Couple attempt Mt Whitney carrying 100lbs each!

[Geoff Caplan]

Seems that the lightweight philosophy still hasn’t got through to everyone.

A few weeks back a Colorado couple set off to tackle Whitney by the Lone Peak route carrying 150 lbs of gear and 5 gallons of water – which is almost 100 lbs each! But despite all their kit, they hadn’t thought to carry a map…

They set off at 6:00 pm and by 3 am they had managed 2.7 miles.

By this point they were suffering from exhaustion, headaches and blisters and made camp directly on the trail. By the next morning it had snowed. They had stored their boots outside and they were frozen and full of powder.

At this point, it seems that they suffered an outbreak of sanity and used their iPhone to call in the Inyosar SAR team. They emerged from their misadventure relatively unscathed.

Come on Jordan – offer them a free sub! There can’t be anyone who needs it more…

https://www.facebook.com/inyosar/posts/pfbid02Q4xBRjb7d8Kf7b6sXCvuNwYeg9pEDGeETpSc7bXgH8iwkTHr7SquCbjVcCHYBGyil

[Terran Terran]

That’ll learn from their mistakes.. Next time, they’ll carry an extra pair of boots.

[Murali C]

Ha ha! to Terran Terran’s reply!!!!!!

[Dan]

Are they influencers?

[David Thomas]

Or under-the-influencers?

[Kevin Babione]

If those are their packs in the photo, then there has to be some sort of typo – there’s no way to fit 150 lbs of gear in those packs!  Maybe they read about someone packing sand in their packs to level out their campsite, but other than that I just don’t believe it could be possible.  The 5 gallons of water is more plausible – I suspect that they were each carrying one of those 2.5 gallon disposable water containers with the built-in spout.  That didn’t show up in the gear shot because they had been emptied before heading out from where they were rescued (my speculation).

Before I found BPL, I had an Arc’teryx Bora 80 pack that weighed about 12 pounds empty (with the fanny pack/lid).  I was able to put about 60 pounds in it, but only by using pretty much all of the attachment points (and that included 5 liters of water on a trail that crossed a stream every two miles or so).  That was a long time ago when I was younger, fitter, and miserable on the trail.

[Geoff Caplan]

Kevin – I suspect that photo may be the load once it was broken it up for transport? And they credit a passer by for helping them carry it out.

I’ve been on the fringes of a couple of SAR teams, and they are usually very careful about their reports.

There was clearly something up – it took the couple 9 hours to travel 2.7 miles, at which point they collapsed with blisters and exhaustion…

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