Turns out that the Sierras don’t have a lot of cellphone service. Or places to charge your smartphone. I’m going to be catching up on posts a little at a time, and I’m figuring out a new phone charging strategy, so more to come. 

Day 53
Miles: 16
From mile 775 to Kearsarge Pass Trail
June 23, 2014

Another leisurely morning for all three of us. Bluesman said he didn’t sleep at all at Guitar Lake, but I think he got a solid twelve last night. We’re in no rush. We’re about five miles out from Forester Pass, and we’d like to hit it around 10 or eleven, when the morning ice has softened, but the snow hasn’t turned all the way to mush yet. None of us brought micro-spikes or ice axes with us. It was a low snow year and we’re not hitting the passes early – from what we hear, our trail runners and trekking poles should work fine for the current conditions, but we’ll find out soon.

We climb up onto a plateau above the timberline pretty quickly. There’s a jagged ridge in front of us, and we spend some time trying to figure out which notch in it is forester pass. “I think it’s that one over there,” J shows, pointing to a talus covered slope.
“Nah, I think it’s this notch directly in front of us, with the tongue of snow. I think I see the trail leading up to it – that line in the rock face doesn’t match the rest of the jointing pattern.”
“I don’t know… guess we’ll find out.”

We have to do our first route-finding across a few patches of snow – hardly counts, but it’s exciting to be walking in snow. It makes me feel tougher. As we approach the wall of rock, we can see that the line going up the cliff was indeed the trail. “Nice to have Whitney for perspective,” observes Bluesman. “Doesn’t seem like such a big deal now.”

It’s really not bad. I’m feeling surprisingly good this morning, tough and resilient. A little skinny, maybe. I wish I had a belt. But my skinny butt takes on Forester with hardly a sweat. There’s no snow on the south side of the pass, and we pop up for a fabulous view. It’s a granite wonderland, and rocky wasteland, rock and snow and ice and bright blue lakes with ice, all around us. “That mountain looks fake, like a kindergartner drew it,” says Bluesman, pointing to a perfectly triangular mountain on the ridge above the pass. In the midday sun it looks totally flat, like a paper cut-out. This entire area looks more like ideas of mountains than real mountains – a fantastic idealization out of stone. “Man, look at that blue lake!” I chime in, pointing to an especially blue one.
“It tastes like Blue Raspberry,” deadpans J. “That’s where Gatorade gets their flavors from.
“Ha! I’d always wondered what the heck Glacial Frost was!”

The north side of Forester pass has some small snow fields – nothing substantial, but still something we have to deal with. There are rocks poking out of it, but J sits down to try a glissade. He lives a long butt-chute in the snow, and skirts down at least 30 feet of elevation in a minute. I’m skeptical, but I look at Bluesman trying to pick his way down on boulders and give it a shot.

“WOOHOO! Yeah! Wow!” I laugh and laugh going down. The snow is just mushy enough to keep from going to fast, and no rocks pop up to break my buttocks. “I think that was the most fun I’ve had the entire hike,” I say, satisfied, butt soaked.
“That’s a glacial bidet,” informs Bluesman, who saw the success of the glissades and did his own buttslide down to the bottom.

We finish picking our way through snowpatches and eat lunch beside a big blue lake. The trail continues on, next to a fabulous snowmelt cascade called Bubb’s Creek. “What’s the deal with these names,” declares Bluesman. “This has to be the prettiest creek I ever saw. Bubbs better have been one helluva guy.” The valley opens up to a textbook glacial valley, sharp peaks curving down into a gentle, curved valley, full of trees. “I think we’ve made it to the promised land,” I wonder. Can you overdose on beauty? It’s so overwhelming it’s heady. All three of us have packed our camera drives full of photo after photo of steep granite slopes, snow fields, pine valleys, rushing creeks. It’s like living in a magazine, or some other place too good to be true.

A traverse of the magical valley takes us to the trail to Kearsarge Pass. This is our exit. Time to resupply. Some JMT hikers have told us that there are trail angels at the Onion Valley trailhead, but that’s another 8 miles from the exit from the PCT, and it doesn’t look like we’ll make it. We catch up with Bluesman sitting by a little blue lake, surrounded by perfect peaks. The mosquitoes which suddenly appeared in the valley, and have been plaguing us every time we stop, are mostly absent from a light breeze. “I vote we stop here,” Bluesman says, “who’s with me?” and he shoves his hand in the air. It’s only 5pm, an early stop for us, but we didn’t come out here to just rocket past all the pretty places. Sometimes we have to stop and just wonder at them.

