Thor Peak

Thor Peak had long been on my radar as an easy SPS peak in the shadow of Mt. Whitney. Located in the heart of the Whitney Zone, this is one of the more difficult peaks to access legally. I had no interest in paying money for the Whitney Lottery to have a chance to possible pay even more for a permit. I elected to attempt this hike before the quota season began.

With a rapid march melt, the Whitney Portal area had dried out quite a bit. While I was in Death Valley over the weekend, the area had gotten some snow though, so I was uncertain of how this attempt would go.

I loaded up my backpack with all of my supplies just in case: an ice axe, two pairs of crampons, microspikes, layers, my backcountry skis, beacon, shovel and probe. I heaved the heavy mass of stuff the first few miles up the dry trail.

As I reached the Whitney Zone boundary, the landscape changed completely. Fresh snow blanketed the mountains and the trail in front of me. A lone pair of footprints headed up into the mountains above. I transitioned into ski mode and skinned up the drainage.

This was my first time going on a ski tour alone. Normally this is not advised, but it was rather freeing to be skinning through the meadow, breaking trail alone. The skiing did not last long either, so it felt like a safe choice for a first solo tour.

Soon, I was at Mirror Lake, just as I had suspected the south facing slopes of Thor Peak were mostly already melted out. I skinned up a couple hundred more feet and stashed most of my gear in the rocks.

Free from the burden of my gear, I bounded up the slopes. Near the summit, I had no beta and improvised a challenging route up the wrong ridge. As I neared the summit, snow began to get deeper and deeper along the ledges and handholds. I took my time, and finally found a safe route to the summit.

On the descent, I found a much safer route, and made good time back to my skis. The 1000 vertical feet went all too quickly. As I whizzed down the last steep slope, a dayhiker yelled out that I scared the shit out of him because he thought I was an avalanche.

As I attached my skis to my backpack and transitioned to walking, he caught back up. We got to talking, and walked the last two miles together. The man was on a whirlwind road trip in his RV from Wisconsin. Each day he visited a new National Park. Yesterday was Death Valley, today was nearly Sequoia. He had no sharps, or any winter gear to speak of, but by some miracle, he had made it to the base of the switchbacks. By an even greater miracle, he had the good sense to turn around there. “This was chill though”, he told me, “compared to my near-death experience at Great Basin National Park two days back”. I subtly encouraged him to be careful on his road trip. I showed him all of the gear I had set out with, and we laughed about the difference in our supplies. He bid me farewell, and began his drive to Joshua Tree that night. No wonder Mt. Whitney has so many SAR calls….

I drove a few miles down the road to camp and began to prepare for my trip in the Inyos the next day.

pictures to come