-Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Important blog update!
Hey guys so we're leaving Lone Pine now. We won't have any service to post until Mammoth, 125 miles away. That's about 9 days away, so don't worry if you don't hear from us for a while.
Day 70- June 28th
Today was a zero day in Lone Pine. I know we've been taking a lot of zeros recently but when your body is hurting or recovering its best not to push it. We'll soon be back on our feet!
$10 cinnamon roll French toast with eggs and bacon! (And a chocolate milkshake of course.. (Slurped down too fast for proof))
This is my food BEFORE grocery shopping here in Lone Pine
Luckily Lone Pine is a pretty small place so nothing was more than a 5 minute walk away from the Dow Villa. I gathered all our dirty laundry and went outside in my rain gear to the laundromat which is literally across the street.
Claire went to the store and got a yogurt and an apple because wasn't very hungry thanks to that giant burrito yesterday. I on the other hand had appetite in full force, so after running into Ben the Gladiator outside of our hotel, I decided to join him for breakfast.
After laundry was done we headed to the Post Office and picked up packages from each of our moms. They sent us so much food it was crazy! Between what they sent us and food some other hikers had given us when we were low, we had 1/2 the next stretches' food!
We headed back to the store and supplemented our food with some store-bought items. Man, what we gained by not having to buy as much food we lost by the priciness of the items there. The store was not cheap!
This next stretch is 125 miles for us into Mammoth Lakes. It's a long ways, but again, just like leaving Kennedy Meadows, we'll be carrying extra food. Also I don't think we'll be getting sick this time.
I was on Facebook today and found someone offering a ride to the trailhead tomorrow so I think we'll be taking them up on that offer. Most likely we'll be hiking again by 2pm! Canada here we come!
-Thanks for reading!
Day 69- June 27th
Today we woke up bright and early and reluctantly, hoisted our packs and hit the trail by 6:30am. We knew we were in for a tough time, as Claire was still on her way out from the stomach flu, and had yet to hold down a substantial amount of food. On top of THAT, her time of the month started yesterday. This meant the addition menstrual cramps and extra nausea and fatigue. Yeah, wow... Someone get this girl a medal!
As I said earlier, this wasn't an easy hike. We were camped over 10,700 feet. We faced a climb up 2,900 feet in 5.7 miles up the tallest mountain in the contiguous US, directly into a descent of 5,400 feet in 8.8 miles. A 14.5 mile day in possible snow and Mars-like terrain with our full packs while Claire fights her sickness and I mule up most of our food weight and our water. I mean, today kicked MY butt super hard and I'm not even sick!!
That being said it was super beautiful. And by taking it slow, we got to take many pictures and "enjoy" it as much as possible.
We climbed up and up passing a nice lake and within a few hours came upon Guitar Lake. It didn't look like a guitar from down next to the waters edge, but you'll see later why it was aptly named so.
We climbed way above the timberline and started some loooooong switch backing above the lakes.
There, that's looking more like a guitar now:
We kept climbing for hours. Taking rests when needed and slowly chipping away towards our goal, taking in the breathtaking (and dizzying) views every now and then.
Soon we had made it to Trail Crest at 13,600 feet! There were many not-full backpacks that hikers had left to climb up the last 1.9 miles to get to the tip-top. The view of the side we came up was amazing! We were on top of the world!!
After the photos we headed towards our exit, Whitney Portal. Now you may say 1.9 miles more doesn't sound like a lot, but climbing 1,100 feet up and over boulders in 1.9 miles and then back down in my poor baby's state was not about to happen. We had to get down the mountain to Lone Pine, food, and lower elevation. Catch you next time, summit!
After passing up and over the crest, the view on the other side was also amazing! I don't think we missed much that you could see from the very top. We had a 360 view except to the north, where the Whitney protruded. The east facing side was daunting to say the least!
We're actually super lucky that we got to do the Whitney Portal Trail. Us PCT hikers usually aren't allowed to hike down it to access Whitney but the ranger up at Crabtree Meadow had given us special permission because of our situation. I can now see why people get permits months in advance. The trail is BEAUTIFUL and almost literally goes STRAIGHT down the mountain! 97 switchbacks baby, woo-hoo!!
