PART
TWO: ASCENT
You Are Here
I
sprang awake right when the beeping began. There weren't any mental
cobwebs to clear. I was alert with an adrenaline edge. I had a list
for The Morning Of, and I'd placed it right next to my head before
I fell asleep. First on the list after getting dressed was to take
a picture of what you see below.
No sleep 'til…
After
a careful check of the car for bear damage – and a visual check of
the area with a flashlight – it was time to empty the bear locker
of all the food and drink I'd be taking on the hike. Twelve energy
bars, ten apples, five liters of water, a roast beef and swiss cheese
sandwich for the peak dining experience, two Starbucks Doubleshots
(one of which I downed immediately), and a bag of dried teriyaki beef
cubes. The toiletries would stay in the bear locker even though I
was vacating the campsite. The accepted procedure was to leave a
note indicating the time of return, and all was well just so long
as it was the same day. I wrote 8:30 PM, which was just before nightfall
on the second longest day of the year.
Next
were the clothes. I was going for four total layers: a t-shirt, a
long-sleeve flannel, a long-sleeve hooded pullover, and a thin button-down
hooded sweatshirt. It was cold, maybe 45 degrees, and so I started
off wearing everything but the hooded pullover.
In
addition to the backpack, which had a waterpack inside for easy drinking
via a tube that came around near my mouth, I strapped on two waist
packs. One was for the CD Walkman, the other was for a small fanny-pack's
worth of easy-to-reach items: camera, film, cell phone, emergency
whistle.
Finally,
the accessories: the hat, the headlight, and the hiking sticks. By
the time it was all done – and I'd had my obsessive-compulsive ten
final checks of everything – it was 4:30 AM, and I looked like this.
Seconds before the journey begins, I model the latest
in hiking accessories.
When
I drove up to the trailhead, I found a group of around twenty folks,
mostly my age, exchanging pleasantries and taking the requisite "before"
pictures. (One was kind enough to take the one you see above.) I
asked them if they were all together. Four were in one group, twelve
in another, and maybe there were two additional pairs or so. I was
the only one going "alone," though I could see that I wouldn't
truly be alone for any long stretch of time. We talked briefly about
how crazy we all were. Then we left as one big group.
It
was still dark, but the sunlight was glowing behind the eastern ridge
of the Owens Valley. Call me a silly ProgHead, but I chose Yes' Relayer
to start the morning off, and I didn't regret it. Especially not
with vistas like these as accompaniment.
Thirty minutes before sunrise. Roger Dean would approve.
The
trail began a steady ascent, switching back mildly on the front side
of the range we were about to enter. The group began separating a
bit, with some people stopping more often than others for water, or
to adjust their gear. Everything in my system was working fine.
The headlight was giving me plenty vision on the dark trail. The
music was just loud enough not to overwhelm the surroundings. My
feet and legs felt good. My heart rate was steady. I made sure to
suck on the water tube at regular intervals. A smile began creeping
across my face. This is it, we're really doing this.
When
the sun broke through, the visuals changed in an instant. The time
elapsed between the two photos shown below was less than two minutes.
Before and after: two different worlds, two minutes
apart.
Relayer
was suddenly over, which meant that forty-five minutes had passed.
I removed the headlight from my forehead, but I kept hiking for another
ten minutes before I felt like stopping to change the CD. By that
time, the early morning sun had changed the trail temperature by at
least fifteen degrees, and I felt the long-sleeve flannel – my bottom
layer – soaking through with sweat. Odd, I thought, especially considering
I hadn't yet felt aerobically challenged. I had just stopped to take
off that piece of clothing and change CD's when I saw an old lady
coming down the trail, approaching in an oversized brown dress of
sorts. Her white hair was flying out in every direction and she had
very bad teeth. Wildlife and various animal situations I'd been prepared
for. This I wasn't sure about.
The
Old Lady Of The Mountain rambled on about having met a guy on the
trail and spending the night with him, which was more than enough
information for me not to ask her any more questions. I did manage
to get her to take a picture of me, just after I got one of her.
Then I bolted up the trail, grateful to have survived my first encounter
with a natural – or, unnatural as it was – inhabitant of the land.
Separated
at birth?
*
* * * *
The
first true landmark of the Mount Whitney Trail comes two-and-a-half
miles in, at Lone Pine Lake. It actually splits off from the main
trail and requires a short, steep descent to reach it, but it's well
worth it. This was exactly the kind of scenic detour I'd promised
myself I wouldn't forget to take in.
