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Thankfully, I made it back to the trailhead without incident and ahead of the rest of my party I was afraid of holding-up.  My knee held together fine, the weather was nice, the trail in good condition, and it was an exhilarating walk down the mountain with my pack.  I quickly disposed of my trash, made some adjustments in my gear, purchased mementos for each of us who had made it to the summit of the highest peak in the continental United States, and used the first toilet I had seen in three days.

One would think that would end the trip, but it did not.  First, we had to drive back into town to return our rented bear canisters.  While we were there, we could plainly see in the distance the forecasted storm was blowing in and had already enveloped the very top of Mount Whitney—where we had camped and then hiked to the summit from.  Anyone who had not reached the summit yet that day was not going to make it and the camping conditions had to be brutal up there in that storm.  We learned later the storm brought snow and ice to the upper part of the mountain as we were returning those canisters.

This was the day our original permit would have had us heading for the summit.  Had we not taken a chance in pushing for the summit a day ahead of schedule and then been lucky enough to get our permit changed at the eleventh hour, we might not have made it to the summit and the experience would have been far more harrowing for us.  The weather forecast was correct this time and our response to it days earlier helped make this adventure possible.

We then drove to a famous roadside restaurant up in Bishop for a hearty late lunch and headed home.  We had discovered, during all our training hikes, that the quickest route, so long as were driving through at non-peak hours, from Sacramento to Mount Whitney, is through Yosemite National Park.  We were looking forward to cutting through that scenic park again on our drive home.  However, when we reached the Tioga Pass Gate, the ranger was kind enough to inform us that a fire was burning in the park and they had to close the road to through traffic.  We were welcome to drive into the park as far as the road was open, but we would be forced to wait an undetermined amount of time once we got close to the fire.

Our group elected to turn back around and head back to Mono Lake to take a much longer route home, but be able to keep moving.  We witnessed some beautiful scenery, listened to some great music in the car, and talked about the adventure we were completing together.  Although it was not the plan, it was the perfect way to end the journey together.  As with all good trips, it was sad when it ended, but it was also good to get home.  I miss my wife and kids when I go backpacking, but I absolutely love coming home to them.  Not sure what the next backpacking trip is going to be.  The season is done now for those of us who don’t backpack in the snow.  Permits and reservations will start going quick in a few more months.  Hopefully, something good will come together for 2012.

I guess I can Blog now on other topics again…

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As is my practice whenever I go camping, I had done some of the prep work of organizing and packing before heading to bed on the last night of the trip.  Therefore, once I was up and moving in the morning, it did not take long to get camp broken down and loaded into my backpack.  As I had wanted, it looked like I was going to get about a half hour head start on the rest of my group.  Hopefully, my bad knee would behave itself on the way down the mountain, but that half hour of buffer would help make sure I was not slowing anyone down. ed from prior post…

The last thing I packed was a plastic trash bag that contained all the waste from the trip.  I lashed it horizontally to the lower outside portion of my pack.  On one end was a sealed Ziploc bag with the packaging and other waste from all my meals.  On the other end was the sealed WAG Bag containing the portions of my meals my body was unable to use.  This arrangement would make it easy upon reaching the trailhead later in the day.  I could quickly unlash the outer bag and then place the two inner bags into the proper receptacles for the different kinds of waste.  I also felt better about having these bags on the outside of my pack in case there was a leak during the journey to the bottom.

The trip back down the mountain to the trailhead that morning was relatively uneventful.  The day-hikers were already coming through the camp when I left shortly after sunrise and many more were right behind them on the trail.  In addition, there were a number of other backpackers heading down the trail at the same time as me at varying rates of speed.  Toward the bottom of the trail, I also started meeting up with the backpackers who were hoping to reach our campsite that afternoon.

The problem was, by this point on the trail, the weaknesses in my horizontal lashing job became quite apparent.  While the outer trash bag was still secured well, the inner bags had each escaped the lashings and were now dangling out opposite sides of the lashing job and were hitting the back of my legs as I took strides down the trail.  Although this was not a huge issue in and of itself, the psychology of knowing one of the things striking the back of my leg every few seconds was a bag of my own excrement was a bit disturbing.  I just hoped the sealed bag was holding tight.