There were some awesome lakes and waterfalls and pretty wildflowers when we dropped down lower. Although physically frustrating, the trail was magnificent and there was something really neat around every corner.
We also ran into Mark and RuthAnne!
We were super surprised to see them as I said before there aren't any other PCT'ers on this trail. They had gone down a different pass and had met up with their daughter to "day-hike" up to the summit. Then they would continue up and over and their daughter would return back down. That's a hardcore 21 mile hike for her, Claire and I still hope she made it out before dark as we saw them coming up after noon!
As we dropped down lower on the trail, it was not uncommon for the trail to be a river! I think this was due to the unusual heatwave this year causing rapid snowmelt and swollen rivers and streams. As crazy as it was, we somehow managed to not get out feet completely wet the entire way down!!
Soon we could narrow in on our "Portal" and view the desert floor way below. It was hard to imagine that we'd be down there tonight!
Within a few miles from the bottom, we met a day hiker named Suzy and talked to her for a while. She offered to give us a ride into Lone Pine when we got to the parking lot at the bottom of the trail. Sweet!
Our legs had lost their feeling, our shoulders ached horribly and or bodies were deliriously sore but eventually we made it down! It felt so strange to jump into a car and zoom down the steep graded road down to the desert floor!
Suzy dropped us off in front of the Hostel in town. It was after 5pm but still blazing hot! They had had weather over 100 degrees the last few days while we ran around in the High Sierra in our t-shirts and shorts in perfect daytime temperatures!
We decided to get a room at the Historic Dow Villa Hotel, since it was around the same price as the hostel but for a private room. The Dow Villa is the oldest hotel around; John Wayne and Gene Autry would stay here while filming a bunch of old westerns close by back in the day!
After such a long day I was STARVING and even Claire's appetite had started to come back. Time for some food!
(Don't worry, for her poor tummy's sake she only ate half of it.. Like I said, I was STARVING :)
We went back to the Dow Villa to relax in our rooms. I'm writing this the next day because I fell asleep super quickly and had the hardest, best sleep of my life! We were thoroughly exhausted and a little sunburnt to boot. I'm just happy that we made it off the mountain before starving and my baby can rest and recover :)
-Thanks for reading!
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Day 68- June 26th
-----Read Me-----
Alright guys, if this is the first update you've seen for a while, go back to the 14th of June. I just posted the last 13 days today! Enjoy!
-----
Today was day three of hanging out at Crabtree Meadow, our second zero here. Claire was feeling a bit better this morning so after waking up and making us some breakfast I decided to stretch my legs and go on a little day hike.
I have a paper map of the John Muir trail and some surrounding trails and on it I found a small hike nearby out to Crabtree Lakes, 6 miles round trip from where we were. I packed my empty backpack with only the essentials: some food, water, water filter, mosquito headnet, and my rainwear because mosquitos can't bite through them.
It felt really amazing to have a 5 or 6 lb. weight on your back instead of a 45 lb. one. From Crabtree I took the John Muir Trail down to a part of the PCT we hadn't walked yet. That led me back down to the beautiful meadow and stream that we crossed to get up to Crabtree.
From there I took a faint trail which I hoped was the one up to the lakes. It was a very hard path to follow; many times it would disappear and leave me wandering around for a little while trying to find it. Eventually I climbed my way out of the valley and met up with a broader, slightly more well marked trail which I knew was the one.
Early on my hike I saw 3 marmots and a deer. There were tons of mosquitos as I passed small swampy lakes in the way up and hoped that the ones even further were not of the same sort. Boy was I surprised! Here's the first actual lake I came across after about 5 miles.
At this point on my map the trail ended. But, the trail most definitely continued on off paper. I followed a series of little waterfalls which led me up to a second beautiful lake:
I was in awe and walked around half the thing, climbing wayyyyy up next to the snowy mountain to get some more views:
Oh man. It didn't stop there. I skirted the length of the lake and the trail kept going! Very faint it weaved through the next marshy land and just kept going and going. As the trail kept on so did I. Sometimes I would lose it and start rock climbing over ledges and cliffs, getting closer to what I thought might be another lake... And every time it was! There must've been 5 or 6 lakes while my map just showed 3!