We set up camp, talk, relax. J takes his rod and catches us five brook trout for dinner, his fly rod waving like a magic wand, conjuring up trout. The sunset is perfect. Life is perfect. I’m glad I decided to do this. I love this trail, this life. I feel like my life was dipped in gold, sprinkled with diamonds, spritzed with holy water, then given back to me.

I’m one of the lucky ones.

Resupply tomorrow.

Day 52
Miles: 16.5
Mt Whitney to the Tyndall Ford
June 22, 2014

I get a little sleep, although it seems like as soon as I drift off, Bluesman can’t sleep and he starts rattling things around. I think he’s cooking. J’s snuggled me in to keep me warm, and I try to drift back off. Bluesman wakes us up: “I think it’s getting light out.” He goes outside to check it out – “It’s almost dawn.”

I get up and put on my shoes. I’m not going to be on top of Mt. Whitney for the dawn, then just miss it because I don’t want to be cold. Man! It’s cold out here. The clouds of last night have cleared, and the dawn breaks cold and clear and pink. It’s a quieter event than the sunset gala that was given to us last night, but beautiful. Katsumi puffs up to the summit – he started at 2am and then missed the sunrise by just 15 minutes. Bummer. (There’s no way I would have gotten up from my sleeping bag at 2am, in the cold, to go anywhere.)

As soon as the blush wears off, I charge back into the summit shelter and start packing up. I’m not spending another moment up here that I don’t have to – relief awaits me at 11,000 feet. Bluesman has just fallen asleep, but he’s going to have to get up anyway. “Oh, man, I don’t think I slept at all last night,” he complains.
“Let’s go!” I urge. I hustle J and Bluesman and we start the hike down at 6:30am. I’ve been on top of Mt Whitney for 12 hours. Time to go! Time to go! (Before we can go, I have to blow my guts out one more time. My quadruple-bagged grocery sacks must weigh three pounds.) We start downhill – thank goodness, it’s all downhill. I’m as dizzy as yesterday, and panting on the descent, all wrung out. Once again, I just focus on the trail. Bluesman walks behind, pep-talking me the entire way. “Gizmo, I’m so proud of you. Gizmo, you really put it out there, let’s just get down and get some rest. Gizmo, that was some amazing effort, let’s just get downhill.”

It helps.

We pass hordes and hordes of hikers going uphill – I think there were thirty people sleeping at Guitar Lake last night – but there is no one at Guitar Lake now except for fat little marmots and brazen chipmunks. I’m dangerously dehydrated, so I make a liter and a half of tea, drink the whole thing. I blow up my air mattress, strip down to my pink long johns, and fall asleep. J covers my feet with some clothes so I don’t sunburn them, and I sleep and sleep. Every hour or so I squint my eyes open, to see the granite spires, the blue lake, the white ridges of snow. “If I must feel bad,” I think once again. “I’m glad it’s here.”

Five hours at Guitar Lake and I’m somewhat revived. I’m exhausted and starved, but still too nauseated to eat. Bluesman moved on already. He pep-talked us before he left, encouraging us to go another ten more miles today, but you can tell he didn’t think we’d make it. I think we might though – let’s see how it goes.

We go down to Crabtree meadows, another 1000 feet lower, and I feel a little bit better. I’m as unsteady as a newborn foal, but I can finally eat a little.

We head back out on the PCT. We have to go back up to 11,000 feet two more times, but slow and steady we make it. The big, high plateaus we cross are above timberline, and they look like the surface of the moon, if the surface of the moon was rolling with fat, furry marmots. I adore the marmots. I know they can be pests for hikers, but that seems more like our failing than theirs. The look like tiny, fat bears when they walk, but they mostly scamper, bellies rolling.

Dropping off the plateau one last time takes us down to Tyndall ford. Hallelujah, we made it. There’s a bear box here for campers, and someone has camped directly next to it – someone in a small, yellow bivy. We’ve caught up with Bluesman.

