in Aug 2025 we hiked 257.8miles - All of them related to John Muir trail. 

We woke up at 8pm last night, startled really - there was a loud noise above us. It took us a sec because we were both coming out of deep sleep to realized it was a fighter plane flying close to our heads. They train in the high sierra and this continued till about 10pm. The acoustic makes it sound like they are going to crush into the mountain above you. We tried going back to sleep. Bob needed to inflate his mattress every hour or so, and I was too excited to sleep now. Tossing and turning I got tired of laying there. At 4am I checked to see if there are clouds and was stunned at the clear sky. Hundreds of stars. I could also see headlights flashing on the mountain and disappearing up into the sky. I started nudging Bob to wake him up. Let’s go! 

Headlamps and stars

We got up and packed camp, we already agreed on skipping coffee and I packed us the few snacks we had left that we can eat on the go. This was done with mainly the iPhone flashlight because our headlamps died within minutes of turning them on. It is what it is. It was pitch dark - without a light you couldn’t see your arm let alone where to step. We packed and started to get going looking carefully where we step. Soon it became light enough for our eyes to get better and see without the flash light. We started climbing and I was feeling sluggish. We stopped for water and some dried mangos which helped and give me some energy. 

Bob was charging up the mountain and I couldn’t keep up. He took some of my weight which helped but I was still just sluggish. I think I needed that coffee, especially after a sleepless night. 

We were amazed at the construction of the switch back right into the mountain. 

It took us a good hour and a half to get to the point the trail split and you can drop your backpack and go the last 2miles to the top with no pack or just a light pack. We would pick up our bags on the way to the other side. 

Elevation 13400ft 1.9miles to the top

You don’t want to get stuck up there

There was one other bag at the top and this surprised us - this means most of the people up there were day hikers with small backpacks. 

Bob took the nearly empty pack with snacks, water, warm clothes and our WAG bags. The essentials.  It felt good to walk with almost nothing and to our surprises the trail wend down after the initial climb. It was steep up there but nothing prepared us to the part of the trail where you are going on the outside of the mountain at 13500ft + and one bad footing and you are falling down for a very long time. It was slippery with ice at times, it was 32F out and cold. In general we don’t like heights. We turned around at a few scary trails like Engel landing in Zion and the tower part at the Sierra Buttes so I didn’t know what to expect. Bob was in the front cursing and saying how sketchy it was, how who ever built it was insane. I knew that he was closed to turning and honestly I wanted to turn and go back. We where moving slow now since not only it was death defying path, steep and slippery - it was also rocky that you had to use your polls, hands and sometimes just swing your one foot and hope it lends on something solid to stand on. My heart was racing. We still had over a mile to go and this was slow going. 

This was the not too bad section where I continued to take pictures and videos. After that I was too concerned for my life that I couldn’t get my phone out. 

At one point a couple were coming back and Bob took stand in one of the coves on the trail with his back to the mountain. I knew he was not going to pass her on the outside. She tried saying it was his right away as he was going up to move ahead. He said No way lady. She had to go around him. I asked her if it’s like this the whole way up. We couldn’t tell where the trail was it was just too rocky - big boulders of rock. She told us this was the worst of it and it actually gets better and wider. This helped a lot. I didn’t want to turn around but I also knew that this was outside our comfort zone. Will it make a difference if we turned around a mile from the top? We were already above 14000ft, we were on the mountain, surly this would count, this would mean something. I know I would not be back to finish it later on another day. It was now or never. 

We continued inching forward and finally the trail widen enough that you didn’t see the ground below you and we could breathe more freely. It was pretty intense, I was still straggling but kept moving while Bob charged ahead. That last 1/2 mile felt like we walked 5miles. We did pass people on the way up and saw lots of people that just set or stood up catching their breath, that later on I realized I was way too hard on myself, I was doing better than most but for me it was a struggle. 