This
would be the first time I really stopped, sat down, took off the pack
and ate something substantial. I planted myself on a log and downed
an energy bar and an apple, plenty of water, and a beef cube or two.
Another layer of clothing came off, leaving me with just a t-shirt.
It had gotten hot out.
I
pulled out the map to check the elevation. It was 9,850 feet, a mere
150 feet from my highest ever climb. Everything felt fine. Head,
arms, legs, lungs, all systems OK. And no one else was down at the
lake with me. Though you can't see it in the picture below due to
direct sunlight, beyond the lake was a steep dropoff and an amazing
view of the entire Owens Valley. It was a perfect moment.
Lone Pine
Lake, elevation 9,850 feet. Current population of one.
I
put Edie Brickell's Ghost Of A Dog (one of my fave outdoor
CD's) into the walkman and began the short climb back up to the main
trail. A few spots required large steps up onto successive boulders,
and it was on one of them that I felt what I'd been afraid of all
week. My left knee flinched and went wobbly. I defaulted to the
left side of my upper body, pulling my weight down onto the hiking
stick strapped onto my left wrist, and I watched the spring-loaded
portion of the stick compress down to the limit. After balancing
myself with my right hand on the boulder in front of me, I stopped
and cursed myself.
So
this was the way it would be. Five months of training, and my knee
was already compromised with over nine miles of climbing to go, not
to mention the eleven miles on the way back. Fine, I said to myself,
fine. I'll just lean on the sticks more than I have in the past.
I'll make it work.
That's
exactly what I did, and though my physical rhythm changed somewhat,
it did work. I was fortunate that the next mile only climbed five
hundred feet, because it gave me a chance to work my left upper body
into the new rhythm, as well as provide a comfortable hike with a
stunning backdrop in celebration of me breaking the 10,000-foot barrier.
I was now officially in uncharted territory.
This was
standard visual fare on the way from Lone Pine Lake to Outpost Camp.
I
began to notice another change in my body, this one potentially more
unpleasant than the knee pain. My stomach was churning unhappily.
I thought back to the day before. The Big Pancake and such. Had
I gone to the bathroom since then? The answer was no. This wasn't
unusual. My system tends to slow down when in unfamiliar territory.
I wasn't in any pain or anything, but the trail was a bad place to
be if things were to become really dicey in that respect. You notice
little things about your body when you're really counting on it to
deliver. You're also reminded of your body's weaknesses, whether
you like it nor not. I couldn't honestly say that I'd trained for
this particular challenge. Again, I told myself that whatever happened,
I would just make it work.
Soon
I found myself walking past a series of tents. This was Outpost Camp,
one of two designated campsites along the Mount Whitney Trail. It
was still pretty early, maybe eight or eight-thirty, but everyone
at the site seemed awake and in breakfast mode. This was three-and-a-half
miles in, with an elevation of 10,365 feet. I could see the value
in getting up this far and camping out in anticipation of a Whitney
summit the following day, or even the day after. The area was gorgeous,
just sublime. It ran alongside a stream and even had a solar toilet
nearby. The place was too inviting not to stop at, and I rested just
enough to do a self-check. The knee hadn't gotten any better, but
it hadn't gotten any worse either. Little tweaks aside, all systems
were still go. I ate another energy bar and another apple and moved
onto Mirror Lake, only a half-mile ahead.
Mirror Lake, shot from the trail as it climbs sharply
above it.
The
trail began flexing its muscles just as it left Mirror Lake, climbing
rapidly in a series of short rocky switchbacks alongside what began
looking like an outtake from The Blue Lagoon. Pretty soon I was looking
down on not only Mirror Lake, but the tree line as well. Brush was
giving way to rock, rock, and more rock. I leaned hard on the sticks
and sucked down a lot of water as the trail turned above and away
from the lake, into an area called Trailside Meadow. I checked the
map. The elevation had suddenly crashed through the 11,000 foot mark
– by 400 feet.
I
stopped a couple of times for food, drink and just plain rest around
this area. It was open enough to look back down and see various groups
of people either hiking or resting. I could tell that not just the
day-hikers were on the trail now; a good thirty or forty more folks
had spent the night at Outpost Camp and were now on the case after
a good night's sleep. But a lot of them were still huffing it pretty
severely. I felt fine, even invigorated.
Above the tree line, near Trailside Meadow. Elevation:
11,395 feet. Five miles down, six to go.
