CAUTION... LONG POST!!!! Trip Report July 28-29, 2008
Someone told me not to long ago that “It’s not the summit that counts, it’s the journey”. Well… my journey started almost a year ago. Last summer my Mom was trying to plan something to celebrate one of her milestone birthdays and decided that it should be Mt. Whitney. She invited me to join her and I said “Sure… why not?”. It’s a year away, right? I have plenty of time to prepare… besides… it’s a year away…
December and January began to roll around and I’m still smoking a pack a day. Mom says “Christine.. I am NOT taking you up Whitney if you don’t stop smoking.” So… I stopped in January. I don’t think that very many people liked me for most of that month.
Mom began sending me emails with links in them containing information about AMS, and maps on Whitney and information about the lottery system, and this really cool video someone took of the trail. I looked at everything and studied and read and watched and thought “Hey… this isn’t going to be too bad!”
Around February (when people started liking me again and the urge to either grab a smoke or throttle the daylights out of the closest person had finally passed), I started run/walking. I live in a fairly hilly area and the “block” is about 2 miles long, half downhill and half up. I ran/walked this as many times a week as I could, but with work hours and a lack of daylight hours it was hard to get the time in. So I was doing this about 2-3 times a week. Mom submitted the paperwork for the lottery drawing and we stood by and waited for the charge to show on her credit card… and waited… and waited… and waited….
March rolls around… I’ve lost about 20 lbs.. and the credit card still shows nothing. We’re starting to despair, thinking that we haven’t gotten our permits. The last week of March I check the mail… and then my children give me very very strange looks as I whooped with joy and started (literally) jumping around the living room. Our reservations were confirmed… I had the confirmation number in my hot little hand… I was still jumping around as I called Mom at work to share the news with her. WooHoo!!! We’re on our way!!!
Fast forward to June. I’m down another 10 lbs (for a grand total of 30) and I haven’t had a cigarette in almost 7 months. Our trip is getting closer and closer and I am spending almost every free moment researching and reading and trying to figure it all out. I have a severe kidney stone attack and loose 3 weeks worth of training time.. about the time I’m ready to start running again we get a heat wave that skyrockets the temps into the high 90’s and low 100’s. If I’m not in the right shape, then I’m pretty much SOL by this time.
Mom has our hiking timeline basically down and I’m trying like hell to figure out what gear I need. I’ve never done this kind of thing before. What do I wear, what do I take, what kind of pack do I use? The people on the Portal board jump in and answer every single question I have and are so absolutely wonderful.
Fast forward again to the end of July. Our permit is for entry on the 28th of July. We spend the entire week before preparing. Packing this and that, Mom shops for our food, I clean out my car and get the interior detailed so the smell of the french fries my kids ate in it two weeks ago doesn’t attract Smoky. Finally finally FINALLY we leave San Diego at about 2:30 pm on Friday. Now… every good girl starts a vacation with a shopping trip. So we stop at REI (Hey.. it was on the way… We had to drive right by it anyways!!!) By 4:00 we’re (back) on the road and north bound. We arrived at the Hostel at about 9:30 Friday night to our beds (THANK YOU DOUG!!!!!!!!!) What a fabulous place!!! We spend the evening rearranging our packs one more time in the ample space of our
hostel room .
Saturday morning we got up and drove along Movie Road through the Alabama Hills. Mom wanted a picture of her own of Whitney and the
famous arch. She wasn’t exactly sure where it was but we found it fairly easily… which means she said “pull over here” and I did… she went one way… I went another… and said “Hey Mom.. this sign says we should go this way!” Of course that sign was about 12 inches off the ground and looked like something announcing a water reclamation area or something until you were close enough to actually read the words! So… pictures taken and back in the car for a little more ‘froading before hitting the 395 again.
We go the rest of the way to Mammoth to spend some time wandering and acclimating. Now I have a problem. I develop a serious sinus headache, complete with nausea and everything. This happens to me almost every time I go hiking or camping so I know what it’s all about, but man am I sick. I know it’s not AMS and do my best to troop though it for the day as we do some hiking and driving around at the higher elevations. I finally remember that I don’t have kids I have to worry about with me, and that I don’t have to tough it out. I hand the car keys to Mom and she takes us to our hotel where I pop some sinus meds and promptly take a two hour time out to study the back of my eyelids.
Sunday morning the sinus headache is (thankfully) for the most part gone. We drive up to some of the lakes (Twin Lakes, Lake Mary, Horseshoe Lake) and do some hiking to some of the higher lakes (McLeod Lake and Emerald Lake). I find out fairly early in the day that the lemon/eucalyptus insect repellant just makes me more attractive to the stupid mossies and I end up bitten several times. I switch to Cutter and we basically spend the entire day just wandering around taking pictures of the beautiful flowers and
waterfalls. Can I just say WOW? After spending the day roaming and playing we go back to our hotel to get everything ready for our early morning departure.
Monday morning… we’re up by about 5:00 am so we can hit the road. We stop for gas and a sit down breakfast in Bishop and arrive at the Portal at about 8:30. We carefully disguise our soft sided bags of spare clothes by hiding them on my floorboard and laying the floor mats over them. We put all of the smelly things we had deemed “spare” into the bear box in the overflow parking lot.. and as a final preventative measure, we put rags soaked in PineSol in each of my four wheel wells. There was no way I wanted to get back and discover that a bear had wanted to share my car. Really… if he wants in all he has to do is ask. I’ll open the door and show him there’s nothing of interest in there. Silly bear!!
Ok.. so we’ve (hopefully) bear-proofed my car enough and we grab our packs and poles and head towards the trailhead. I am so enthused and have so much energy at this point. I just can’t believe I’m here… with my Mom. Just her and me.. something for us together that we will always share. We stop at the
trailhead sign and a pair of girls takes our pictures for us, then we return the favor. 10 more steps to the scale. There’s a group of 6 guys (they become known affectionately as “The Guys”) already there weighing their packs and giving each other crap (the youngest was carrying the lightest pack). Their packs ranged from about 29 to 38 or so. Mom and I step up and the guys start laughing and joking about how lame they’ll feel if our packs are heavier. Mom pops hers onto the scale…. 42 lbs. The grins fade off the guys faces… I pop mine on… 43.. the guys say “You girls are studs!”. We all laugh and exchange hiking plans, find out that we all plan on being at Trail Camp for the night and the guys take off at a pretty good clip. We follow more slowly behind them setting our own pace. While Mom’s legs are longer, I tend to set a fast pace so I walk ahead and then stop, wait for her, and start again. She calls them my “jackrabbit starts” and we laugh about it for a bit. We like to take our own time and figure it should take us about 6 hours to trail camp, leaving us plenty of time to stop for breaks along the way. We step off the path for pretty much every hiker coming up or going down and get the chance to chat and exchange information with most of them.
Just before we hit the Carillon Creek crossing we hear a car alarm down in the valley and Mom looks at me and says “Is that yours?”.. I feel very afronted by the very suggestion of such a thing and let her know that if it is, then we’ll have some pissed off campers and a dead battery when we get back down. More laughter and we cross the creek. What an experience! The pack completely changes my center of gravity and I quickly discover that balancing with an extra 43 lbs on my back is going to be an interesting thing for the next couple of days. Thank god for the trekking poles. It was quickly agreed upon that whoever suggested that the poles were a “must have” deserves a 6-pk of beer!!!
We make slow but steady time (about a mile an hour) up to
Lone Pine Lake, where we decide to stop for lunch, check our feet and laze for a few minutes. We strip our shoes and socks off and stand in the cold water for a couple of minutes while using Mom’s UV protective sunglasses to watch the fishies swimming around a couple of feet from our toes. After about 20 minutes or so we pull our shoes and socks back on and get back on the trail. My pack is starting to sit funny on my back and I’m having issues with it fitting properly. Because of the way that I have everything positioned in there, every time I drink more water and my bladder gets smaller, the bear canister shifts, which changes the way the pack is fitting. I fuss continually with the straps trying to get the weight off my shoulders and onto my hips where it is supposed to be.
The hike is beautiful and every turn in the trail reveals a new wonder to study and look at. The warm dusty pine scent of the woods is something that I have always loved and never been able to accurately describe to someone who doesn’t know. There’s a brilliantly colored California Scrub Jay who seems to be following us, and I make Mom laugh when I serenade him with a rendition of “Zippie-doo-dah”. It’s probably a good thing there were no other hikers along the path at that point in time, or they might have shoved me down the mountain just to hush me up!
We had decided before hand that we would use the hour beep on my digital watch to remind us to snack and drink if we hadn’t already. So when we come up over the ridge and the verdant oasis that is
Bighorn Park opens up in front of us, we decide it’s a perfect place to stop for a couple of minutes. The deep, brilliant greens are breath-taking and look like something out of a movie I once saw. We sit down slightly off the trail and I take the time to readjust some of the contents of my pack (i.e. I wanted one of the snickers bars that was in the bear canister). We watched the butterflies while we indulged in the chocolately, caramely, peanuty goodness. It’s about 1300 now and there are some thunderclouds building up that we can see over the ridgelines above us. We take note, watch carefully and continue our happy way to Outpost camp. We stop just after the uphill creek crossing to make some gatorade (we brought a supply of powdered mix in ziplock baggies). Another couple of minutes to drink the gatorade and we’re onward bound. We skip the sidetrip to
Mirror Lake and continue above treeline. Now we begin to encounter the part that I’m really not prepared for in any way… those stupid steps. (By the way… does anyone know who I can file a complaint with? Those steps were not designed for someone as short as I am and I would like to see that fixed before my next trip!
)
I am really starting to slow down now and, while I am still feeling no AMS affects, I am feeling all the extra weight on my back. By the time we reach
Trailside Meadow I am ready to be done. It’s late in the afternoon now and we’re really pushing it to get to Trail Camp before dark. I really start to not remember too horrible much at this point as the exhaustion is really kicking in. Every person we pass informs us that it’s “just another 15 minutes” or “you’re almost there”. I begin to think that the next person who says something about 15 minutes is going to get up close and personal with my hiking pole. Mom keeps asking me if I’m Ok and I keep saying yes. But every time I look up the trail and see another set of granite steps a four-lettered “colorful metaphor” passes my lips. I keep putting one foot in front of another and as we get above Trailside Meadow my body goes onto auto-pilot. There is no conscious thought from brain to feet, they just keep going.. following Mom. I am conscious of the fact that she stops every few steps to make sure that she can still hear my poles tapping along the granite behind her. I am also conscious of the fact that we are both running very low on water (if not empty) and we still have to make camp. I keep running through my head that we can’t stop until we’re close enough to a water source and it becomes a mantra for me “no water no camp, no water no camp”.
We reach Consultation Lake and look down the hill towards it. We discuss it for about 30 seconds before deciding that there is no way we’re going to try to pick our way down to the lake in failing light, in our tired conditions, with our heavy packs. Of course, this means more steps upwards, ever freakin’ upwards. We finally make Trail Camp, 10 full hours into our hike (it’s now 1930), and one of the wonderful Brothers from the Portal greet us, make sure we’re alright and help us find a spot to pitch camp. Mom and I both shed our packs onto a large rock and I take a minute to get my legs back… unfortunately they still don’t want to function. It’s almost like having been on a boat for hours on end… and then you get onto dry land. You’re legs just don’t work properly. I am so beyond complete exhaustion that I don’t know what kept me going at this point. Mom gave me chores to do and I did them. She sent me to the lake to get water and told me either filter it or go to the end by the waterfall and don’t worry about the filter. I decided there was no way on God's green earth that I was walking all the way to the end of the lake and grabbed my filter. I spent the next several minutes deciding that filtering water was one of those jobs that you assign the kids to do so you don't have to! Back to where Mom is setting up the
tent she tells me to start water to boil for dinner.
She had done research on fuels to use at altitude and found a solid fuel called Esbit. It was supposed to boil water in 15 minutes, even at higher altitudes, so we had gotten some of that. She had improvised a very lightweight stove out of hardware cloth and foil, so I assembled that and got the Esbit lite. Sure enough, within 15 minutes or so the water was hot enough to put into our dehydrated meals and make hot chocolate with. We discuss our day and Mom says that she thinks it best if we don’t try for the summit the next day. We discuss our physical conditions, what would need to happen for us to make summit, and jointly decide that we have reached our summit for the journey. I vaguely remember eating… I barely remember finishing my hot chocolate. I got my contacts out and put my sleep clothes on… and promptly lost all consciousness.
The next thing I remember was a little after 5 the next morning. Mom wants me to see the
coloring of the sky in the east… so I raise up in my sleeping bag and wrangle myself to the tent opening. The colors are so deep and saturated. Reds and oranges, and the blue of the sky above it. Mom then tells me to look the other way at the pixie lights to the west. I look towards the mountains and can see all the headlamps of the people working their way up the switchers towards Trail Crest. It really does look like a whole bunch of little pixie lights or fireflies just dancing their merry way higher and higher. However, my body is still screaming for sleep so I lay back down and promptly pass out again. About 6:30 the tent starts to get stuffy from the rising sun and I give up on the sleep thing. Mom and I get up and start to decide what to do. We again discuss our not shooting for the summit and Mom tells me that if I want to try to join one of the other groups leaving camp that she will wait for me. It requires no thought for me what-so-ever. We started this together, we will end it together. For some strange reason there is no sense of loss, and no sense of failure. I am not disappointed that we are not going to the summit.
I go back to the
lake to filter more water and there are a couple of guys sitting there. They are discussing that one of them is not going for the summit and the others eventually leave while I filter water into our bladders. I ask the hiker if he is Ok, wanting to make sure he doesn’t need help or isn’t suffering from AMS. He responds that he is fine, just not in the shape it would take to make summit. We sit there a couple more minutes while I finish the water and he asks when we’re leaving for the Portal. I tell him after awhile and invite him to meander down with us. He accepts and joins Mom and I at camp while we eat and breakdown camp. He helps with the tent and tells us his name is Ron and that he’s there on a day hike and left the portal about 2AM. I pawn as much of our spare food off on a group of three service men (affectionately referred to as “The Marines”) by telling them that whatever they don’t take I have to hump back down the hill. They happily oblige by taking about half of what we had left and I thank them profusely.
We finally get camp completely tore down and make sure that we have everything totally cleaned up. The packs go back on and we put Whitney, Trail Crest and the Needles to our back without too much regret and, for me, without a second thought.
We set a leisurely pace for our downhill descent and make decent time. The millions of granite steps are a whole new kind of torture going downhill; thankfully they are on fairly fresh legs instead of the completely shot ones from the night before and are soon back at
Trailside Meadow.
Ron makes a nice traveling companion and (unbeknownst to me at the time) watches carefully my every move. He apologizes on more then one occasion for not being able to offer to carry one of our packs, but freely admits that he wouldn’t be able to carry the weight that either of us is. Mom tells me later that each time she looked back to make sure I was doing Ok on a particularly icky part of the trail or a stream crossing that Ron was right behind me with a hand reached out to steady me if need be. He did, at one point, save me from a nice swim when I lost my balance on a creek crossing and he grabbed hold of my pack to keep me upright.
We stop occasionally for Gatorade or a snack but are all tired and ready to be done. Somewhere around Bighorn Park I feel something pull in the back of my left knee. As we continue to walk the pain begins to travel down the back of my calf and eventually into the arch of my foot. It makes for tedious traveling and I begin to get concerned.
