*Or, How To Kill Yourself In Six Painful Days*

(Here, as threatened, is the first report on my recent adventures.)

To begin with, let me give a little background information about my Venturing Crew (the group I went with). Venturing is a co-ed, high-adventure program run by the Boy Scouts of America. (That in itself should make one wary of it ;-) ) A couple of years ago, I helped found an all-girl Venturing Crew, and we decided then that the first really big thing we wanted to do was hike all the way up Mount Whitney.

We did a lot of one-night backpacks preparing for it, but nothing could compare with the monster itself. We planned on doing ten miles a day. Hey, that's what you've got to do if you want to get the little cloth badge, and it is a fact that Boy Scouts will do anything for a badge. (My dad went through a year of training to get two wooden beads.)

The total number of trip participants was eight: Five girls (Jasmine, Jeanie, Keri, Seanna, and I) and three adults (my dad, Jeanie's mom Bonnie, and Jasmine's stepdad Dannie--the names will be important later on). Here's a breakdown of the noteworthy things that occurred during the trip:

Day 1: The day started with us at the ranger station getting our permits. We told him where we were hiking, he gave us the permits, and then he was like, "Oh, you'll have to carry bear canisters." Now, you have to understand that not only were we carrying everything we're going to need for the next six days on us, but we tried to shave as many ounces off as possible. My pack only weighed 27 pounds. We had also carefully planned the route so we could use big metal bear boxes, permanently located at certain campgrounds, instead of bear canisters, black plastic barrel-shaped things about a foot and a half long and a foot wide that weigh about as much as a bear box. These canisters are supposed to keep the bears from being able to take your food (duh), because they can't open them and they can't run off with them.

We argued back and forth with the guy to no avail. So yay, we got to carry another 8 pounds each (except those lucky souls who didn't eat much and shared with someone else).

Day 2: Learned that the allergies I had been fighting the day before were really a cold. Wonderful. Did I bring more than one package of Kleenex? Of course not.

By this time, we'd gotten up to the beginnings of the high country. The mountains surrounding us looked just like the Grand Tetons, but more so, if that makes any sense. We did some laundry in a stream (the only time we did laundry the entire trip).

Day 3: Cold better, thank God (which I did). This day we hiked Forester Pass. The very word "pass" struck a note of apprehension, and not an underserved one. It was easily the most intense climb of the entire trip, beginning somewhere around 9,000 and rising to 13,200 in five miles. Because we were above treeline, the cliffs (I exaggerate not) surrounding us were grey and bleak. They caught stormclouds and held a cast of cold grey gloom over the trail. We all bundled up in the warmest clothing we had.

At one point, the path had a pretty nice dropoff on one side, a hill on the other, and snow covering the trail for about eight feet. We went over one at a time, walking in each other's footprints.

Then the trail seemed to go up a very large "pile" of rocks. I use quotation marks because the rocks were not resting on one another, but the were arranged on the hillside to look that way. After we climbed all the way up, we realized the trail was below us. So we slipped down the hillside to rejoin it.

The last half-mile or so was the worst. It was nothing but a set of steep, high-altitude switchbacks. We were all spread out by now so that we could see each other but were not hiking together. At each corner, I had to stop and pant for breath. And take in the incredible view (which, by the way, looked exactly like a scene from LOTR. Caradhras, perhaps--or maybe it just felt that way ;-) ).

At the very top of the pass, we met a man hiking from Mexico to Canada whose goal mileage was 30 per day. All of a sudden, we didn't feel so crazy.

And once you get to the top of something, there's nowhere left to go but down. Jeanie and I were so tired by this time that we started counting bugs and singing silly songs. Everything was funny--shoelaces, her mom's beanie (that really was hilarious, I swear. It made her look like she was going to bust a 7-11). The valley lay before us in untouched pristine condition. I have never seen anything more beautiful; it made me wish I had a horse there so I could gallop across it.

At the bottom, the landscape changed drastically. It became nearly desertlike, with a lot of shrubs but few trees and sandy soil. A few miles later, it became grassy again. It also began to rain very, very hard, and I discovered that nylon shell pants--the zipoff kind--are not waterproof. I was seriously afraid of catching pneumonia.

We finally reached camp. Me: (stand like zombie.) Dad: "Can you get out the cups so we can make dinner?" Me: "Sure." By the time I get to the cups, a whole 4 feet away, I've forgotten what I'm there for. Rather than expend the energy to ask Dad, I stand zombielike again. Dad: "Heather, did you find the cups?" Me: "Oh. Yeah, Dad." (stoops down and picks up cups, which are in a ziplock *right there*) I was too tired and hungry to wait for the water to boil, so I started eating my Cup o' Risotto (don't ask me; Mom bought it) dry. Jeanie, who was facing me, found this absolutely hilarious and started to crack up again. That was pretty much the only thing she and I did the entire trip, besides count bugs. (The total at the end was something like 21 bugs, 3 arachnids, 19 insects, and 7 dead bugs. Mosquitoes didn't count. And I don't know what the difference between bugs and insects was, now.)