Some
quick calculations showed that I'd just climbed 1,000 feet in barely
over a mile. I was 1,500 feet above anything I'd hiked before, but
the hiking sticks, along with Michael Landau's Live 2000 CD,
were making it feel almost routine. I'd stopped and sat down to eat
an apple when the first sign of something really strange hit me.
It was a self-inflicted wound.
Now,
it's not my intention to make this reading a blow-by-blow of intestinal
disorder, but it's a part of the story and to skip over it would be
dishonest on some level. That disclaimer said…the gas I was producing
was nothing short of frightening. The wind was blowing in every direction
and you couldn't ask for more open space, and still whatever I was
doing was penetrating the air enough to make not just an impact, but
a severe one. I began having to measure the wind direction and look
around to see if anyone was in harm's way. It plain scared me. I
joked to myself that if this was the worst side effect of the elevation,
I'd take it. Whether or not my fellow hikers would force me off the
trail was another matter entirely.
Five energy bars, four apples, and one Whitney Pancake Sandwich later:
Things get interesting for Your Humble Narrator when nature refuses
to call.
The
climbing continued. The trail wasn't yet brutal, but it was relentless
in its steady ascent towards what looked like an impenetrable wall
of rock. It was hard to see where the trail could possibly go next,
but I didn't think about that too much as I kept on keeping on. Another
mile of stunning rocky vistas was soon behind me, and the landscape
opened up into a snow-laced, lakeside campsite. I broke out the map.
This was Trail Camp. I was officially past the halfway point, standing
at 12,000 feet. It hit me. 12,000 feet!
Consultation Lake, the water source for Trail Camp.
Elevation: 12,000 feet.
The
temperature suddenly dropped. I stopped at a meadow where ten other
hikers were resting, all of whom were talking about the 99 switchbacks.
"Is this Trail Camp?" said one.
"Has
to be. There's no marker, though."
I
noticed the landmark while shoving my arms back into my hooded, button-down
sweatshirt. "Yeah, it is. That's the solar toilet over there.
They said it's by the last water source, which is at Trail Camp."
The
first guy spoke directly to me. "So the 99 switchbacks must
be right around here somewhere. Maybe they go right up that huge
thing right there." He pointed at an impossibly steep mountain
face. I couldn't see the trail. I was preoccupied with the solar
toilet.
My
stomach distress hadn't gotten any better. I really wanted to do
something about it, but my system just plain refused, as one might
say, to go there. I knew damned well that sooner or later this was
going to stop being funny and become a serious problem, but there
was nothing I could do about it. A new kind of Zen to master, to
be sure.
Last chance for….
I
also made another important decision at Trail Camp. I still had a
little less than half my initial water supply of five liters on my
back. This was the last reliable water source before the peak, which
was still five miles away. I had a water filter in my pack, and I
could easily have gotten it out and topped off my supply. But I still
felt very strong internally, and I was passing the test for hydration
– I was "peeing clear" or close to it – and so I chose not
to do it.
The
99 switchbacks. I'd heard about it, I'd read about it, and I'd
asked about it back at the campground. This would be the biggest
physical challenge of the entire hike, and maybe of my entire life.
This was what I'd trained for. 1,600 feet of elevation gain in just
over two miles, from 12,000 to 13,600 feet. Just thinking about it
got my adrenaline going again, and it wasn't long before I strapped
on the pack and went for it.
*
* * * *
There
was some debate over exactly how many switchbacks there were. Some
said 99, others insisted 100, 101, or even 103. I was going to settle
it in my own mind, at least. I would count them all and keep track.
The
first ten were short and steep. Some were only twenty or thirty paces
long before they curled around in the opposite direction. I could
feel the impact pretty quickly, and I dug my wrists hard into the
hiking sticks, using every muscle in my upper body to reduce the impact
on my legs, and especially on my weak left knee. I could feel it
throbbing a little bit, but it was a dull pain. Nothing I couldn't
live with.
Looking down a couple hundred feet on the first ten
of the infamous 99 switchbacks.
Eleven
through twenty were longer. There was no level ground in this section
whatsoever. Only the severity of the grade varied. I was stopping
every few switchbacks for water, and to calm my heart rate down if
I felt it was getting out of hand. For the first time in several
miles, I felt real sweat on my back.
I
could look down ten switchbacks or so at a time and see people really
struggling. Some, incredibly, were carrying only a tiny bit of water
in a plastic jug. I passed a couple of these poor folks, and offered
them water more than once. They all declined. What they were doing
that far up with only a half-empty, hand-carried liter of water I
had no idea.