“What kind of jerk camps right next to the bear box,” I joke loudly. Bluesman appears, disoriented and exhausted. “Oh no! You were asleep!”
“You caught up with me,” he mumbles. “I can’t believe you made it. I’m glad you guys made it.” Then he talks incoherently for a bit.
“Bluesman, go back to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Ok,” he mumbles, then disappears into his bivy again.

Looks like we’re back on track. We’ll climb Forester Pass tomorrow morning, then cross into King’s Canyon national park, out of Sequoia. Forester Pass is 13,200 feet, the highest official point on the PCT. Hope that goes well…

Day 51
Miles: 15
Rock Creek camp to the summit of Mt. Whitney
June 21, 2014

We all sleep in this morning. J was drooling over the creek last night, looking at the golden trout swimming around, so when we wake up I tell him to get out there – I’ll pack up camp this morning. I pack up slowly, making breakfast like I’ve got nowhere to be, while Teal and Bluesman do the same. Yesterday was more of a push than it seemed – normally I wake up feeling like a brand new day, but today feels like it’s picking up right where the last one ended, with a few too many miles on my feet.

J comes back with a little golden trout gasping in his hands. “Should I keep it?” he asks. “This is the biggest one I’ve caught – they’re all pretty small.”
“Doesn’t seem worth it to just keep one, if they’re that size,” I say, looking down at the little guy. I was hoping for some fresh fish, but it doesn’t look like today. At least I know that J can actually catch fish. All he’s brought is the top two sections of his fly rod, his line, and some flies – leaving the rest of his rod and reel at home. After a month and a half of lipton pasta sides and freeze-dried food, something fresh and real is mouth-watering.

We head out at 10:30 – no alpine start for our summit expedition. It’s summer solstice today, the longest day of the year, so we have few extra minutes to get up top before sunset. Up, up, up over the ridge, then down a bit to Crabtree meadows and the side trail to Whitney. Crabtree meadows is soft, green, lush – the greenest thing I’ve seen in years, probably. There’s a good film of high clouds in the sky today, and sundogs rainbowing around the sun. They make us a little nervous for the climb, but we split off from Teal and start the 9 miles to the top.

We’ve only made it a mile when I start feeling bad. I’m exhausted, but this is different. There’s a latrine there, by the ranger station, and I visit it, then turn around and visit it again, then half a mile down the trail I visit some pines… My gut is a mess and I’m nauseated. “J, I feel bad. I think the elevation is getting to me.”
“Oh man. Are you ok?”
“I feel bad, but think I can make the push,” I tell him. “If things don’t get worse…”
“Do you think it’s elevation sickness or a stomach bug?”
“I think it’s elevation sickness. I’ve had it before, and this is what it felt like – exactly like a stomach bug. So I guess it might be a stomach bug.”
“Keep me updated,” says J.
“Don’t get too far ahead,” I request.
“Sure.”

I feel bad, but I don’t feel worse, so we keep going. At Guitar Lake, 5 miles from the summit, we water up and cache our bear canisters. Between off-loading the bear canister, three days of food, and part of the tent, my pack feels like it’s full of helium. “So this is what it feels like to be an ultralighter!”
“This feels great,” agrees J. He carries up three liters, I only take two – I’m carrying as little as possible – I want to make it to the top. Bluesman leads the way and we start the climb.

Switch, back, switch, back, switch, back. My head is spinning, so I ignore the scenery and focus on the trail – the drop-off is nothing I’m interested in experiencing. My legs are like machines as long as I don’t stop – step, step, step. The cute cirrus clouds of the morning are looking heavier, and I spot some low, puffy ones. Dangerous ones. “We might have to turn right around at the top and come down,” I think. “I probably shouldn’t be here – I don’t have enough gas for that – I’m too tired.” Without J and Bluesman I would definitely turn around, but they’ve both got mountaineering experience, and I trust them if I end up needing help. Step, step, step – across the ridge now, with window views across the entire basin and range to the east. A couple snow patches, and one last long traverse and we’re there. We’re here! The summit! I can’t believe that the 360 degree view can be so much better than what we had half a mile back, but it’s amazing. Mountains forever, north, south, east, west. Trees to the west, desert to the east, spires and ridges and icy blue lakes below. I feel drunk on the thin air, dizzy, slurring my speech. “I can’t believe I made it!” I yell.
“I knew you had it,” says Bluesman. “I knew you had it in you.”

