On Wednesday, August 24, 2016, I became the newest member of the small group of employees at the City of Vista where I work who have taken on the challenge of hiking Mount Whitney from the Portal trail head to the peak in one day. I joined current employees Greg Mayer, John Meyer, and John Conley; and retired Fire Chief Rick Minnick as one of the few and the proud who have accomplished this ultimate day hike. I trained for this hike as part of the City of Vista “Get Fit Challenge” that was implemented by our HR Department several years ago.

Before I made the 14-hour climb with retired Vista Traffic Engineer Terry Lutz and Vista resident Gary Hogue, I knew I had a number of challenges to overcome. To prepare to be on my feet walking for long hours in any possible weather condition, I joined the City of Vista “Walk for Life” team during the last two years and walked around the Rancho Minerva Middle School track in the blazing sun one year and in the rain the next year, for up to a 12-hour shift, with fellow employee Jaime Osorio there to encourage me to keep going as Jaime walked for 24 hours straight. I participated in the lunch hour poker walks sponsored by the HR Department, and even took the opportunity to lead a couple of “brisk” walks for the walkers on my favorite training route. I rode my bike to work from my home in Escondido on “Bike to Work Day” and a number of other occasions to build up cardiovascular endurance. Over the past six months, I completed my training routine by running and walking on the hills around City Hall and walking up and down the stairs at City Hall at lunch, and hiking the three tallest mountains in Southern California with my hiking team, Terry Lutz and Gary Hogue, on weekends.

The best part of the climb was accomplishing my fitness goal of completing this extreme day hike known as the “portal to peak” in one day. I and my Kaiser Permanente doctor are happy to report that I lost approximately 50 pounds over the past two years, and hope never to find them again!

I started my hike at 3:30 AM with Vista resident Gary Hogue as the leader and Terry Lutz as part of the team. Gary, who is 71 years old, has summited Mount Whitney 20 times over the past 25 years. He hikes Cowles Mountain in San Diego once or twice nearly every day, and he rides his bike in Vista and other places over 8,000 miles per year. I followed the sage advice of my co-worker John Meyer and spent 4 days before the hike acclimating to the high altitude, so I and 70-year old Terry Lutz, the other first-timer, were able to avoid altitude sickness which could have stopped us in our tracks. Due to hip pain, Gary was only able to lead the expedition to the 6-mile mark, at the bottom of the famous “97 Switch-backs”. But Gary encouraged Terry and me to keep going, and promised he would be waiting for us at the portal trail head when we returned. The weather was beautiful that day, despite the rain and hail that had been descending on the mountain during the previous two days. Although our pace slowed considerably for the last 5-miles of uphill climbing to the top, Terry and I were able to pick up the pace during the 11-mile descent and we completed the hike at 5:30 PM, almost exactly the time Gary Hogue had predicted. The three of us celebrated the hike with huge hamburgers available at the Whitney Portal Store. Although Terry and I were so stiff they could hardly walk after sitting down to eat their hamburgers, the next morning both of us felt surprisingly better. We chalked up our ability to complete the hike to the extensive training and acclimation we engaged in before our attempt.

my son, Joseph, who recently turned 18 and graduated from Escondido High School, was able to join me on several training hikes, including Mount San Gorgonio and Mount Baldy, both of which turned out to be quite difficult day hikes. Joseph started attending classes at Palomar college the week I was away hiking Mount Whitney, so Joseph was unable to join me this year. Since Joseph plans to transfer to Northern Arizona University in two years, he and I are discussing plans to hike the Grand Canyon from rim to rim in 2018. I hope that someday Joseph will be able to plan his own Mount Whitney hike, and perhaps allow me to join him!

There are many great learning experiences associated with accomplishing a goal like hiking Mount Whitney. I think it was important to plan ahead, break goals down into component parts and work on each of those parts, to not give up on tough challenges, to seek help and advice from others, and to continue to work at my goal even when I was tired and just wanted to sit on the couch and watch TV. All of these things have helped me be better prepared for future challenges and give me a tangible memory of achieving a difficult goal that I can share with my son. I would like to encourage others to consider taking on your own challenges and climbing your own “Mount Whitney”, whatever that challenge turns out to be.