I climbed up and up, breathtaking views over every ledge, cliff, or waterfall. I ended up way in the back of the valley, about 7 miles away from where I started! There was a beautiful lake with a towering rocky mountain jutting up on its flanks. I've never seen anything so breathtaking...
I took a TON of pictures, here are some of my favorites from my "small" day hike, which turned out to be 12 miles instead of the planned 6!
It was such a lifting, enjoyable experience; better than anything I've yet experienced on the actual PCT. And waaaaaay less people!
I saw no one the entire time up to the 3rd lake. There I met some weekend get-awayers that gave me a bunch of food because someone in their party had bailed out on their hike and they had too much food. I also briefly saw and chatted with a family of 6 who was doing an intense backpacking trip from the next pass south, which was leading them down where I was coming up.
And that was it. Nothing else out there except me and the marmots and deer and mountain lion poop and bear tracks. Nothing except the sound of rushing water feeding the picture perfect lakes and occasionally big ice chunks breaking off the snowy peak and crashing down below. It was AMAZING.
Back at camp everything was fine. Claire was feeling a little better, I was happy and excited about the hike, making me feel MUCH better about our current situation. We had a little bit more food thanks to the other hikers, which helped relieve our dire food situation. I even met with the ranger and he gave me a written exception so we could go down Whitney Portal tomorrow legally!
Some bad news: A few days earlier, I thought I had gotten a mosquito bite on my ankle because it was bothering me and hurting and rubbing against the shoe tongue when going downhill. After resting it felt better and I didn't think of it again.
Today once I got to the top and started going down, it became very painful and the pain multiplied and shot up my shin with every step. Back at camp after taking of my shoes and resting for a few minutes, I tried to stand up and walk around and I couldn't! We're thinking tendinitis or (hopefully not) a shin splint.. :(
This comes at a very bad time as we HAVE to leave this mountain tomorrow, and the way up is almost 3,000 feet in 5.6 miles, and then down 6,000 feet in 9.4 miles.. I also packed all the heavy items into my bear can to give Claire some relief. As she still has almost nothing in her stomach except for some crackers and soup that we made tonight for dinner.
Tomorrow will be a struggle for both of us to say the least, but we have to do what we have to do. And like I said before this is ironically the shortest and "easiest" way out of here....
We'll leave here tomorrow at 6:30am and hopefully be in Lone Pine by tomorrow night. Wish us luck.
-Thanks for reading!
Day 67- June 25th
-----Part 1-----8:45am-----
Man.... Sometimes you go through some struggles in life, you think everything is doomed and you're at your worst, but eventually things get better and work out. Once you're 100% back and on top of the world but then the same thing happens all over again, that's when you start feeling like something's working against you, willing you not to succeed.
Here we were, the day before summiting the highest point in the lower 48, the highlight of the trip for most, the first and most exciting test of the Sierra. I had been sick with the worst stomach flu I'd ever had for 4 days on trail and yesterday was the first time I was feeling ok. We made a plan to summit Whitney today and Forester tomorrow, bringing us to Kearsarge Pass and civilization the next morning. With me being sick and us having to take a zero and two 1/2 days on trail, we're running dangerously low on food even with the new plan. But hey, everything seems to be working out now, right?
Wrong. We got everything prepared last night and tried to sleep before the sun had set and the birds had stopped singing their afternoon songs. Being anxious to climb Whitney, it was hard to sleep, but I eventually dozed off.
It must've been near 1:00am I woke up to Claire whimpering. She told me that she hadn't slept a wink yet and she wasn't feeling too good. An hour later she was trying frantically to get out of her sleeping bag, weakly exclaiming "help me". We got the zipper open, and as soon as we got the tent door halfway open, she fainted face first onto the ground.
We camped at 10,722 feet, it was literally freezing outside. When she came to after a few seconds of me talking to her and trying to get her off the ground, she ran a few feet away from our tent and had violent diarrhea and stomach convulsions. I ran outside of the tent to help her and we spent a miserable 20 minutes outside. All I could do was make sure she was warm enough and that she had everything she needed while she went through the painful process.
