Mt. Whitney info...

The next few days are going to be pretty hectic with final preparations, checking and triple checking everything I've packed etc. so I'm going to post all of the information now.

I will be leaving work early on Tuesday to head up to Lone Pine to pick up my permit from the Eastern Sierra Interagency Center. It should take about 2.5 to 3 hours to get there. After that I have a bit of a drive to Horseshoe Meadows where I will be staying the remainder of the day and night at 10,000 feet to acclimatize. The next morning I will get up whenever, make breakfast, turn on the GPS tracker, pack up camp and depart. My plan is to be up on the top of Mt. Whitney no later than July 4th. If I hit it on the 3rd, GREAT! If I don't summit by the 4th I will turn around and head back.

My webpage that the GPS device will be uploading to is http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0uL8hknDIZBaQaNic3qxlYlyPQUErg76b

You can visit that anytime. Any updates will auto-refresh on the page if you leave it open and walk away. The tracking updates will be sent every 10 minutes from the device and will have something around a 20 minute delay between initial transmission and it being available on the net. I'll commence every day with an "OK" message to let everyone know I'm fine. I'll also send another "OK" message at the end of every day when I'm going to make camp. During the day when I eat lunch or take a break multiple tracks will likely show up on the map in one area.

In the event that something does happen and it's an emergency I will activate the 911 feature on the device which will upload my coordinates to emergency personnel and they will be dispatched to my location to help me. If you see it on the internet there's nothing that needs to be done because the authorities already know. It will show up on the map as a red track symbol of some kind. I don't know what it looks like for sure since I am not experimenting with that feature unless I absolutely need it.

Other than that, I hope to be able to take plenty of pictures and bring them back to share. The back country scenery has to be absolutely stunning. Since I will be on the western approach I will have the benefit of longer days. I hope to be able to capitalize on that.

I do have a site to share with the local weather forecast. Unfortunately I can't get predictions about 12,000 ft. Of course, the weather can change very rapidly at the elevation so it really means nothing to me once I leave. It will be up to me to keep an eye on cloud formations and the wind to predict and keep an eye on potential adverse whether. http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=36.57914380937464&lon=-118.29803466796875&site=vef&smap=1&marine=0&unit=0&lg=en

I will return home no later than July 6.

A note on the SPOT website...feel free to click any button, move any bars, etc. as you wish. It doesn't affect anything other than your personal views. For instance, the load up map looks like something you would get out of AAA. In the upper right corner, simply click the "Satellite" button and it will give you a satellite image. The "Terrain" button will give you a topographical representation of the area. Likewise, you can zoom in and out too for more or less detail (via the vertical slider on the left side of the map). Feel free to explore as much as you like. The "Help" tab on the information bar on the left side of the screen also offers some assistance with navigation and options.