Etiquette on the North Face of Whitney

I was heading to Utah and decided to include a Whitney hike in my travel plans. 
Got to the visitor center at 5:15 and was able to get a permit for the next day, August 21st.  



Typical afternoon weather on Whitney.

I 'm hiking the main trail to the summit and then down the mountaineers route.


 Got started at 3am - really dark morning, no moon at all. 
Solo hiking in the dark - an experience in itself. 

4.5 hours later and i'm at the cables.  Last time I was through here they were leaning out and scary.  It was June and there was still plenty of snow.  I was heading back down and the trail was icy at the top of the cables. You needed take 2 steps down to a little shelf and then down onto an ice coverd landing.  I couldn't reach the cable so I had to just go for it.  Everything worked out but I'll never forget those couple of steps. 

    

From the top of the switchbacks (trail crest) to the summit is impressive.  All along the west side is above 13,500, really cool.  The hiking is tough though - you've already
hiked 7 miles and gained over 5,000 elevation.   

            Beautiful on top but cold and breezy.  
Spent 1/2 hour eating lunch and getting ready for
the return trip.

Time to head for the north face (1st part of the route back down). I see a group roped up just above the Notch, about 400' down.  I watch for about 5 minutes and they don't make any progress so I start down.  I hear someone yelling for me to wait.  I stop and look but they still aren't making any progress.  I continue to carefully pick my way down , watching the loose rocks.  After the 1st 100' I need to cross over to where I am directly above the group. Turns out it's a professionaly guided group of 6 and the lead person is now having a cow.  She's yelling for me to stop or stay to my left.  That's the wrong way and she has to know that!  Why would she direct me over there?  I continue to carefully climb down.
It's steep, no loose rocks, just little ledges.  I get down to them in just a few minutes and the
leader starts tearing into me about etiquette (who is this broad?).  I'm surprised.
I've been very careful not to knock any rocks down.  I tell her
to "take a chill pill, it's a big mountain..relax". 
This just pisses her off and she keeps blathering about etiquette lessons.
I"m tell her "OK, thank you. I'll  look into that"  (I wanted to say something completely

different but decided to leave it alone).  She order's me (like I'm one of here clients) to wait for them to get past me.  They still haven't moved an inch from the moment I saw them. 
I ignore her and climb around all 6 of them.  They're looking at me like where's your rope? 
I'm looking at them like why are you roped up?  I'm thinking that if you have to rope up
in August on this route then it's over your head....period!  Use the main trail.

Here it is a Saturday in August on one of the busiest routes in the Sierra
and she wants the mountain to herself. 

  

 

I drop down the last 100' to the notch and head on down the chute.

 I can see about halfway down, there's a guy sitting in the middle of the chute.
I get down to him to find out he was too tired to make it.
The guide told him to stay right there until they get back.
This is so stupid. Right in the middle of the chute!  It's just loose scree and rock.
You can't climb down without rocks rolling down. This guy is sitting in a bowling alley.

(He's was sitting right on the yellow line to the right of the P in ramp)

I make it down as carefully as possible and find out that he and 4 of his buddies had

NEVER climbed anything before.  All 5 are from the south (elevation = sea level)

and feeling the altitude. They each paid $650 to be guided up this!  

Aren't there some sort of qualifications? 

I guess the qualification is $650. 

They shouldn't have been on that portion of the mountain. 

They had all of the gear but were definitly not comfortable on the north face. 

Oh well, I hope this guy doesn't get nailed by someone else but I gotta go.  

I had a date with a shower and a beer and didn't want to be late.

 The climb out is challenging.

You want to look at the scenery as you hike but you gotta watch every step you take.

It's steep, loose, and rocky, all the way down to the main trail.

.

 The last real obstacle are the ledges. 

Gotta be a little careful on that last portion.

The trail heading into the waterfall.

By now I've forgotten about you know who.   I'm beat.

15 minutes to a $3.00 shower and a ice cold beer! 




So my question  ...Who had the bad etiquette? 

Was it the professional guiding service
that was getting paid $3,250?  A guide who could have
waited 5 minutes for me to pass.  A guide who knew they would encounter this situation but had no idea of what to do.  A guide who showed no respect for anyone but her paying customers. 

Or was it me?

Hopefully I'll never see her again. 


Now to Utah via Bishop, Tonopah,  Ely, Wendover, Ogden and then Powder Mountain.
Empty roads and wide open country.  A far better drive than that damn higfhway 15.