Day 4: We started out in high spirits because we saw our first mileage marker that actually listed Mount Whitney (16 miles! Woohoo!). That changed, however, when Dad found he'd led us up the wrong trail about three miles later. We should've realized: the trail had gotten less and less worn to the point where we'd lost it in places. Backtracking was a major bummer. But we did get to see a really neat little old snow shelter/cabin thingie. It had a rough fireplace with a hole in the roof for a chimney, two rough-hewn stools and matching table, and wood stacked outside almost to the rooftop. I kept thinking it would be a really neat place to come with a huge stash of supplies and like live there for a year or so. Like Walden Pond without the pond.

We finally did get back on the right trail, and camped that night with Mount Whitney in view. Looking at it way up there brought a kind of wild, mountain man feeling that's hard to describe. It was almost survivalist; pitted against the slope; a challenge that I knew would be difficult, but that I couldn't wait to take on.

Tomorrow.

Day 5: If the day of Forester Pass held the prize for toughest ascent, this one won the category of "Longest Day." After packing up for what was almost the last time (we were counting the hours, baby), we set out to conquer "The Big One." The trail wound through a beautiful wooded small valley with a flat bottom where there were multiple, near-parallel streams weaving through the trees. Then it climbed up through rockiness. And up. And up. But the grade wasn't nearly as bad as the Pass. Finally, we got to a junction: to the left, the trail continued up for two miles to the very peak of Whitney at 14,400 feet; straight ahead, ascended for a little while before beginning the final descent. All of us, with the exception of Bonnie (I told you those names would be handy), took off our packs to begin the climb to the top. She was simply too exhausted to make it. Dad emptied his pack, taking only his water and his really nice (translation: expensive) sleeping bag. The trail was made up mostly of boulders, which were hard to walk on; and several times some of the girls wanted to turn back. Jeanie had tendonitis and I had a slightly pulled thigh muscle, but we just kept going slowly. And we did reach the top. It seems like you can see the whole world from up there. The mountains that are close to you recede until they are nothing more than a blue mist in the distance.

So we took some silly pictures, such as all of us girls wearing our bras on the outside of our shirts. See, my brother's Scout Troop has a Whitney tradition where they all go..er...*go* off the top. Obviously, that wasn't going to work for us (and I don't think we would have wanted it to, either), so we had to come up with something else. And...well...

There were campsites up there, ringed with stone-wall semicircles to keep out the wind, but we didn't camp there because there's no water on top of Whitney. Oh yes, and there was the bathroom with the single best view in the entire world. It was a pit toilet with *one* tall stone wall behind it. Yes, it was open on the other three sides. It was situated right near the edge of the mountain. It was incredibly funny. Jeanie actually took a picture *of the toilet*.

There was also this really neat old lightning shelter built in 1901. It looked like a dungeon, with thick stone walls, small widows with metal covers that had rusted shut, and a thick wooden door with a small window and a weight on the inside that clanged it shut. It had a wooden floor and a metal tray with a lid outside where you could put your name in the logbook.

After seeing all this, we were still waiting for Dan and Jasmine to make it to the top. Jasmine had been lagging the entire hike. It was probably about 5:00 in the afternoon by this time, and we were starting to get worried about making to that night's campsite, 6 miles away. Then we got a radio (Dad is the Walkie-Talkie King and always brings these things with him) from Dan saying that Jasmine was doubled over crying from stomach cramps and couldn't walk any more. We immediately hurried down to find them.

They weren't that far from the top; maybe a quarter of a mile. Jasmine was sobbing and holding herself, rocking back and forth. Jeanie, who is a lifeguard and has a lot of first-aid training, was asking questions about where it hurt, how it hurt, etc. All Jasmine would say was "My stomach, all over," and "It just hurts!" Very helpful, yes? She was also shivering. You will remember that earlier, Dad was the only one who brought his backpack because he didn't want to leave his sleeping bag. Being expensive, it was of course all down with a very low temperature rating. So Jeanie, Keri, Seanna, and I hurried down the mountain while Dad helped Dan get Jasmine into the bag.

When we all reached the trail junction two miles later, it was decided that Dad, Jeanie, and I would go back up with our packs and Dan's pack and spend the night with them since Jasmine couldn't move. We threw everything out of our packs that we didn't absolutely need, headed back up the trail. Bonnie, Keri, and Seanna would pack up all the extra stuff (including bear boxes!) and pack it down to the next campsite. I'm not sure how they did it, but they did (they didn't get to camp that night until after midnight). And with no water, too, because they poured all of their water into our containers. (I think we had about a quart and a half between the three of us--five if you count Dan and Jasmine--total.)

At first, we all took turns with the extra pack, but Dad, hardy soul, finally stopped letting us carry it. Go, Dad. He eventually went ahead while Jeanie and I walked together. We just couldn't keep up with his pace.