To be continued…

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Now that our bodies had some time to recover from the physical punishment of the day and we each had a warm meal in our bellies, it was time for sleep.  We each did a little work before fully retiring—getting our things cleaned-up and beginning the organization process that would help us the next morning.  Then, I climbed into my tent and sleeping bag for some rest.  Much like the prior night, the temperatures were forecasted to get down into the 30’s.  And our tent arrangement really gave us a lesson in air movement.

As I noted in a prior Blog post, the wind would blow through camp at night in such a way it sounded like somebody was walking right by my tent.  Further adding to the illusion, our tents were arranged under a rock ledge in precisely the path the cold wind would follow as it fell to lower altitudes from the high mountain looming above us.  This caused the wind to ruffle my tent’s rain-fly first.  A second later, I could hear it moving the outer shell of my neighbor’s tent and then his neighbor’s tent.  It was a cycle that repeated itself all throughout the night.  The cold air above us on the melting snow and ice would swoop down the mountain in waves and rush through camp on its way to lower elevations below.  It would have been pleasant white noise to sleep by, except for the fact it sounded like a person walking by the edge of our tents when it happened.

Trail Camp was on a small plateau surrounded on three sides by large mountains that collected the cool air and sent it rushing through camp on its way to escape on the fourth side to lower ground.  It was quite a lesson on physics for all of us.  When I would go outside to admire the stars and take care of some biological needs in the middle of the night, it made all the sense in the world and was actually quite amazing to experience.  But once I was sealed back up inside my bag and tent, it became an odd phenomenon that kept waking me up as my brain kept telling me there was someone walking by the tent within inches of me.  It was quite the odd phenomenon.

Ultimately, despite my natural body clock being set for later, I was awake at dawn the next morning.  Much like our summit day, I was a bit apprehensive about the knee I had injured on our training hikes and not wanting to hold up our group on the way down.  Therefore, I wanted to try and get out in front of everyone.  It was still quite cold at that hour, but I was up and working in short order.  I heated up some water for tea and breakfast and started the process of getting everything repacked to ride down the mountain on my back.

To be continued…

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As I opened the small package of freeze-dried ice cream that had been riding in my friend’s backpack the last few days, something became painfully obvious to me that should have been clear long before I opened the package.  Freeze-dried ice cream, unlike other freeze-dried products, is not reconstituted for consumption by adding water and mixing it in a little pouch.  Instead, the dry chalky bits of Neapolitan ice cream, sans any trace of H20, are simply placed in the consumer’s mouth and reconstituted with saliva, before passing down the throat in a form that ever so vaguely reminds the taster of the named ice cream flavor.  I guess this is what it is like to be an astronaut—eating freeze-dried food in the wilderness of space.

I cannot say the ice cream was unpleasant, but it was completely different than what we typically experience when consuming ice cream and was certainly different than what I had expected.  When the bites first enter your mouth, they have the consistency of light-weight chalk.  Not very appetizing.  In fact, just picture a wad of Lucky Charms Cereal Dried Marshmallows without all the sugar and milk on them and you will get the picture.  But, as your saliva slowly goes to work on the bite, it begins to taste more like gritty room temperature ice cream.  This still does not sound too appealing.  But when you are out in the wilderness living on trail mix and reconstituted lasagna bits, it is an interesting variable to the diet and menu of options.  I expect it would be much the same for astronauts in the wilderness of outer space for days at a time.

As we sat there in the starlight enjoying this delicacy, a guy came stumbling up the trail and into Trail Camp.  He was a backpacker who got a late start on the day.  Now he was arriving after dark and would have to find a camp site and set-up his tent and gear for the cold evening in what was already becoming low temperatures.  This was exactly the situation we tried to avoid by pushing hard up the mountain on our first day.  It is no fun to try and set-up things in the dark and in the cold and have all the good sites already taken by those who had arrived earlier in the day.  We pointed out the areas where we thought there were still some sites left as his buddy came up the trail behind him.  I did not envy their position.

As for our group, we wrapped up our bonding conversation shortly thereafter, cleaned-up our dinner dishes, and retired for the night, where we would again get a lesson in cold mountain air wind currents.

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Yes, unfortunately, the picture that was part of the last post was the last image ever captured by my friend’s camera.  He was kneeling at the edge of a small inlet into the lake, pumping out fresh water.  When he stood up, the camera dropped into the water.  We were able to retrieve the images from the memory card, but the camera could not be revived.  We hoped that would be our only casualty on this trip.