There are a few other people up there – day hikers – but they leave to get down before dark, and the three of us have the entire summit to ourselves. “The Lord is my shepherd!” declares Bluesman. “And He knows what I want! That’s how it goes, right?” he grins wickedly.
“Mm, something like that. Pretty close, probably,” I grin back.

There’s a summit shelter up on top, built by the Smithsonian. It’s locked up except for one small room the perfect size for three hikers to sleep. The clouds are looking suspect, but it seems like they are passing to the east, so we are probably safe up top. We put on every single layer of clothing we have and go back out to watch the sunset.

It looks like the clouds of Mordor, orange and red, big billowing masses across the mountains all around us. I’m an Arizona kid, and I’ve seen my share of unspeakably beautiful sunsets, but I think this one is in the running for at least top five. Wow. I feel so bad, but I’m so glad I’m here. I’m glad I made it. I’m glad I’m so strong, both body and heart, to get to spend midsummer’s night on the highest mountain in the lower 48, with J and with Bluesman.

A lone figure appears on the horizon, and it turns out to be Kentucky, another thru-hiker. In general, I don’t approve of trail names that are just the name of the state you’re from, but in Kentucky’s case, it works. He couldn’t be more Kentucky if he tried. “I hiked 21 and a half miles to get up here by sunset,” he drawls. “With the elevation, I figure that’s like a double-double.”
“21 and a half??” I ask, impressed.
“Yeah, I really wanted to get up here for the first day of summer.”
“You made it, buddy.”
“Yeah, I did,” says Kentucky, pleased.

The light fades and we huddle back into the summit shelter. There’s room for Kentucky, and we invite him over and over, but he insists that he’ll sleep outside, in one of the bivy sites with some wind shelter. He does sit down for a while though, to change into warmer clothes. “I think I’m going to have to get out at Kearsarge Pass,” says Kentucky. “I’m almost out of Kool-Aid.”
“Kool-Aid?” asks Bluesman, bemused.
“I drink pounds of that s###,” replies Kentucky, totally serious. “I’m running low and I’m feeling it, I need more sugar, I’m going to start crashing.”

Kentucky goes out to set up his bivy, and we tuck ourselves in for the night. “Kool-Aid,” says Blueman, still bemused. “Kool-Aid!”
“Must be his power food,” I say.

I feel bad. My muscles are full of grated metal, my joints are exploding with pain, and my insides are not ok. “I feel bad,” I tell Bluesman and Dirtnap, in their sleeping bags on either side of me. “I feel real bad.” I writhe in discomfort, shaking with cold and exhaustion. J snores softly and Bluesman drops off. I think I could sleep if I could just stop shaking. Hours and hours and I feel bad! I finally can’t take it anymore and go outside and blow out my bowels. It helps a little, but not much, and I shuffle my own excrement into a grocery sack I brought with me. I pace around outside, just agonizingly miserable, and J comes out with some water for me. “My mom gets elevation sickness every time she goes over 8,000 feet,” he tells me, “then she pukes and she feels better.”
“If I could puke I think I would,” I reply, “but I can’t. I’m glad you didn’t come out a few minutes earlier,” I add.
“I waited until I heard you whimpering, then I figured it was safe.” I’m kind of pathetic right now.

He gives me some pepto, then I finally lose it, and vomit in front of the hut. Over and over until there is nothing left, and I’m totally empty – empty of everything, of pain, of energy. I sob from exhaustion there in front of the pool of puke, on the top of Mt Whitney, on my knees, under a billion blazing stars. They’re the most magnificent stars I’ve ever seen.

I scoop my vomit up with the rest of my excrement – not looking forward to packing that out – but you can’t leave your crap on the top of Mt. Whitney. I drink what’s left of our water and go inside. “Are you ok?” asks Bluesman.
“Yeah, just puked my guts out.”
“I know – I could hear you.”

He could hear everything – I realize I don’t have much dignity left. “We can go down right now,” says Bluesman. “If you need to get down, we’ll get you down.”
“I think I’m ok now. I’d rather wait till morning than do this in the dark.”
“The dark’s not a problem if you need to get down.”
“No, I’m ok.” I am ok, ok enough. I lay down, and I relax and drift off. I hope morning comes soon.