That was just the beginning. After we got her back into the tent, she would have to go outside every 10-15 minutes for the next hour. It was 2:50am when I checked the time. My poor baby hadn't slept one bit and had had all of her food and energy leave her body from one of two ways.
Finally, after she almost fainted once more, the urges stopped. I had propped her up on our backpacks to elevate her stomach and eventually she slept like this for a few hours. We woke up at about 8am and our neighbors gave us some extra toilet paper.
I am concerned because we're out in the middle of the high wilderness. I'm not sure how long we'll need to stay here, and we're dangerously low on food. There are no roads in or out nearby. There is a ranger hut but he just left last night for two days.
The shortest option out of here would be to ascend 3/4 of Mount Whitney, climbing up to 13,403 feet and descend through the Mt. Whitney Portal Trail through the Mount Muir Pass for a total of 15 miles. Our PCT permits do not cover the Whitney Portal, and we technically aren't allowed to descend through here, though I'm hoping they'd make an exception in our case. I just don't know if Claire's body would be ready to handle the extreme up then down, even in the next couple of days.
The next option would be to rejoin the PCT in the opposite direction of Whitney, and carry out half of our original plan and go over Forester Pass to Kearsarge Pass. This would still mean ascending to 13,160 feet, and be a total of about 30 miles. After resting here a day at LEAST, we wouldn't have enough food for this option, and the Forrester ascent and descent is treacherous even for someone at their 100% energy level.
I'm really worried guys. This is the first time that things have gone so wrong out here. We've been good and fully prepared for everything so far. We thought we were plenty prepared for this part too. We had extra food and all. Why is this happening to us?
-----Part 2-----8:30pm-----
We spent the day here at Crabtree Meadow. Man was the night/morning rough! Reading the first half of my blog felt like I was reading about a day or two ago.
Claire continued to have stomach problems, but not as bad or urgent as between 2am-5am. Throughout the day it seems that things got a little better. She still is VERY weak and low energy; drinking water, but not feeling much for food. She put down some natural ginger and honey tea my mom had sent us in Lake Isabella, (thanks mom!), and ate 3 or 4 Ritz crackers.
The other hikers were so nice to us today! Like I mentioned earlier, we've ran out of toilet paper thanks to us both having the flu of some sort. So far three different people have given us a substantial amount more!
I gathered some food items that are hard to digest and asked many different hikers to barter for items more easily held down for Claire's current stomach-state. In exchange we got plain white rice, some oatmeal, plain potatoes, two ramen, and the Ritz! Many people just donated and refused to take any of my offerings.
We've only gone 66 miles since Kennedy Meadows, and it's already been 8 days since we left! This has been our second zero day and tomorrow will be our third. We carried out 9 or 10 days of food and could've gotten to Kearsarge Pass with a day or two of food to spare. If we hadn't each gotten sick, we would've made the stretch no problem. Even after I got sick we could've still scraped by.
No one could've predicted both of us getting sick separately, and we're now in a real tricky situation. Luckily because Claire didn't eat much today, and more food was donated, we can take one more zero day tomorrow. I'm going to hopefully get in contact with the ranger tomorrow and see if we can get a written exception to exit down Whitney Portal with extenuating circumstances.
Since it's impossible to re-enter the Whitney Portal without a permit, and they get chosen back in April by lottery, we'll be forced to re-enter the Sierra via Kearsarge Pass and miss 22 miles of the PCT as well as Forester Pass, the highest point on the actual PCT.
This is unfortunate as we up until this point have maintained a continuous footpath from the Mexican border, including over 60 miles of road walking around closed portions of the trail. What's ironic is this is the ONLY exit of the entire trail that could make us miss a section by not picking back up where we left after getting off.
But alas, the timing of both of our sicknesses created a dire food situation, and we need to descend from this mountain ASAP. Moving forward means 30 miles, backtracking means 30+ miles. Both end in not enough food. The only way to go is the "One-Way" down through the Whitney Portal.
I've come to accept these terms the trial has forced upon us, and after talking with "Baptist" about it, (another hiker), in a weird way I'm relieved. It's been this odd push to strictly keep the continuous footpath, no matter what that meant or how difficult it made things.
