Climbing Mt. Whitney

Book contained a lot of good information - I am a novice, best part for me was the info on how to acclimatize and pointing out the different areas near Mt. Whitney to do that.

I have read another book on Mt Whitney, (which is ok), but this one is far more informative and in depth. The trail descriptions are really good and there is an underlying enthusiasm from the author which is infectious. The proof of all this pudding will be in June 2007 when I will be trekking my way to the summit, guided by the trails detailed in this book. I will try to return and re-review post trek.

I have both the 1997 and 2005 editions of this guide. How do you improve an already great guide? Ask climber Peter Croft to coauthor. Recommending any guide book with Croft as a coauthor is pretty much a no-brainer. So HIGH-FIVE for CLIMBING MT. WHITNEY. It has all the standard routes from every other pass, east south, west, north. The new edition has routes not covered in any other Whitney guide including Croft's personal creations. Bored? Try one of Croft's circumnavigational routes. They aren't necessarily technical but just incredibly physically challenging. He's a North Face athlete and one of a handful of folks awarded the American Alpine Club's Underhill Award for Outstanding Achievement in Mountaineering. He knows what he is talking about. The info on training for high-altitude with a route up White Mountain Peak, Whitney's 14,246' neighbor to the east and DIAMOX (also in the Benti/Wheelock 1997 edition) was very helpful especially for a friend. She's a great climber, but every time we go to altitude, she gets puking sick. Based on the advice in Climbing Mt. Whitney, she got a prescription for DIAMOX (Acetazolamide). She went from miserably sick and a potential liability on altitude climbs to practically running up routes and eating lunch on the summit of anything over 11,000-feet. Physical exertion/mountaineering = lactic acid. Flushing it out of the cells as fast as you can to keep from getting sick on a tight time schedule at elevation is what it's about. Any Physiology 101 student will tell you that. Our climbing crew was stunned by the change in our friend's performance. Climbing Mt. Whitney was the first Whitney guide to even talk about Diamox as an alternative to sleeping at elevation a few nights before, which just doesn't work for many folks who are usually coming up from sea level and just don't have the time. This guide does emphasize the importance of drinking clean water so the warnings on giardia are key. Filtered water means the dif between puking up stomach lining on some hospital bed (been there, done that) and a successful trip in and out of the backcountry. Climbing Mt. Whitney is still the best Whitney guide out there.

Croft & Benti's Climbing Mt. Whitney book was so helpful in planning our climb of Whitney via the Mountaineers Route. Instead of descending via the Whitney Trail back to the Portal, we used one of Croft's four loop routes and returned to the North Fork drainage via the John Muir Trail, pass Guitar & Arctic Lakes, then back to the North Fork drainage via Whitney/Russell Col. We found this new book to be a vast improvement over any other Whitney book just because of Croft's new take on challenging hikes in the region. Croft is a hilarious writer and his sense of humor was a great treat. His route additions make this book stand out above the competition.

After having climbed Mount Whitney and read the numerous guidebooks available, this new guidebook by Peter Croft is most welcome - totally up to date, with more routes, and Peter Croft's humor shining through - this book is a great read for the Whitney climber and the arm-chair enthusiast alike. A must for your pack and your shelf!!