The
next ten switchbacks were much longer. I had a couple of terrifying
gaseous explosions, stuff you can't even describe in print. But I
was still burning calories at an astronomical rate, and I had to keep
eating and drinking to stay on top of things. Somewhere around switchback
#40, I stopped caring about who was behind me and who wasn't. I can
only apologize in retrospect to those adversely affected.
All
the while, I never got so caught up in charging ahead that I didn't
stop to look around and take pictures. This was the real Zen exercise
of the trip, and nothing pleased me more than knowing I was still
in control of my pace. Everything felt right to me, so much so that
the steep, icy dropoffs on switchback #46 – complete with scary-looking
cabled railings – didn't phase me a bit.
The 46th switchback, an icy, perilous hike
alongside a sharp cliffside dropoff.
It
started getting harder after #50. Longer, steeper stretches were
becoming discouragingly regular fare. My pace slowed, and I accepted
it. There was no need to push too hard. The ultimate test of my
new philosophy came when a 65-year-old man came up behind me and passed
me on the trail. I could hardly believe my eyes, and I insisted that
he stop just long enough for me to take a picture of him. It was
his third time, he said. His secret: biking near Lake Arrowhead a
couple of times a week. I took the shot and rested some more while
he continued on. In less than a minute, he was well out of my sight.
That's one bad-ass 65-year-old guy right there, ladies
and gentlemen.
I
resumed climbing a few minutes later. My body was laboring now, but
not in any extreme kind of way. I could still track the count of
the switchbacks, which was becoming a good mental self-check. The
numbers began running into each other. 58…67…70…84….
Somewhere
in the eighties, my knee twitched badly. I nearly buckled before
I was able to shift all my weight to my right side. There wasn't
pain so much as there was weakness. I rested and flexed the knee
as best I could. All I could do was let my wrists, arms, chest and
lats pick up the slack. My fingers dug deep into the grips on the
hiking sticks as I plowed on into the nineties.
They
lasted forever. As best as I could figure, each one was as
long as ten of the average switchbacks in the thirties combined.
Was I just losing track of distance? I counted strides: ten, twenty,
thirty, forty, fifty. No, they really were longer. I knew I was
above 13,000 feet. I had to be.
I'm
pretty sure it was on the 96th switchback that I saw the
sign. From a distance of a hundred, maybe two hundred feet, I could
very clearly make out a sign on the trail. It was a trail map, a
large rectangular sign with an oval-shaped black line around the outside
of it. Inside the oval were lots of smaller black lines, which I
figured to be smaller trails. In the upper left hand corner of the
sign, in large black lettering, were three words: "You Are Here."
But there wasn't any indication of where "Here" was on the
map. There wasn't any red dot, or thicker line pointing to any one
spot on the oval. Just "You Are Here."
It
motivated me to climb faster. Maybe this was Trail Crest, the supposed
end of the switchbacks, and there's really only ninety-six. Hadn't
someone said that there were only ninety-six?
The
sign got larger as I got closer. It was planted just before a sharp
curve around the mountainside. The ridge trail, the one that led
to the Whitney summit, was probably just around the corner. I wondered
where I was on the oval.
Suddenly
I was upon it. I was standing still in the middle of the trail, staring
at a big, blank, white, rectangular rock.
Uh,
that didn't really just happen…did it?
It
was too freaky to think about. I just kept going.
You
Are Here.
Switchback
#96 continued. At long last, after seven-plus surprisingly stress-free
miles, the labor was getting to me. I was working hard, stopping
frequently, having to wait for my heart rate to slow down before interrupting
my breathing pattern to take a drink of water.
Numbers
97 and 98 came and went. I was on #99 as far as I knew. This
should be it.
A
long song on Disc 2 of the Michael Landau CD, "Johnny Swing,"
began. It was a ten minute track. Surely I'd reach Trail Crest before
it ended. Right?
Wrong.
I was fairly confident I wasn't hallucinating about the distance of
this switchback. It was twice as long as any one before it. It never
switched back. It just kept going, curving slowly around towards
a jagged line of rocky peaks that always seemed only a minute away,
but cruelly continued on beyond any reasonable measure. The song
ended, and still I couldn't see the end of it.
My
shoulders were starting to burn. I feared another left knee buckle,
reaching further inside myself to crank another few strides out of
my upper body. I wasn't in danger of physical collapse by any means,
but I knew damned well I was working hard. And stopping was now only
providing temporary relief. Mentally, I just had to finish this section
of the trail.