Although it was tempting for me to continue sitting there by the stream, enjoying the moment in solitude, I knew there was still work to be done and it was getting colder by the minute as the darkness took over the small canyon where we were camping.  So I made my way back to the camp site where my two friends were each already preparing their dinner.  I did the same.  It was another night of freeze-dried fare reconstituted with hot water.  But it really did not matter what it was.  There is some unquantifiable and not easily understood law of nature that anything eaten outdoors tastes much better than it would under any other circumstances—especially if you are camping.  I am not sure why that is, but it almost always proves to be true.  The only exception I have found, thus far, is freeze-dried eggs.  Disgusting no matter where you are!

Given the fact this would be our final night on the trail, one of my friends brought along freeze-dried ice cream of all of us to enjoy after dinner.  I had heard of such a thing before, but was never brave enough to try it.  That evening, we all sat in a circle next to our tents and ate our dinners.  We talked about the accomplishment, how we were feeling, some of what we had observed during the day, the plan for tomorrow, and just how great it was to be sitting a day’s hike from the nearest road, eating hot food under the stars just after accomplishing our main goal for the trip.  It was just a great moment of three guys bonding in the great outdoors.  Good stuff!

Once our main food had been consumed, we each moved on to the small package of freeze-dried ice cream we had been given.  The package indicated no preparation was necessary.  We were to simply open the plastic pouch and enjoy the ice cream that had been sitting inside of a Wal-Mart for who knows how long and then packed up the mountain in my friend’s backpack.  It did not make sense to me.  How could this be ice cream?

To be continued…

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With my body feeling better from the short rest, I set out to pump and filter some water from the nearby lake for meals and personal hydration.  One thing that was interesting to observe here was the fact everyone just seemed to filter their water out of the closest spot to camp.  It did not matter if you were a day-hiker or a backpacker.  Almost everyone went to the edge of the small lake closest to the trail and to camp.  This would make sense except the fact that the lake was being fed by snow melt coming down into the lake on the other side.  That melting snow filled the lake on the far side and then also emptied into a stream on the far side.  So, there was fresh moving water to be had on the far side of the lake.

On the closer side, the water was nearly stagnant and growing moss and had plenty of particulate matter floating in it.  It was still perfectly good water to filter and drink, but it seemed like the freshest and cleanest water you could possibly get on the mountain was available for just a few more steps of effort.  Why was no one choosing to take them or perhaps even noticing the opportunity?  The three days we were on the mountain, my group was the only one that walked to where the snow melt was flowing into the lake to replenish our supplies of water.  I found this curious.

On this particular evening, though, the exercise of filtering water—something that takes some physical effort—was remarkably peaceful and relaxing.  I was the only one on the far side of the lake.  My two friends had pumped their water out while I was resting in my tent.  The sun was setting behind the mountains.  The faint sounds of the water flowing across rocks rushing to lower elevations could be heard.  There was the sound of a slight breeze picking up.  My body was fatigued, but satisfied from just having climbed to the highest point in the continental United States.  Across the lake could be seen a few other backpackers quietly cooking their dinners and otherwise getting ready for the evening on the mountain.  It was kind of a surreal moment for me as I thought about where I was and what I was doing.

After pumping and filtering my needed supply of water, I actually sat back and just enjoyed the moment.  I reflected on the experience, on the location, on the “soundscape”, on God’s amazing creation, on the people I was on this amazing journey with, on my wonderful family back at home allowing me to take this adventure and have this experience, on this very special spot in the wilderness where I was sitting and just soaking in the moment, on the containers of fresh mountain stream water I now had sitting at my side, on our bodies’ ability to bounce back quickly from the demands of the day, and just the incredible gift we have to just experience life and creation.  It was one of those moments where you feel incredibly close to God.

I had no idea I was going to experience this when I did the short hike to pump and filter the water I would need for the next 24 hours.  As I sat there, I wished I had brought my camera with me on this short hike to memorialize the scene.  Little did I know one of my friends had snapped a picture from this spot an hour earlier when he was hear pumping his water—just seconds before dropping his camera in the mountain stream.

