ZELIENOPLE — Tom Murray missed out on the last mountain. He wasn't about to pass up this one.

Murray, 67, of Zelienople recently returned from Lone Pine, Calif., where he successfully climbed to the summit of Mount Whitney and back in the span of a day.

Mount Whitney is 14,497 feet high, making it the highest mountain in the continental United States.

"We chose to try the climb in one day so we didn't have to carry as many supplies," Murray said.

Murray made the trip with his wife, Christine, and friend Andy McIntyre of Cranberry Township. The latter two scaled the 19,340-foot Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa in February 2008.

Murray was scheduled to make that climb as well, but an illness prevented him from getting the proper inoculations and he had to stay behind.

"Kilimanjaro was a seven-day event that included 25 porters going along to carry camping equipment, food, etc.," Murray said. "This was nothing like that.

"This was just us. We brought power bars to eat, water to drink, a change of clothes for the top of the mountain and that was pretty much it."

McIntyre and Christine Murray joined a couple of mountain climbers from Florida for the Kilimanjaro expedition. McIntyre was on business in Florida last winter and joined them for dinner one night.

"We were thinking about trying Mount Whitney and it turned out that they were too," McIntyre said, "so we decided to all make the climb together."

The Aug. 11 climb was planned six months in advance. The Murrays and McIntyre hiked around Zelienople and North Park to prepare for the excursion.

"We were all in pretty good shape to begin with," Murray said. "Christine does marathons and I do triathlons and biking.

"The challenge was going to be the altitude and the time. There was no way we could prepare for either."

The base trail of Mount Whitney was 8,000 feet in elevation. The climbers embarked on their adventure at 3 a.m.

"Once you get to 10,000 feet, there were 99 switchbacks — rocky slopes that zigzag — to get to the top of the mountain," Murray said. "The trail became rocky and we were walking along ledges maybe 36 inches wide.

"If you fell, you could drop 1,000 or 2,000 feet or so."

The climbers wore headlamps to begin their hike. Their goal was to reach the peak of the mountain and get back to the bottom before nightfall.

McIntyre and Christine Murray decided to begin their descent when they reached 13,500 feet.

"We saw somebody coming back down and asked how much longer a trek it was to the top," McIntyre said. "He said it was another 2 hours and 40 minutes.

"By our calculations, we weren't going to make it all the way back down before dark. So Christine and I decided to turn around."

Murray and the others pressed on.

"It's tough navigating those trails in the dark," Murray added. "They made a good decision."

Murray wound up reaching the peak of the mountain at 12:30 p.m. It took him 9Z\x hours to reach the summit, seven hours to get back down.

He reached the base of the mountain at 7 p.m.

"We went back down at a brisk pace," Murray said. "Four of us made it all the way up and back in 16 hours. Another guy from Florida and a friend of his from San Francisco made the climb and back in 21 hours."

McIntyre described the top portion of Mount Whitney as "extremely rocky."

"Once you're out of the wooded area, it's all granite," he said. "You have to climb over some small boulders."

"It's rugged, but doable," Murray said.

With that challenge behind them, another mountain climb might be in their future.

Climbs up mountains in Ecuador, along with Mount Washington in New Hampshire, have been discussed.

"It's a little too early yet for us to seriously think about another one," McIntyre said. "But I'm sure the subject is going to come up."