Just a few short weeks after we returned from Ethiopia, barely rested and certainly not even started processing it all, we embarked on another adventure. We had thought about hiking to the highest point one could hike to (in the lower 48, at least) for many years before we realized this thought-form by ascending into the heavens a year or so ago with adventure buud Steve. The tallest peak in the contiguous United States plays a very important role in the life of Al Arnold (the main focus of Steve's upcoming documentary) and so, it only made sense for us to hike our way to the top of it with Mr. Elkins. We found a potentially culturally insensitive, but quite cheap teepee to bed down within for the night after we struggled through traffic and eventually bursted out of the overly cemented hellscape we call home to the other side of the Angeles National Forest and out onto that most beautiful of roads, the 395. Just past the high desert hamlet of Olancha (which served, in part, as the setting for Bug. The hotel that our troubled protagonists in that film stay/freak out within, Melissa and I unknowingly stayed at before in the past, also on our way up the 395. Didn't think we should repeat-stay there, would probably get a little too spooked), we found our home for the night and bedded down in preparation for the next day's ascent.
Support beams/final view for the night/first view of the morning of our first assault of Whitney
First light as I stumbled out of our teepee
Our appropriation hovel and get away vehicle
A vacation dad approached me as I was taking in the morning sights to ask what we were up to and when I revealed that we were on the way to engage in a three day hike up Whitney, his eyes got all glazed over with what I assumed to be jealousy/intense longing for similar adventures. Hopefully he found something to scratch that itch in his travels.
Double horse advert, in the unmistakable light of the Eastern Sierra (swoon).
Had to empty the foodish bits out of the car that we were not carrying up the mountain with us into these metal boxes so as to not have a window-smash surprise on our return from the top of the lower forty eight.
Lodge meditations/a gathering of strength
The crew, all rested and washed and bowel-emptied (anyone hiking Whitney is issued with a "Wag Bag" so that when one must take a dump, they must do it into this bag and then carry it around with them for the rest of the hike. We were all hoping to be spared this indignity. Report forthcoming).
After a series of switchbacks, the trail does not waste time providing intensely rugged/beautiful sights
Obligatory stream crossing photos (the first in a series), if you look closely you can see Melissa's tucked/unused Wag Bag
and then, on into the wilderness
Up and up
A peek back down from which we came
Stream stretching logs for dry feet
Hashflag footing the world/the log/the log for the blog
Melissa tiptoes across the log/thru the flora
Then, the zone herself, ascending above the treeline
Round. The. Horn!
Granite grays and intense cloud action swirled above us
An old specimen rock-ensconced, its many years smelled great
Checking on our progress again, now above lake level (the first in a series)
Tree splosion/the circle of life
The second of this series
Naturally formed house/modernist architecture
The third in this series
Another vantage point/reflection on where our legs had taken us in a relatively short amount of time
M soaks it all up/rests her lil sherpa body
Dramatic light/cloudplay ahead of us, considering the implications of a thunderstorm at that high of an altitude (didn't materialize, thankfully), but still walking onward and upward into it
Spotted this green island
and these waters draining their way towards the desert/providing such greenery
M shows us support hold (right)
and left
and what Ipod-nano intensives look like
The lake down yonder was where our hero, Mr. Arnold, took refuge for the night after he summited, armed with merely one plastic bag that a concerned passerby gave him and the tighty whities he ran all of Death Valley in before his ascent and didn't bother piling any other clothes atop of
Probably not the first of these scenes we came across on our hike and certainly not the last. Trying to address the problem of thousands of people dumping in/upon the route up and down that tallest of mountains created a new problem, that of people littering the mountain with turds wrapped in plastic.
We found a good spot for the night at trail camp, some six and a half miles in (five or so more to summit the next morning), and were left with the better part of the afternoon to meditate on the next day's remaining miles in the shadow of the summit herself.
This being the first backpacking trip we'd embarked on where water needed to be filtered, I took up the task with gusto, gladly filtering for everyone on the trip.
We had packed a decent amount of food for the three day adventure, a large majority of which, to be edible, required that we have a working stove rig...
...shortly after Melissa showed me this butthole technique for extracting foodstuffs from the bags they were carried in, it became apparent that we indeed did not have a working stove rig. We commenced eating, or trying to eat, a very sad dinner of cold water rehydrated soups (barf) and then gave up on dinner pursuits entirely. We checked out the rest of the campsite with this extra time we weren't dedicating to dinner and finally called it a night in barely twilight, setting our alarm for well before dawn in order to have plenty of time to dedicate to summit pursuits of the next day.