And
then, out of nowhere, it opened up and ran into a junction with another
trail, exposing a large wooden sign that read "Trail Crest: 13,600
feet" carved in thick, black lettering. I touched it. It was
real. I sighed relief.
Trail Crest, elevation 13,600 feet. You can see the 99th
switchback behind me, ending exactly where I'm standing.
Beyond
it was a gaping maw of landscape, a view of The Great Western Divide
so expansive it defied logic. The 99 switchbacks were over. The
pain disappeared, giving way to defiant exultation. I stripped off
my pack and sweatshirt, and had one of the four folks resting at the
junction take a picture of me, reveling in my moment of penultimate
success. I was eight miles in, and had just under three to go to
the summit. More importantly, I had less than 1,000 feet of elevation
left to climb. The hard part was surely over.
The
wind was howling, and I knew I needed to get my sweatshirt and a third
layer of clothing back on in a hurry. A craving for an apple hit
me at full force. Both items required me to open up my pack, which
was sitting on the ground. I reached for the zipper and fumbled it.
Confused, I tried again, but still it slipped between my fingers.
They wouldn't curl.
It
was at that moment that I realized I could no longer feel my hands.
*
* * * *
They
weren't just numb. They had swollen to cartoonish proportions. They
were pink, with some fingers going on red. The skin was dry, scaly
and cracking, with white lines appearing on the knuckles, like someone
had poured talcum powder on a raw slab of meat.
I
slapped my hand against my thigh and only my leg registered the impact.
I slammed my two hands together and felt a dull sensation…on my forearms.
And now every part of my body was cold, and colder with each passing
second.
Getting
the pack open was more important now. I forced my fingers into position
on the zipper, focused as best I could, and pushed it along the top
of the pack until, finally, I could get inside with my wrist. It
was warmer inside the pack, and two minutes later my hands were grateful,
thawing slightly at the very tips. Soon afterwards my three layers
were wrapped tightly around my body and I was crunching away at an
apple, taking in the absurd view and trying to figure out what the
hell had just happened.
The Great Western Divide, a stunning backdrop to a
potentially serious situation.
As
best as I could figure, I'd been leaning on the sticks too hard, and
the wrist straps had slowly cut off the circulation to my hands during
my ascent of the 99 switchbacks. This was a terrible development,
for without the sticks I'd be counting on my left knee to share 50%
of the burden from here on out. But I was clearheaded enough to remember
that I make part of my living with my hands, and what I saw in them
scared the hell out of me. They would have to go out of commission
and stay tucked into pockets until they felt normal again – or felt
anything again. I took a long rest, over fifteen minutes, before
saddling back up for the remainder of the hike: a two-and-a-half-mile
walk along a jagged ridge 14,000 feet high, with 1,000-foot dropoffs
on both sides of the trail.
When
I stood up, something else went wrong. My head began to throb. This
too was part of my medical history, another weakness exposed. When
I was younger I used to get migraines so severe I took Tylenol with
Codeine just to get through them. As an adult, two extra-strength
Tylenols and a nap usually did the trick. Up here on the ridge trail,
the Tylenol alone would have to do. I downed three and put my headphones
back in place on my ears, but when I restarted the music, the pain
inside my head jumped to the threshold point. The CD Walkman was
going to have to go. No hiking sticks, no music. And my stomach
was still a toxic fume-spewing disaster, but I'd accepted this as
a fact of life by now.
The
Inyo and Sequoia National Forests border each other at Trail Crest,
and I headed down the steep 300-foot decline that signified the entering
of Sequoia. The ridge trail felt like it lived in a different universe
than the one I'd been hiking through all day long. Snow patches dotted
the jagged orange rocks, wind howled around the passes, and people
– there were other people up there – were moving much more slowly
than before.
The home stretch: Sequoia National Forest's border,
leaving Trail Crest for the Whitney summit.
But
as slowly as they were going, I was going slower. Instantly my left
knee began acting up. I began the process of moving gingerly to compensate,
but I soon grew frustrated and angry. Fuck it, I growled to
myself. I'm hiking this fucking thing. I'll worry about my knee
later.
The
first two minutes brought pain, enough to inspire grunts on every
other step. But soon it subsided into a dull sensation. I knew something
was going on there, but I was working it hard enough to keep it from
tightening up at the very least. It just ended up feeling hot.
One
thing I could be thankful for was the weather, which was perfect considering
where I was. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. There would be no
sudden afternoon storm on this day. My gratitude increased when I
spotted a sign that read as follows:
