Warning: There are parts of this story that some might find just plain gross, specifically (but not limited to) Part Three. Read at your own risk, especially while eating.

PART ONE: BEFORE
The Mind Of A Peak Bagger

When the call came through on my cell phone and the display read "Katy's Cell," I had a feeling something was wrong. She was supposed to have been on her way to a client's West L.A. apartment, and I was en route to a solo lunch, my newspaper riding shotgun, my empty stomach eagerly anticipating an oversized filet of blackened salmon. Her voice had a trace of panic in it as she told me where her '91 Dodge Shadow was broken down: on the right shoulder of a steep uphill grade of California's Antelope Valley Freeway, a.k.a. "the 14." I knew the spot. It was a bad one. The salmon would have to wait.

The Webmistress Katy Towell had been staying at my place for the past two weeks while she looked for an apartment and a roommate. Fiercely independent, she wasn't one to accept favors, even from friends, but things had been working out well since her arrival on my couch. She had landed a job at SWR, owned her own payment-free car, and was getting acquainted with various neighborhoods in Los Angeles. But as I approached her vehicle, I could see that her normally relaxed body language was all out of whack. And with good reason - her car was just barely out of the right lane, a stream of oil from underneath her engine was pouring down the shoulder, and semis were whipping by, much too close for comfort.

"I'm going to come up behind you with my car," I shouted over the freeway noise, "and push your car to the right. Get in, and get ready to put it in neutral and steer." 

She did, and I went back to my car, which was parked twenty feet behind hers. I started it up and began inching uphill, aiming to nestle it behind the rear bumper. Then I saw her car drifting backwards. Something was wrong. Her body was flailing around in the driver's seat. Her car was gaining speed. I threw mine in reverse but it was too late; the sound of a collision came next.

I backed up my 2001 Toyota Rav4 and reparked it so I could survey the damage. Aside from a small bumper scratch and a bent license plate, nothing. Katy exited her car in a panic, explaining how the brakes wouldn't work, how the emergency brake wouldn't catch, how the gears were stuck, how sorry she was. No harm, no foul, I said, though I silently ruled out any further attempts at using my car as a battering ram. No, I was going to push it further over to the right myself. After all, AAA Emergency Roadside Service was already on the way. But now her car was even closer to sticking out into the right lane, and it had to be moved immediately. 

She got back into the driver's seat and, on my cue, threw the car back into neutral. I dug in my heels and leveraged my arms and shoulders to the limit, expecting instant results. Instead, I came up against a brick wall. A gear was somehow not allowing the car to move forward. The harder I pushed, the more the car lifted up. Ten seconds later, I paused to rest. One second after that, the car began rolling again.  Backwards, towards me, diagonally into traffic. No more than five feet stood between her car and the right lane, and I was standing there, splitting the difference. 

I began shouting wildly at Katy to step on the brakes, or throw it in park, but she couldn't hear me over the freeway noise. The car was nearly at my knees before I took a panicked step back, dug in again, and subsequently slipped on the oil patch beneath her car. Cars were coming up the hill. Quickly. 

Adrenaline took over as I put my head down, opened my stance to an uncomfortable width to avoid the oil slick, and pushed up with everything I had. I got it moving a little, maybe halfway back to where it started, before I felt my leg strength going. I then bent my knees, held fast, and turned around so that I could push backwards against the car with the full strength of my lower body. Five complete strides later, the car was in about the same position as when I'd arrived. It would go no further forward. But it wouldn't stand still. So I bent down and leaned back against it, holding it in place, legs shaking, while I looked down the hill for any sign of a tow truck. I did have the presence of mind to tell Katy to get out of the car, as she was only adding extra weight. 

But the 2,000 or so pounds took a heavy toll with each successive minute, and by the time the truck arrived and I finally walked away from the vehicle, I felt something that made my stomach bottom out. My left knee was weak, tingly and twitching, worse than it had been in months. Those who drove by the Golden Valley Road exit of the 14 that Saturday afternoon were treated to a bizarre sight: a brown sedan oozing oil while being hauled up onto a flatbed tow truck; a slight, pale-skinned girl wearing a black, Union Jack-emblazoned rocker t-shirt and blue jeans, with long blonde hair blowing in every direction, holding her head in her hands to keep the tears out of sight; and a goateed, thirty-something man in a t-shirt and Bermuda shorts, sitting in the gravel on the freeway shoulder, doing a series of calisthenics. 

* * * * *

Mount Whitney, which at 14,497 feet qualifies it as the tallest peak in the lower forty-eight states, had always intrigued me. The most oft-hiked trail in the country, the Mount Whitney Trail was eleven miles of utterly doable uphill hiking for anyone in very good shape or better. There were no death-defying feats to pull off, like scaling the rock-embedded cables that led to the peak at Half Dome. Sure, I'd made it up to the top anyway, but that was four years ago, and even then, at a spry twenty-seven, I was a twitching tricep away from it having been my last act on Earth. That was a dare. This would just be a hike. 

I continued comparing and rationalizing. Half Dome was an eighteen-mile roundtrip; this would be twenty-two. Half Dome contained an elevation gain of roughly 4,000 feet; this would be 6,000 feet. Half Dome was about thirteen hours; this would be sixteen or more. Crucially, Half Dome's peak sat at under 9,000 feet, while Whitney's was…higher. But no potentially fatal stunts, and it could still be done in one day. For someone who had no interest in camping, and just wanted to test himself in a one-of-kind setting, it seemed like the ultimate challenge. 

And I was looking for one. A steady diet of fruits, vegetables, energy bars, Subway Veggie Delight sandwiches (insert Jared joke here), and regular, vigorous aerobic workouts had dropped me from 203 pounds in January down to 185 by late April. Six more laser-focused weeks of training and I would be a lean, mean, mountain-devouring hiking machine. I was about to turn thirty-one. The schedule was clear until early July. All I had to do was make it a list item. Do laundry. Take car in for service. Write column for Bass Player. Hike Mt. Whitney. 

In early May, I officially took it on by submitting to the mind-numbing process of obtaining a permit for such an activity. The date would be Saturday, June 22, pretty much the longest day of the year. (I had no desire to hike in the dark for any longer than necessary.) Once I realized I'd signed on for it, I resolved to myself that, after it was over, I'd be able to make one more comparison: Half Dome, with its fearsome final ascent and shin-punishing descent, had taken me by surprise, while Whitney, thanks to my utter preparedness, had not. 

* * * * *

The most popular way to do Whitney, I learned through web research, was to hike a few miles up the trail and camp for the night. This allowed for more time to enjoy the spectacular scenery, a better chance to acclimate to the 10,000-plus foot elevation, and a far less brutal daily mileage. When I told my Mountain Guru - a Whitney veteran and experienced outdoorsman named Griff Peters - about my plans to day-hike it instead, he cast a disapproving light. In a subtly damning tone usually reserved for teachers and parents, he called me a "peak bagger." I knew what he meant, but it registered as a challenge to train even harder, so as not to be so exhausted that I couldn't pull it off and enjoy it at the same time. He gave me the best advice he could, and I kept it in the back of my head as I picked up a new day-hiker's backpack at a local sporting goods store - Camelbak's "Peak Bagger" model, the top of the line. 

That wasn't all I got. I worked a list of over twenty items, including a mini-halogen headlight (for pre-dawn/dusk hiking), a pair of shock-mounted hiking sticks (to give my legs some extra security), a water filter (to deal with bacteria in stream water), an electrically inflatable air mattress (for the very best in car camping comfort; the last thing I wanted to worry about was breaking down a tent), a 12V-car-lighter-to-120V power converter (to inflate said air mattress)…the salesman had a smile on his face as I wheeled my shopping cart out the door. 

None of that would mean anything if I wasn't in peak physical condition. Back in July of 2001, something very bad happened to my left knee while I was working out on a treadmill. X-rays and an M.R.I. turned up nothing, but whatever it was, it seemed there to stay. It made running, rollerblading and stairclimbing a fond, distant memory, so I found new ways to sweat. I bought a bike and pushed the pedals all over the mountainous backroads of northern Los Angeles county. I put together a scrappy little fifteen minute sit-up and push-up routine. The real revelation, however, was happening on the elliptical machine at the gym every morning before work. The arms-and-legs motion, though I didn't know it at the time, was remarkably similar to hiking while using the shock-mounted sticks, and it built up my aerobic capacity to well beyond respectable levels. Each one-hour routine burned 800 calories, drenched me in sweat, didn't impact my knee, and got my whole body into the act. I'd become one with this machine during the six week buildup to June 22, something I only realized when a muscle-bound gym rat came up to me in the locker room and announced, "It's the freak."

"What do you mean?" I said, nervously. 

He laughed, the skin lines on his biceps tightening with each guffaw. "I mean you, on that machine every morning. You're fucking nuts!" 

The little macho dickhead in me flexed his oh-so-capable lungs, but I acted embarrassed anyway and complimented his fine form on the incline press. These things happen in men’s locker rooms across the country. 

But in truth, I wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed, and I didn’t feel unhealthy or fanatical about it. After two practice hikes – one of which was fifteen miles, topping out at 10,000 feet – and months of steady training, I peaked in an effortless, painless, thoroughly satisfying Saturday morning workout exactly one week before Hike Day. The official weight was 177, the best in six years. I set out to celebrate with a piece of blackened salmon and ended up on the side of the highway instead. 

* * * * * 

After we got the car towed, Katy and I went out to eat together. She was mortified at the thought of having anything to do with injuring me, but of course it wasn’t her fault at all. Besides, something inside me knew it was all feeling too easy. In a sick kind of way, I half-expected a freakish event to occur. It was the universe’s way of adding an extra challenge, I reasoned, one that I couldn’t possible prepare for, because it’s not just about preparation. Nothing ever is. And if this was the only obstacle left, I could deal with that. Just pay careful attention to form during the last three workouts – and spend ample time in the Jacuzzi every night – and that would be that. Besides, I had the hiking sticks to lean on if things got rough. 

Meanwhile, my home office was becoming a shrine to hiking supplies. One by one, I crossed items off of The Whitney List and stacked them up around my desk. No item was too small: travel clock, bug spray, aspirin, camera, sun hat, chapstick, emergency blanket, whistle…and paperwork. With the number of forms I had to have in hand, you’d think I was going to collect on a life insurance policy. I suppose it was for a good cause; they were limiting the number of people who could day-hike the Mt. Whitney Trail on any one day. I thought, how many self-driven psychos out there chose June 22 to do their twenty-two-mile, 6,000-foot hike like I did? Hopefully not too many, but the thought of others out there with me provided comfort. After all, I was going alone. 

The good news was that I had all my supplies lined up and ready to go a day before I left. The bad news was the state of my knee. My final three workouts – which should have been triumphant cruises on the elliptical machine, with the Rocky theme blaring in my head as I figuratively sprinted up those steps in downtown Philly – sucked the wrong end of the donkey, and each one more so than the previous. Strangely, the weakness in my left leg was affecting my aerobic performance. But at that point, I didn’t care. I had no intentions of postponing anything. 

Quite the contrary. I was already readjusting my sleeping schedule. On Wednesday, June 19, I woke up at 6:15 AM. The next day, it was 5:30 AM. By Friday, the day before Hike Day, I was up and about at 5:00 AM sharp, on the road with a car full of supplies by half-past, and watching the sunrise by six. The Mojave desert, a place I’d visited more times than I could count, never looked as inviting as it did that morning. The Whitney Portal Campground was only 150 miles away. I’d be there by eight, leaving twenty-one hours to relax, prepare, acclimate, and wonder how I’d be feeling at 11,000, 13,000, and 14,497 feet. 

* * * * *

Lone Pine, CA, at an elevation of about 3,500 feet, is at once both comforting and disquieting. It's hot and flat, with a desert climate averaging well over eighty-five degrees during summer. Small hotels, gift shops, fast food restaurants and gas stations dot the mile-long strip of downtown, but it doesn't feel like a tourist-driven abomination. The term quaint still applies. However, there's a menacing undercurrent, one which doesn't derive its power from its inhabitants, or even its transients. It comes in the form of the High Sierras, whose snowy peaks loom over the dry, dusty town as incongruously as icicles over a stove. 

For a Whitney hiker, it serves as the "last chance before…." I bounced back and forth along the strip at 8:30 that morning, stopping at the Ranger Station to pick up the official permit; reserving my room at the Dow Villa Hotel (complete with in-room Jacuzzi for post-hike physical meltdown); picking up ice and cold goods (namely Starbucks Doubleshots – the last thing I needed on the trail was a lack-of-caffeine headache); going through my pack and supplies, triple-checking everything I could imagine. I was hungry, but several folks told me that the best breakfast wasn't even in town – it was up at the Whitney Portal Store at the campground. Something about a big pancake. I took their word for it and held out. It was 10:00 before I finally set off for the thirteen-mile drive up to the Whitney Portal Campground, elevation 8,360 feet. The act of doing so exposed the daunting fact that there was nothing more I had to do but eat, sleep and hike. 

Whitney Portal Road is a damned thing to behold. It twists and turns through an otherworldly landscape known as the Alabama Hills, a set of bizarrely constructed rock piles, before setting on a fairly straight shot for the foothills of Mount Whitney. The vistas change dramatically as you draw closer to the mountains, seeming more and more massive until suddenly they overwhelm you, and you're a part of them, looking back down on the road, the hills, and the Owens Valley. In other words, there's plenty of time to think about what you're getting yourself into. 

One of the better turns on Whitney Portal Road, before the steep ascent begins.

Six miles later, the road stares down on itself, the Alabama Hills (those short brown mounds in the foreground), Lone Pine (the mid-right side of the shot), and the Owens Valley.

Once you enter the Whitney Portal Recreation Area and Family Campground, signs about bears are everywhere. These hungry animals, you're warned repeatedly, will go after any scented item in your car. Bear lockers are scattered throughout the area, and I quickly began deducing in my head what would have to go in there and when. Food (duh), toiletries (us humans like to smell nice), water bottles and coolers (they've learned to recognize these items on sight, I'm told), you name it. OK, fine. A small price to pay for entering an area as beautiful as this. 

Home base for the next 18 hours, site #19 at the Whitney Portal Campground

The stories I heard from the other campers about four very large bears crawling around the campsite the previous night was all the extra motivation I needed to sort the scentables out and get them into the bear locker quickly. The whole process made me remember that I was hungry, and so I drove the half-mile up to the Whitney Portal Store to discover for myself The Legend of the Big Pancake.

The Whitney Portal Store. Outdoor seating available.

The menu was short. Pancakes. Eggs and sausage. Pancake sandwich (pancake with eggs and sausage). Burger. Fries. Nothing over six bucks. I'm not a big pancake guy, but there was no way I could not get a pancake sandwich. Rationalizing it as some sadistic form of carbo-loading, I ordered one. Now when you look at the picture below, you have to have some sense of scale. The eggs and sausage on the left are sitting on a full-size paper plate. The pancake to the right is sitting on three such plates. Note how it swallows the plastic silverware whole, like pins in a cushion. 

The Whitney Portal Pancake Sandwich. Total cost: five bucks. Gastrointestinal impact: priceless. Objects on multiple paper plates are larger than they appear.

You're probably wondering if I finished it. More like it finished me.

I was sitting on the deck of the Whitney Portal Store, trying to figure out what I'd just done to myself, when I felt something wet on my arm. I looked up. A swarm of dark clouds had just appeared practically out of nowhere. Large drops began falling all around me. A minute later it was a full-blown thunderstorm. I checked the time. It was just after noon. From what I'd read about the trail, day-hikers who'd left at 4:30 AM were probably a mile or two away from the summit…and completely screwed. It was probably snowing like crazy up there. They'd have to turn around. This had happened to me once before, back in 1997 on my first attempt to climb Half Dome. The possibility of getting rained out three-quarters of the way into the hike was so depressing I could barely even consider it. It made me tired, and so I drove back down to the campground and fell asleep to the sound of rain pounding on the roof of the car. 

* * * * * 

When I woke up it was four in the afternoon. Everything was wet and sunny, with little water puddles reflecting bright sunlight in every direction. I was rested, maybe a little too much so. I needed to be awake in twelve hours. Maybe a short practice hike would drain me just enough to sleep through the night. 

Thanks to the sudden rain, the bubbling brooks around the campground were now loudly flowing streams. A small trail ran alongside the water, all the way up to the Whitney Portal Store and back. I broke out the hiking sticks, packed the camera, and gave my lungs a little tryout at 8,000 feet. 

Creekside views on the small trail between the campground and the store, made livelier by the recent downpour.

I didn't know if it was my off-kilter sleeping schedule or what, but my heart rate shot up pretty quickly, and my legs felt the impact sooner than I'd hoped. Then again, there wasn't any adrenaline rush in hiking a mile-long nature trail. And so what anyway; it was beautiful. I kept reminding myself: this isn't a race. I'll make it to the top tomorrow - you're damned right you will, my inner drill sergeant barked - but I'm going to stop and take all the pictures I want, take all the rest stops I want, take in all the sights I want. This is going to be about more than just making it to the top. It can be, thanks to my training. At least, it should be. 

As I was attempting to force Zen upon myself, the trail opened up at the parking lot just in front of the Mount Whitney Trailhead. Talk about well-marked – you could practically drive a truck up the first fifty feet. There was three times as much signage here as there was in downtown Lone Pine to mark the turnoff for the road to get here. It all looked so…official. People start here and they either make it or they don't. My mind raced everywhere, from aspiration to trepidation, anticipation to fear, success to failure. Maybe it would be easier to take in the spiritual aspects of it all once I'd reached the top. Perhaps then I'd be more than just a "peak bagger" on holiday. But until then…. 

For the Mount Whitney day-hiker, it all starts and ends right here. One way or the other.

Stop it, I told myself. Five months of training was either going to pay off or not in less than twelve hours. Either way I was going to go up that trail. What the hell good was worrying about it going to do now? I'll find my own mental place in it all soon enough, I thought, no matter how it all turns out. 

Once you make it up, that is, you lazy, cowardly, whimpering son of a…. 

I walked over to a pond. Men and boys had fishing lines cast all around it. It must have been well stocked, for how else to explain this kid scoring as mightily as he did? 

Opie lives.