There was an up side: we got to watch the most spectacular sunset in the entire world from the tallest point in a thousand miles. (Of course, I had left my camera behind.) The down side to the sunset was that it got dark soon after. Duh. We'd hoped to get some water from a snow melt that Keri had filled up from earlier, but by the time Jeanie and I got there (Dad was long gone by this time) it was dusk and the snow had stopped melting nearly completely. She tried anyway, climbing up the rocks a little ways, to no avail. While she did that, I zipped on one of my convertible pants' legs. The temperature dropped incredibly fast once the sun went down. The zipper on my other leg got jammed. So I walked the rest of the way up with one pant leg on and the other wrapped around my neck.

Before we started walking again, I got my L33T Petzl LED headlamp out and put it on because, duh, it's getting dark. So I could see where I was going, but Jeanie couldn't, so she followed me and watched where I stepped. It felt like a Laurel and Hardy act or something.

When we got to the top, Dad had already helped Dan set up his tent and get the sleeping bags and stuff spread out in it. Then Dan went over and *piggybacked* Jasmine over to the tent. At one point, he stepped rather hard off of a rock and she let out a moan--that's how badly she hurt.

After they got her in bed, Dan walked towards the top a little and called 911. He got the CHP. He explained, "My daughter and I are on top of Mount Whitney, and we need a helicopter; she can't walk." Their response: "Mount Whitney...what street is that on?" He replied, "No, you know, like the *actual peak* of Mount Whitney; the tallest mountain in the continental US?" Them: (Big pause.)

We finally did get in touch with someone who's had 9th grade geography and were told that a helicopter would be there at five the next morning. We were to call before five if we thought we wouldn't need it. So we all said a prayer for Jasmine, and Dan went back to the tent. The rest of us headed for the lighting shelter on the top.

That was a night I'll never forget. We spread our stuff out on the floor, radioed Bonnie to let her know what was going on, and sacked out at maybe 10:30. The wind was incredible. I've never heard it actually roar like that. I woke up at 4:50 the next morning to Dad calling off the helicopter. (Dan had radioed him and said that Jasmine felt a little bit better and they were going to try to make it down.) They told him that they would notify the nearest rangers to meet us and take a look at Jasmine.

We got everything packed up, feeling like we only got a few minutes' sleep. Jasmine looked awful; her eyelids were all puffy and she seemed dehydrated. She took baby steps until we stopped for her to rest because we saw the rangers coming. I would have cheered if I hadn't been so tired. They met us with bottles of water (glorious stuff), examined Jasmine, and decided to call *back* the helicopter. (It was kind of scary, because they said to Dan, "Now, you do realize that at this altitude flying a helicopter in can be risky?") They said that only Jasmine could go--she couldn't even take her backpack because it weighed too much! (It turned out that one of the two people that came in the 'copter had to get out and walk back to the trailhead so that Jasmine could go.)

The rangers, Dan, and Dad walked back up with Jasmine while Jeanie and I opted to find some pointy rocks to sit on. (The running joke the whole trip was that every rock I sat on seemed to be pointy. Keri called it the Curse of the Wedgie Rocks.) The boulders we were reclining on were right on the trail, and people passing us kept looking at us funny, because we two girls had three or four backpacks with us.

About an hour later, we heard the helicopter and watched it circle in closer and closer until the mountain hid it from view. Dan and Dad came down a little while after it took off again.

Going down got old very quickly. After five days of upness, I thought downhill would be a wonderful thing, but it is very hard on the knees when you've got 20 pounds on your back. Plus, it got HOT. We threw snowballs at each other several times just to cool off. When we finally rejoined the others, we were about six miles from Whitney Portal. Most people who go up Whitney start there and make the climb in two days. So there were HORDES OF PEOPLE and it was STRANGE after a week of nobody.

The trek to the parking lot was the most miserable. We kept getting lower and hotter and most everybody's knees hurt. People passing us (weekend backpackers, hmpfh ;-) ) made comments like, "Wow, those are big packs," or "You look really tired." When we replied we'd been on the trail for a week, they returned expressions of amazement.

We finally reached the parking lot, where Jeanie's and Keri's dads met us with REAL FOOD! It was just sandwich fixings, but after dehydrated meals and granola bars, it tasted like--uh, undehydrated food. We stuffed ourselves. And then we got DRIVEN home. It felt really weird to be moving without having to walk. The drive back was about five hours, and halfway through that we stopped at Jack in the Box and ate *more*.

And then we went home and SHOWERED!

By the way, Jasmine's OK. She had the beginnings of an ulcer--she'd been taking too much aspirin and not eating right. She was home right around the time we were.

And I got up the next morning and had to go help with Vacation Bible School. The pastor's wife had to help me off of the floor :-}

I would totally go again, though.

La"But I never want to see another granola bar as long as I live!"Zorra

PS: Pictures will be forthcoming as soon as Dad can remember where he left them :-P