To be continued…

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As I started down, I was again struck by the amazing view afforded of the eastern edge of Sequoia National Park—a view only available from this short stretch of trail near the summit of Mount Whitney.  The clouds passing overhead seemed close enough to touch as they just barely cleared the summit of this great mountain.  Other than the sound of my footsteps on the trail below me clicking off the steps back to camp, there was no other sound, except for the occasional breeze passing by my ears.  And, other than the trail, there was nothing manmade as far as the eye could see.  God’s creation is an amazing thing when we can get out to enjoy it.

Although my body was definitely feeling the strain of the morning’s push up to the summit, I was making fairly good time on my way back to Trail Crest, which is where the real down-hill push would begin.  Most of the elevation change on the trail today was the leg between Trail Camp and Trail Crest.  Due to the switchbacks, 97 of them, it did not seem quite as steep and perilous as the 2 trails that had caused me all the problems during my training for this adventure.  But it was still a lot of downhill in a very short period of time to test my healed knees.  Fortunately, my body stood up to the punishment until the last couple of miles.  At that point, I was starting to feel the twinges in my knees that were the early warning signs for problems ahead and my energy level was also dragging.  This is the point in the day when I started getting passed on the trail—including by one of the members in my group who had started back 30 minutes later than I did.

Fortunately, the twinges never developed into anything worse—possibly because of my slowed pace.  But I still staggered into camp and collapsed with absolutely no appetite to eat anything.  I knew I needed to, but wanted nothing at the moment.  I actually forced down a couple of handfuls of trail mix and some water, not knowing how I would be doing later in the evening and then collapsed in my tent to let my body rest and recuperate for a bit.  When I pulled off my socks in the tent, I found two of the largest blisters I had ever experienced in my life.  The push to the summit and back had definitely taken its toll.  I tended to these foot wounds as best I was able and was grateful they were not worse—although I was not sure what worse would look like.  I lay down and just enjoyed the exercise of being still for a while.  The sun was still up high enough to keep things warm and comfortable in the tent.

That changed quickly, however, as soon as the sun dipped behind the mountains we had just climbed.  As the temperature started to drop and the winds picked up again, I was feeling much better and was getting a second wind to be able to address a few things.  The first order of business was to go filter more water.  I was down to my last few sips and wanted to filter enough to get me through dinner and breakfast and the hike down the mountain the next day.  I grabbed all of my containers and my filter and headed toward the nearby lake to begin the process.

To be continued…

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I was arriving at the summit at rush hour.  Whether you are doing Whitney as an extreme day hike or as part of a three day backpacking trip, the standard itinerary would have you on the summit around lunch-time—or very shortly thereafter.  This puts you back at your campsite just before dinner time or most of the way down the mountain trail to your car by the time the sun sets.  When we reached the summit of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park the year before, we had the place to ourselves.  We were quite literally the only people on the summit of this iconic peak.  But, on that trip, we had camped quite close to the summit and were up there at dinner time—when everyone else would be trying to beat the sunset back to the valley floor below us.

Regardless of all the people at the top of Mount Whitney, it was still great to reach our goal and I did get my second wind up there.  My hiking companion, who had taken off for the summit on pure adrenalin more than an hour prior, was resting comfortably in the sun, catching a little nap.  He had reached his goal on his third attempt.  He was understandably content in the moment and proud of the accomplishment.  As for me, my body was glad to be at a point where I would actually let it rest for a while and recuperate a bit.  I surveyed the scene, drank some water, and ate my lunch.  The third member of our party arrived a while later and we set about taking the obligatory pictures—individual and group shots on the summit. We all signed the log maintained by the National Park Service to document who reaches the summit each day, checked-out the primitive emergency shelter on the summit, and snapped quite a few other pictures.

On the last two of our training hikes for this big adventure, I had experienced significant problems with my knees on the steep downhill portions of the hikes.  This is the first time I had ever had any real trouble hiking.  In fact, the first time this happened, it actually took several weeks for my knees to heal from the damage that was done.  Unfortunately, I redid all the damage on the very next high-altitude training hike.  On both occasions, I slowed so much that I was the last of our group back to the trailhead.  The other guys were waiting on me when I got there.  In the intervening weeks, I received quite a few suggestions on what to do about this new challenge that was presumably brought on by the fact I was now in my 40’s and subjecting my body to some significant stresses and strains on steep downhill hikes with a pack.

