AEDC hikers conquer Mount Whitney

  • Published
  • By ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn.
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  If you look around Ron Polce's office you'll see photographs of his various hikes, climbs and other outdoor conquests.

But the latest adventure by Polce, chief of the Test Systems Division at Arnold Engineering Development Center, and John Casey, technical specialist in Environmental Compliance, has given the two friends a special sense of achievement.

From Aug. 23 through Sept. 9, the men hiked about 200 miles of the John Muir Trail and ascended Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states at 14,495 above sea level.

Polce said the idea of the hike began about five years ago after both men and their wives had spent some time in Yosemite National Park.

"Having spent a couple weeks in the High Sierras, backpacking and camping, we decided one day we wanted to do the John Muir Trail," Polce said. "This trail actually runs from Yosemite Valley to the top of Mount Whitney and ultimately ends at Whitney Portal ... about 227 miles. John and I decided one day we just wanted to do it all, and that time came this year."

"We started in Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park and we summitted Mount Whitney Sept. 9," Casey said. "It took another day to get off the mountain and we flew back home on the 11th.

"Our wives were with us for the first four days and we hiked about 35 miles from Tuolumne Meadows to Mammoth Lakes Calif. They were real good troopers and they really enjoyed the trout fishing along the way. That was probably the more scenic of the northern part of the trail."

Polce agreed some of the best sites of the Sierras are on the first part of the trail.

"Of course, there are a lot of spectacular spots along the way that you can only see by doing the long hike," Polce said. "We enjoyed having our wives Veronica [Polce] and Janie [Casey, who works in the Information Technology group as a system architect], but it was a little scary the day they let us off for the next 15 days and turned us loose on our own."

For the next 15 days, Polce and Casey hiked about 10- to-14 miles per day away from civilization.

"So if you had an issue it would be a two-day trek out to get help," Casey said. "But we were pretty self-reliant and in pretty good shape, and we were blessed to have a good, safe trip."

Polce said the weather also cooperated, with clear skies every day, and they remained comfortable, sleeping in tents at night.

"We had a weather front or two move through, and it dropped the temperature in the mountains to the low 20s ," Polce said. "We actually had a few snow flurries early on, and on the day before we summitted Whitney it actually was down to about 20 degrees that night. [We] woke up to a little dusting of snow, so it made for a pretty exciting morning as our water continued to freeze as we hiked our way to Whitney."

"We had exceptional weather - never got rained on," Casey added. "Most days were windy, but your typical highs would be 60, 65, 70, maybe, and then lows at night, 30s."
There are definite limitations when it comes to making preparations and packing provisions for such a trip. Polce said they started as early as two years ago thinking about how to plan for the trek.

"We read a lot of the journals of other people who'd done it, a lot of the guidebooks," he said. "As far as supply along the trail, there are opportunities early on like what we did at Tuolumne Meadows or at Mammoth Lakes, but once we got midcourse, at Muir Trail Ranch, which was about halfway, we had the next 100 miles - next 10 days - with no resupply.

"And you're constrained by having to keep your food in a bear proof canister, so you have this little barrel and everything you have with you that smells good or tastes good needs to go in that canister. We ended up having less than 2,500 calories a day to work on for that last 10 days."

While bears can be a problem in the Yosemite Valley, Polce said bears actually were not an issue for them in the high country, due partially to the control measures such as keeping food in canisters.

The presence of fellow hikers was a different story, however. The men saw anywhere from fewer than 10 to as many as 20 people on various days, including 15- to-20 hikers at the summit of Mount Whitney. Many of them had come in the "easy" way, via the Whitney Portal, according to Casey.

Cell phones do not work in such remote areas, but the men did have emergency communication with the outside world.

"We actually took a satellite phone with us just to give our wives piece of mind that we were OK on the trail," Polce said.

Everything went as planned with no scares or injuries.

"Although, I'll say that, even with our experience before, it turned out to be much harder than what we anticipated, doing the major climbs and then the major descents," Polce said. "Overall, we ascended over 40,000 feet crossing eight major passes ranging in heights from 11,000 to 13,000 feet."

Casey and Polce obviously enjoyed their trek, despite the many challenges it presented. Still, one might ask, "Why take on such a task?"

"I guess you could use the Sir Edmund Hillary quote, 'Because it's there,' but that's not really why," Casey said. "You just do it because it's a personal challenge; it's an accomplishment. You think, 'Well, I wonder if I could do that?'"

"The Sierra Nevada is an absolutely incredible mountain range," Polce added. "The diversity is so great with streams and the lakes and the high mountaintops, and I loved the trout fishing all along the way. You just have to experience the West to understand why someone would want to hike those mountains."