Now, I can focus on taking care of my precious love while she's sick, as she did for me. I can start enjoying the beautiful place that we're "stuck" in. I can start appreciating the kindness of others and what it really means to be selfless. I can realize that after we rest in Lone Pine and Claire feels all better, we'll resume backpacking through the most remote, beautiful, epic place in California which is the Sierra!
I stayed close by to Claire today, making sure she was feeling alright, moving the tent when the sun beat down, filtering water as we rehydrated, and doing anything else that needed being done.
Tomorrow if she's feeling a little better which I'm sure she will be, I'll take a little hike to the neighboring valley, to go see some sights I wouldn't have got to seen if we weren't staying here another day. Her positive attitude through all of this is inspiring, and I'm reminded every time I look at her today of why I love this girl so very much.
Everything will be ok, and I hope you all get to read this soon! It's been 12 days without service for crying out loud! "We're alive I promise!"
-Thanks for reading! (Eventually)
Day 66- June 24th
To make things more perfect, Claire spotted a tiny fawn and its momma deer walking through the grass and nibbling on some brush. This was the cutest, smallest deer I've ever seen! It had little white spots on its bum just like Bambi! I didn't get any pictures as they were far away and my phone still in the tent. They ended up walking by us a little closer later in the morning.
I went to go retrieve our bear canisters which I placed a ways away from the tent last night. I thought I found a pretty neat hiding place. A bear might have just a little trouble getting to these..
It was such a nice peaceful morning with such a lack of mosquitos that we didn't end up leaving until 10:15am. We were ok with that because we knew we were only going 7.5 miles today to the base of Mt. Whitney.
After our tummies were full of oatmeal and fruit, we started out. Soon, we came across a horse train that we had seen from Chicken Spring Lake yesterday. And, just like Claire had said, she asked if she could pet one of them.
Immediately after the horses we came to the Rock Creek crossing and got to get our feet a little wet! In the Sierra, especially during a hot day, it's not worth it to take your shoes off while fording a small creek or stream. You'll most likely have to cross another in a few miles, and our mesh trail-runners dry out a lot faster than boots.
We have yet to come across a huge swollen river with no bridge, but there are several of those in this section. This year the rivers are particularly swollen because of the recent heatwave in Central and Southern California.
With soggy shoes we quickly dried off by, yup, you guessed it again, a huge climb. It's alright, by this point we're getting used to them. :) This is the first day that I've felt 100% for the last 5 days since Kennedy Meadows thanks to the food poisoning or stomach flu or whatever it was!
We went steeply up through Guyot Pass through some BEAUTIFUL trees. They were stained and twisted and knotted and gigantic and just all around awesome!
When we finally got up and over the pass we stopped at Guyot Flat for a little food break on a nice log and got to see the horse train pass us!
After that the trail weaved up and down while climbing steadily. Soon, we popped up onto a ridge and it felt like we had been transported to another place altogether!
I still don't know how it was geographically possible, but within 2 miles of taking that picture, we ended up here:
Deja vu! We saw the horses once more and then immediately forded another pleasant little stream. This one completely sand bottom except where hikers had laid rocks to cross dryly at a low tide.
We reached the spur trail to the Upper Crabtree Meadow where we will approach Mt. Whitney from tomorrow. The short 1.2 mile spit trail was absolutely stunning! Two more river crossings, but we didn't mind at all with views like this!
We set up camp near the Meadow, and spent the rest of the day catching up with a few other hikers, eating, filtering water, and preparing our backpacks for our 4:00am departure tomorrow!
Mt. Whitney summit is 7.5 miles from here off the PCT. That means we have to come back down the way we come. We're stoked about this because it means we get to "slack-pack" up to the top. Basically we are leaving our tent and sleeping bags and stove and heavy bear cans at camp and are finally getting to do some day-hiking!
After a small day today at 7.5 miles, we're felling well rested and are excited for our 15 mile day hike up Whitney tomorrow. Depending on how we feel we may pack up camp and hike 8 or so more miles to the base of the next high pass tomorrow. We'll see!
-Thanks for reading!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)