Off-topic from my usual videos, I climbed the summit of Mount Whitney for the first time with a couple of my best friends. Mount Whitney is 14,505 feet tall, and is the tallest peak in the continental United States. We climbed it in one day.

We started at the "Whitney Portal" trail head out of Lone Pine, CA and hiked to the summit and back in the same day. We started at 3:00 am and got back about 16 hours later. Our summit time was about 11:30. The day hike was about 22 miles round trip and 8000 feet of elevation gain.

A little personal background, although this channel is mostly about my hobby woodworking, I am a full-time firefighter and wedding photographer with a wife and two kids. I've been best friends with David since 2nd grade. David is in the Army, and has two kids with his wife Kathleen, who also hiked with us and is a total bad ass.

David mentions my brother in law "Kirby" toward the end of the video, and I'm realizing that he kinda makes it sound like someone died LOL! We wish Kirby could have come with us but he is totally fine and couldn't make it due to his work load.

We all had our challenging moments during the hike between our foot problems, knees, and altitude sickness. I started thinking about my two young boys toward the top and turned into a bit of a emotional wreck. The altitude sickness was definitely getting to me at that point, but I decided to keep that raw and vulnerable moment in the video despite the brutal comments that are sure to follow, because it was honest.

This video was made completely with the footage from our two iPhones and one small gorilla pod.

Gear:
My pack is an Osprey Manta AG 36:
https://www.rei.com/product/895647/os...

Find me on Instagram @weberwoodshop