About the Lone Pine Lake juncture we run into a group of people going up. When we greet them with the hellos they (almost jokingly) ask if we have duct tape with us… Mom and I had both wrapped tape around our poles before leaving. One of the girls in their group has a disintegrating shoe and even this early in has already taped it together. We give them all the tape that we have and wish them good luck. (If anyone knows if she made it I’d be interested to know. Her shoe looked in real bad shape.)
We get over the
log creek crossing and start for the final push downhill. Mom sets our estimated arrival time at the Portal for 5:00 PM and we keep moving. We’re all tired and Ron, Mom and I start joking with each other about ways to improve the ascent/descent from the Trail Camp area. Chair lift? Monorail? Pack animals anyone?
We hit the Carrillon Creek crossing and Mom says “3/10 of a mile left”… I don’t think either Ron or I believed her! We continue to trudge, my poles are talking to me now… the left one says “Almost” the right one says “There”… Almost… There… Almost… There… Almost… There… I’m watching my feet and talking over my shoulder with Ron when something Mom does catches my attention. Some small movement or a noise or something. I look up to where she is in front of me and she’s gesturing in front of her… I look past her down the trail and immediately recognize MooseTracks (AKA Laura) from the board basically sprinting up the path. We waylay her, introduce ourselves by our first names, and talk for a few minutes. She informs us that she’s “Just stretching her legs” to Lone Pine Lake and that if we grab a burger at the Portal she’ll be along shortly to join us. We are THRILLED!!!! So.. with a new buoyancy to our steps, we make our way the rest of the way down the trail, completely thrilled to be back at the Portal.
Mom and I stop and weigh our packs, hers lost 7 lbs and mine lost 9 along the trail. We go directly to the Portal Store where we order cheeseburgers, fries and sodas. About the time that our order is up, the Guys come off the trail and we greet them. Mom grabs our food and I can’t believe how huge the burgers are but I dive in with gusto. Ron sits with us while he waits for the rest of his party to come down and we all sit there, relax and visit. After about 20 minutes there is a whooping from the area of the main trail and we look over to see a couple of younger girls running off the trail. We come to find out later that the sisters, Sierra and Iris, had just finished 21 days on the JMT. The Guys come over after awhile and we spend some time talking and find out that they are three brothers from different states, a nephew and two friends. They seem like real nice guys and we have a good conversation with them.
Laura arrives and comes over to join Ron, Mom and I at the table where we were sitting and we immediately fall into conversation… just like old
friends. We tell Laura what our handles are on the boards and she recognizes our names. Doug Sr. brings us out a plate of fries so Laura “doesn’t have to eat alone” and we spend until well after dark and the closing of the store sitting there talking. Ron’s group finally comes off the mountain and we part ways with him, thanking him for joining us on the hike down. Eventually it turns out that “the sisters” and one other hiker need a ride into Lone Pine so Laura takes “the sisters” and we take the other girl to her hotel.
We get to the hostel about 9:45 or so and check into our room. Just as we’ve finally settled in and are dozing off the door opens and someone comes in. Not really unexpected as this is a hostel, what was unexpected was it turned out to be the sisters. We talk with them for a few minutes and then everyone settles into bed.
Up the next morning, breakfast for Mom and I and then on the road for the drive home. Our families are happy to see us a day earlier then planned and we are glad to be back in our own beds, but sad to leave the Sierra behind.
Lessons from one first timer to another:
1. The mossies are the size of red-tailed hawks.
2. There are ants the size of St. Bernards.
3. No matter how much training you do, you will not know if you’re prepared until you’re actually there doing it.
4. No one else will ever understand unless they’ve been there and done it, no matter how hard you try to explain.
5. Each person has their own personal summit, and it’s not always the actual top of the mountain.
6. Each step you take is one step further then you’ve ever been before.