The next morning, around three thirty, this was the scene. The subtleties of that night/morning unable to be captured by my lowly camera, but those scenes are duly seared into my memory (and, I'm sure, the memories of my two hiking partners). A crisp cold and utter quiet met us as we rolled out of our tents, headlamps bobbing to the rhythm of our sleepy steps moving upward, looking up to the lights of the people ahead of us who had either exited the camp an hour or so before us, or the pitiable day hikers who had begun the journey around midnight (as we hiked with our packs, these people would ask us, with longing/regret, if we were camping over night and when we said that we were, they responded with envious groans), bob similarly to the quiet rhythms of their respective gaits.
Then, the day broke
and began a sunrise service I will never forgot
Alpenglow commenced
and dramatic displays of utter, intense beauty unfolded, unfurled behind us as we climbed in the growing light, stopping us in our tracks many times
Melissa and the glory of it all
Trager family portrait
While Steve commits to digital memory the Magisterial, stupefying show
Another poop stash on the way up to bring us out of the clouds and back to earth
Hair eyes looking back at me as we entered the land of a thousand switchbacks
Alpenglow, full-on
Again, back from which we came. If you look closely, you will find a lake at the bottom of the photograph. That was our campsite for the previous nite/the nite we had just emerged from
Switchback dimensions, glowing rocks
M rock-flops after switchback land
and Steve digitally reels more in
Reached the trail crest
and swooped around the backside of the range that we had stared at the evening before, peering out and down into Sequoia National Park the entire way
Mirror lake optics
You can see Visalia, if you look hard enough (probably)
Jagged and epic rock-scapes to skirt the edges of
Melissa made even smaller by the granite piles that a hiking path somehow snaked its way through
Peering through a window down into everything that we were currently taller than
Peering through a digital window
A better view of the frame of the view
Downward
and then, the top came into view/striking distance, right atop that last rock stack
Just right up there, above the snowy rockfield. It was at this point that our steps became more and more labored in the thin/thinning air. I resorted to counting out fifty steps, stopping and catching my breath, and then taking fifty more. Slowly, steadily we wound our way to the top in this way
Almost at the top, during one of these frequent rests, a peek at where we came from
The structure up there marks the top, basically
And then we were face to face with it. I carried and then placed a sticker in honor of this guy, letting him see some sights he couldn't otherwise
Melissa and Steve at the very top
Some geodetic proofs of being atop it all, in varying degrees of completeness
From down there. Hard to believe, sometimes, where our legs can take us (if we let them)
Cumulus poofs/structures changing rapidly before us as we watched it all and marveled at our then position above the cloud line
Al Arnold's hiking shoes, wrapped 'round Steve's feet, find their way to the top again
Momentarily distrac Ted from the view
Then right back into it
A longie of another Trager family portrait
Doppelganger had already inscribed inside the hut
Wire mesh rectangle to the outside
Decided to ink mark our adventure (and contribute another Miles sticker to the top as well as an ad for this lovely designer duo I've been exchanging mail with for years).
Melissa makes her/our mark in the registry
What does one do when there is no more ascending to do? Walk around the top for awhile and take in the views, harvest another photo of the emergency shelter
and the selfie stick plague
and then flop another rock.
Trager family portrait number three
Then, we began the way back home.
A quiet, reflective and slowly paced descent
Light-play a lot different than on the way up, ascertaining different details, angles and views
Downward switchback winding rocks, not quite so magically aglow
We spent another night on trail that night, encountering more one-dayers along the way who predictably looked upon our gear/setup with envy. Photos from that and most of the rest of our descent are not as numerous or as interesting as those of the ascent. I did spot this deer at some point, though, and thought it worthy to share as part of the scant descent-narrative
Here's a better representation of the way down, the last of which I will share here
All that I could think of during that last day's hike was to dig into the head sized pancakes they serve up at the portal store that we saw people digging into a few days previously. Now you see it
Now you don't
After we decompressed at the portal store and indulged in hot food and the comfort of using a toilet that would carry our waste for/from us (we three did not have to use our Wag Bags. I think our bodies could not face it and shut down those functions, at least the 2nd one), we began our southerly traipse, with a few stops along the way. It always pays to stop, really anywhere of note/interest. We had seen the sign along the southern part of the 395 that says "fossil falls" numerous times in the past and just kept on driving past it. This time around, though, we made the stop and were reminded to always make those stops prompted by curiosity.
Walking through the volcanic rock scattered field before the falls themselves, we came upon this impressive specimen
Walking through the volcanic rock scattered field before the falls themselves, we came upon this impressive specimen
and then, we bore witness to the falls themselves.
and got right down in there among those time-polished forms
Steve surveys the scene
We then made our final detour to make a dozen (or so) laps on Avenue G in the absolutely Lynchian hamlet of Lancaster to play this song via the tires of m'car and some grooves cut into the road, all to our absolute joy. The grooves were specifically cut to play their music at 55mph, but we experimented again and again with different speeds and sounds, loving every minute of it. And thus, our adventure to the top of the continental US and the string of adventuring with Mr. Elkins draws to a close. Where will this blog go from here? Only time will tell.
