Kennedy Meadows to Mt Whitney

PCT MILES COMPLETE: 492.6

PCT mile 702.2 to PCT mile 770.3
Section mileage: 84.8
Days: 6/14 - 6/19

We took a day off at Kennedy Meadows to prepare for the Sierras and recover from the last section of the Mojave Desert. Craig had a giant new blister that covered the entirety of the ball of his foot. We left the next day to begin our hike with our very heavy food bags and these big bear proof canisters that are required for food storage in the Sierras. We had planned to slow down crossing the Sierras, averaging 15 miles a day. Still in desert mode, we left Kennedy Meadows at night. That may have been our first mistake. The terrain began to change that night (in the way we expected before Kennedy Meadows). The sagebrush changed into patches of grass (grass!), streams widened from seeps to trickles. We had entered the Sierras, and while we were unbelievably excited to do so, it meant that the path was rocky instead of sandy. We had to stop at a little patch just big enough for our tent when Craig couldn't walk any longer on his mega-blister.

The next day, we descended to a beautiful open valley with a wide river with grassy banks. Swallows swooped along the shore. Our friend Tailor, from Germany, was there talking to an older couple (Izzy and Speak up) and a younger German guy, Zero. Someone had constructed a mini Stonehenge on the shore. We napped for a few hours on the river bank. A group of middle-aged women arrived while we were sleeping. I wondered if they'd read Wild. I wondered if they related to Cheryl Strayed. That's the problem with being a middle-aged woman hiking alone on the trail; people just assume that you're hiking the trail because Oprah told you that was the way to find yourself after your nasty divorce.

The trail led us upwards from the river into the mountains. We played leap frog with a young couple from Colorado, looking fresh. Too fresh to be thruhikers. We found a site at the top of a hill, next to the first corn lilies on the trail. Craig crawled into the tent, and I climbed the adjacent rock pile alone. From the top, I could see off into the distance. It was a moment alone, a millisecond of independence in time for a spectacular sunset. I remember it was cold, and afterward I was suddenly aware how high I'd climbed.

We woke up late. We could hear hikers passing by. I was anxious to move on, the internal magnets all of us hikers have pulling north. And so on we climbed, passing by Tumbleweed I think, who told us to turn around and look at the view from where we'd come from. I forget to do that. This was the Sierras. The flowers are becoming familiar, old friends from a summer I spent doing vegetation surveys in these mountains. "Scarlett gilias!" I pointed out excitedly to Craig, referring to a stalk of bright red trumpet flowers with lacy, delicate leaves.

We climbed up until we were in a real forest of tall, mature pines that felt magical after so much desert. I thought, "the Sierras can't get better than this," and then around the next corner, we had our first view of snow-capped mountains. And the next few days continued in that theme... each climb, each new view became more and more spectacular. Water was no longer a concern. Little snowmelt streams trickled down the path at regular intervals. We'd pass meadows, as though this were a normal thing. "What drought?" we asked. Each new stream, I would take DOZENS of photos. Looking back at my photos, it's clear that this was our main focus.

We continued to play leap frog with other hikers; the couple from Colorado did turn out to be thruhikers, but new ones who had just started their flip-flop hike. A flip-flop hike is what we're doing too. It's any hike that is nonlinear, that doesn't start at a border and end at the other border. We passed by our friends Seahawk, Bumblebee, Kapiko, and Milkman. We ran into Soway (self described "hiker trash") and Little Diablo, who we had last seen our 2nd day on the trail. We passed our first alpine lake. We climbed up past tree line. We climbed so high that the altitude began to affect us; there is less oxygen, and we found ourselves low on energy and nauseous.

We had decided, like most thruhikers, to take a side trail to Mt Whitney. At 14,500 feet, it is the highest peak in the continental United States. And it sits only 8.5 miles from the PCT. A great meadow gave way to the rushing Whitney Creek, which we clung to upwards past the ranger station, where groups of hikers were camped in a grassy field. Up to a lake called Timberline at the timber line (duh) and up up up farther still to Guitar Lake. We were hiking with Tailor at this point, our German friend, when we passed by a ranger. We expected to show our permits and identify ourselves. But the ranger had more sobering things on his mind. "Keep an eye out," he said, "for a man in his 50s. He's been missing since Saturday night."

It was Wednesday. Which meant, although the ranger didn't insinuate it, that they were probably looking for a body. People die on Whitney every year. This man never returned to Whitney portal after climbing the mountain with friends that day. Rescue helicopters buzzed overhead. We would learn later that he must have tried to take a short cut on his descent down the hundred switchbacks down the other side of Whitney. His body was found in a crevice the day we summited.

The sun sank and it was cold in the shade. We climbed to a plateau above Guitar Lake, where tons of marmots were scurrying around. They were totally unconcerned with our human presence. Marmots are the cutest animals- they look like chubby blonde gophers. We fell asleep on the spongy grass with the alarm set for 1 am. We had planned to hike up for the sunrise on Mt Whitney. "You'll be the first people in California to see the sun rise," Seahawk had told us. And as silly a goal as it was, it was also tremendously appealing.

We woke up at 1 am, but only long enough to realize how cold it was. We woke again at 5 am: a much more sane time of day. I impatiently hounded Craig until he was ready to go. I get so EXCITED about climbing mountains. It's like Christmas and the SATs combined. Sometimes I don't sleep well because the anticipation is so great.

The climb from the campsite was almost immediately switchbacks that wound endlessly up the scree.  Halfway up the climb, we ran our friends descending. They had made it up just in time for sunrise. "We tried to give you a wake-up call!" They said.

"Really? We said, "we must not have heard you."

Craig and I on the top of Mt Whitney!

Down they went, up we went. We ran into few hikers on the ascent. It was still too early for most hikers, and it was a weekday to boot. There were a couple of former thruhikers climbing at the same time. "We've been climbing Whitney every year site we retired," they told us. The climb was easier now, but the altitude made it seem harder. We crossed a snow field and then suddenly there was the peak! Capped with a stone hut and a dozen hikers on their cell phones. "Some asshole yelled 'Wake up call!' this morning outside of our tent," one hiker told us. Oops!

The older former thruhikers kissed goodbye and Fix It, the 74 year old hiker, began the climb down. "Where's he going?" I asked.

Tailor on Mt Whitney

"We hike our own hikes," Third Monty said, "doing the John Muir Trail in 9 days is not my idea of fun." Fix It was heading over the top of Forester Pass that same night. Badass.

On the descent, we passed Tailor, Mountain Goat, and Ducketts, all of us grinning like fools.