I implemented all the suggestions, but was still a bit apprehensive about the hike back to camp down the mountain.  I knew from our injured hiker experience the prior night, there were no good alternatives for help on this trail if I started experiencing major issues.  Hopefully, the suggestions were going to help.  I also asked for plenty of prayer on this issue back at church.  But my concerns and wanting to be prudent caused me not to linger too long on the summit.  While I enjoyed the accomplishment and the view and got to spend enough time to see everything up there, I was also the first in our group to start back down the mountain.  I wanted that head start in case I had issues again on the downhill portion and I did not want to feel rushed if I did get into such a situation.  This also put me ahead of the crowd on the trail as everyone else was enjoying a little down-time on the summit.

To be continued…

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The final half mile or so of the trail to the summit of Mount Whitney is just the process of making your way through a series of switchbacks and twists and turns up the western side of the mountain.  You cannot even see the emergency shelter shack erected more than 100 years ago by the Smithsonian Institution at the summit until you are only a couple of hundred feet from it.  Therefore, you do not see the summit—the goal you have been striving for—until you are almost on top of it.

If the first day was any indication, I was going to get a second wind once I reached it.  But in the final half hour of hiking to the summit, my body was telling me to just give up while my mind would not let me even consider it.  This is the part of hiking that is more mental than physical.  I had not trained and come all this way to turn back when I knew I was less than a mile from the summit.  I was also being careful to learn from our friend who had been taken off the mountain by helicopter just hours earlier.  I was stopping to drink water quite often, was eating snacks along the trail, and was trying to regulate my breathing to do the best I could to get oxygen into by bloodstream and establish a reasonable rhythm of stepping.  I was also keeping tabs on my heart rate.  The high altitude was having an impact.

The trail was relatively quiet at this point.  Although there was an occasional person I would pass going one direction or the other, it was so peaceful to be on long stretches of trail with no other human sound around and just an amazing and breathtaking vista of the eastern edge of Sequoia National Park—the area of the park that is almost pure wilderness and includes the John Muir Trail that comes from Yosemite National Park to the north.  We were a full day’s hike from the nearest paved road and even further from any real civilization.  I love the peacefulness of such settings and the sense of accomplishment in getting there.

As the trail crested again at the summit, it was quite a contrast.  It looked like a tour bus had just dropped off a load of tourists–complete with sack lunches and their cameras.  There appeared to be about 40 people covering the summit snapping pictures of one another at the edge, eating, signing the National Park Service Log to document that they had reached the highest point in the continental United States.  It looked a little like I had just walked into a theme park instead of reaching a difficult to get to spot in the wilderness.  This was not what I had expected.  But, when I thought about it, I probably should have.

To be continued…

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From the heights of Trail Crest, just above the 97 Switchbacks, we actually had to descend for a while on the other side of the mountain before the trail headed up again to approach the summit.  It was a little discouraging to know we were losing ground on the height of the summit as we started picking our way along the narrow trail cut in the side of the mountains that towered over the eastern edge of Sequoia National Park.  From time to time, we could see both east and west as the trail became a short bridge between peaks with nearly sheer drops on either side of us.  At one point, the trail was almost completely washed out and we had to carefully step over a gap with nothing but air below us.  But we were now so close we could start to anticipate the summit.

It was an odd combination of adrenalin and physical exhaustion.  I felt quite fatigued physically, yet there was some energy source propelling me on to the summit.  One of the guys I was hiking with took a spill on the trail just ahead of me and snapped one of his metal hiking sticks off mid-staff on the way down.  Luckily, this was at a point on the trail where there was plenty of trail to catch him, but it was a good reminder of the level of physical exhaustion we were working under.  We still needed to be careful on this side of the mountain.

This is not that different than the lesson we took away from the hiker we helped get off the mountain the prior night.  He was a young man who was part of a jogging club, in good physical condition, who had specifically trained at high altitude for his ascent of Mount Whitney.  But he ignored some symptoms when they started presenting themselves and quickly wound up in a life-threatening situation, depending on others for a chance at survival.  This was a sobering reminder for our hiking party – three guys in their 40’s who did three training hikes to get ready for Mount Whitney.  Although this endeavor was not so extreme we needed special mountain climbing gear or training, it was still serious business.  If we were not careful and prudent, we could wind-up being pulled from the mountain in a helicopter with serious health issues—or worse.  It was a good reminder for us as we were on the highest part of the mountain picking our way to the summit of the highest point in the continental United States.  But then again, earlier this year, a 7 year old did it in one day—another check on our perspective.

To be continued…