Finally, the top! We saw the shelter hut and I walk to it and set down wanting to get a snack - I was starving and the hunger pain was so much I thought I would puke. That was a first. Bob saw me on the ground and yell - This isn’t the top get up here! Ugh. I got up and walk to where he was. You could see 360 degrees around. I couldn’t believe we made it. We made it!! We took some pictures and talk to other people asking where they started their journey and realized there were not a whole lot of JMT’ers there. People congratulate us and asked about our journey it started to sink in. We did it. We saw the 3 women that we met at VVR so many days ago and took some pictures. It felt like a celebration. I was sad Rob and Hobbit weren’t there. They will do it in their own time. On the way back I was able to take a few more pictures (I was too concerned for safety and getting air on the way up) and I looked around - It was really incredible views. 

While we were going up, the clouds started gathering and we wanted to get down and put some distance between us and the mountain. By now the trail had much more people making their way up to the top. When we got back to where we left our stuff and the other pack we looked and saw Rob! He made it!! We were so happy we got to celebrate this moment with him. We gave him some tips and said our final goodbyes “it was nice walking with you” such a meaningful statement. I was able to finish the granola bar I’ve been working on all morning and we got walking. The next 0.25 mile was a steep uphill. What the F in the world was going on?! I thought we were going downhill!! We had to climb to Crust Trail Pass before we actually started the downhill and after 3hr of walking without a pack, mine felt like it was 50lb. It was extremely heavy and uncomfortable.  

We started going down on a trail that people nicknamed “100 switchbacks” I thought it was just a name but now I know there were either 98 or 99 or an actual 100 switchbacks because it felt like we were going back and forth for the rest of the day. 

The trail down was about 8miles. We already walked 7-8miles at this point and were planing to see how far we would get before calling it quits. After an hour or so of going down we reached Trail Camp where people camp before going up to Whitney, similar to Guitar Lake but on the other side of the pass. It was around 1pm and people were setting up tents and getting ready. I announced that we are going to take a much needed break and have an actual meal. We cooked peanut butter pasta and it was very good. We watched a few chipmunks fight and try to get close to us looking for food.

 After the short break it was time to keep on moving. We were getting cold now that more clouds were in the sky and didn’t want to get bought in the rain. On we went. Down we went following the trail. Another hour or so passed and we reached another camp. It was full with tents. I know Bob wanted out - and we were so close to sleeping in a real bed, getting hot shower and maybe finding a veggie burger with fries. Close is a relative concept. We were about 2000ft and 4miles away. It was after 3pm. We decided to go for it. The trail kept going down with impossible number of switchbacks. I was really starting to resent who ever built this trail. It took everything we had to keep going without stoping. We hiked down from 14500ft to about 8500ft. It was hard on our knees and feet. 

And finally we were done. We were at the bottom. We were at the trail head. 

We met a few people that asked where we came from and just saying we came from Yosemite was unreal. They took our pictures and congratulate us. It really felt good to be done - not because it ended but because I felt so proud of us of completing this huge task we said we would do. We follow thru and accomplish this challenge for a good part of a month. It was an incredible time. I still can’t believe we have done it. I remember a year ago when I read about this trail and dreamed about doing something like this - how far and unattainable it felt, and here we are at the other side of it and it was accomplish and done and we enjoyed our time and forever changed by the mountains. What an incredible gift this was. 

We did it !

Yes it was a pretty emotional finish. But all that had to wait - we had one more task - getting to Lone Pine from Whitney Portal. We had to catch a ride. Bob told me I was the one people would stop for and sent me down the road. I started flagging and smiling at some cars. I got a few people stopping but no one was going our way or were full. It was close to 5pm and this wasn’t going no where. There were less and less cars. We dropped our packs and got ready to wait for a while. A guy comes walking down a mountain and I’m jumping at him - Hi are you driving to Lone Pine by any chance? Yes - Can we ride with you????

We got a ride!! Sweeeeeet 

He is very nice and takes us to the hotel we left our car. While Bob is going to retrieve the car from the long stay parking lot I’m headed in to see if they have a room, it’s a long weekend and they are busy but! She got a room with a shower in their historical building so it’s small and old but functional. Yes we will take it!! Aww everything is working out for us. We shower and switch to clean clothes we left in the car a month ago (again thank you past Yifat and Bob) and go to grab our celebration drinks and dinner. It’s just before 6pm that we have beer, onion rings, salad, beyond burgers and fries. Unbelievable!! It took us about 11hr to walk up to Whitney and down to town. We were barely able to walk back the short distance to the hotel. Haha. We went to bed exhausted. Yifat