Day 5. Backpack Day 4.
Guitar Lake to Mt. Whitney and Crabtree Meadow

Up early in the first of the morning twilight, I left most of my gear in camp and hiked fairly hard and summited Mt. Whitney (14,505 ft elevation; highest peak in the lower 48 states) from the west side in four hours. I'd done it before from the east side, so this was a new route for me. It felt good to make the summit with surprisingly little effort, although the cold temperatures without direct sun certainly helped reduce overheating issues.

While making the summit was great, the more important issue for me was that it marked the start of my hike north on the JMT. It felt good to be starting out on the actual quest.

I spent 40 minutes in the summit cold, the started hiking down. After three hours, I picked up my gear at Guitar Lake and continued down to Crabtree Meadow.

They afternoon had been stormy with lightning in the high country, but the sky cleared in the evening, so I figured the storms were done for the day (it rarely rains at night in the Sierras during summer). Unfortunately, I awoke in the darkness under a heavy downpour and got pretty wet before covering everything.