Mt. Whitney makes a grand day. Out come the hiking boots, the ice axes, and the gaiters, all for their first trial. The day is beautiful! It can’t be perfect though – we forget the sunscreen and I turn very red. At the top we talk to a few others who ascended from Whitney Portal. An Air Force jet rips through the sky a stone’s throw away, leaving us all deaf for a minute. They can’t spoil it though, a fighter jet is still tiny compared to all this.