I'm on Top of the World

Yesterday we got home from our weekend adventure hiking to the top of Mt. Whitney (the highest point in the contiguous United States). Kyra (my youngest sister) and Sean and I made the journey, and we met a few of Sean's old college roommates there. We left Friday morning and drove up to the Mt. Whitney portal. Then we carried our backpacks 6.3 miles to our campsite. It was quite a workout. We didn't make it into camp until about 9 PM that night. We tried to rest of up for the rest of the trail the next day. On Saturday we left most of our gear at the campsite and just carried our camelbacks and some food with us. We headed out at about 9 AM, and began the morning with over 92 switchbacks hiking straight up the mountain. Then we hit the Crest at which point you can see both sides of the mountain (our side and then the Sequoia's on the other side). There was some crazy wind gusts. At this point we hiked around to the back of the mountain and continued up to the top of Mt. Whitney. It was HARD! But, it was awesome! The view was incredible. Sean made a phone call to both of our families at the top (can you believe that?). The sun was just baking up there (I mean, that's the closest I have ever been to the sun...and I could tell). I put lots of sunscreen on, but I forgot about my neck (yep, it's fried). Kyra started to get sick right before she got to the top. I don't know if it was a flu bug or if the elevation was getting to her. So, we quickly headed back down the trail. We had to take it pretty slow because she was not feeling good. We made it to the campsite and started dinner, but she just got worse. They say if it's elevation sickness then you need to get lower. So just as the sun went down we packed up our gear and headed to a lower elevation. Poor Kyra - she threw up 3 or 4 times as we hiked that night. We finally found a spot to camp, and she went right to sleep. We slept that night and got up at 6:30 the next morning to complete the journey. She was much better. We finished our trip at about 10:30 Sunday morning. What an adventure. I was surprised that the elevation didn't get to me more, but I was totally fine up that high (no headaches or nauseau or even difficulty with the oxygen). It was an awesome trip.....and boy we were sore and tired when we finished, but it was worth it (not many people can say they have been to the highest point in the Continental US). That's pretty cool.