John Muir Trail Day 20: So Cold, So Close, So Long

JMT Day 20 — 8/23/24
Guitar Lake to Whitney Portal
Happy Dinner Camp to the end
JMT miles: 11
JMT total: 191.7
Elevation change: 2,927ft gain, 5,863ft loss

My eyes burned. My frozen face squirmed in a weird and uncontrollable way. Flower Power and I were high on Mount Whitney, maybe just below 14,000ft, on the final two-mile crest trail along the jagged ridgeline to the summit. The sun was up now, finally pouring warm light onto the mountains around us after hours of hiking in moonlit darkness. It was beautiful, as beautiful as anything I’d ever seen, but I could scarcely consider it.

We were still in deep shade, but between the teeth of the ridge, I saw the east face burn like the building fire inside a dragon’s throat. The heat was so close, yet inaccessible. It was just what we needed, but looking ahead, it was going to be at least an hour before we stumbled our way to the south-facing summit slope. Could we make it that long?

The buffeting wind shook us, pushing me into the boulder next to where I stood. I took a long look at the trail ahead. Even knowing it well, I was intimidated by the rocky path that wound around and between spires of split granite. These conditions sharpened even the slightest hint of danger. Flower Power and I were both cold, but were we too cold? A stumble was unlikely, but the margins in these temperatures were dragonfly-wing-thin. If we couldn’t keep walking and generating our meager warmth then we would be in serious danger.

Whitney was tantalizingly close. After three weeks of hiking south from Yosemite, here we were, less than two miles from the final goal. But our situation was dire, and distance had nothing to do with the danger that now crept through our extremities to our cores. I turned and looked at Flower Power. She looked terrible — wind-beaten, exhausted, crusty with scabs, eyes watery, and frozen. I wanted her to reach the top so badly, more than anything, more than I could have anticipated, but this was misery, and continuing was probably really stupid. “It’s your call. We can go for ten more minutes then reassess.” I wanted to keep hope alive, jam my pinky between the door and frame before it blew shut. Just ten more minutes. I hoped, unwilling to give up on the dream.

Finally, Flower Power, my mom, made the call that I couldn’t — bail. I could hear in her drawn-out speech that we were in very real danger. We were done with the most physically strenuous part of the climb, and still we were trending towards moderate hypothermia, if we hadn’t arrived there already. Our layers were inadequate for the howling wind and freezing cold of dawn. It wasn’t our day. All the sun-soaked heat of the JMT so far didn’t matter a damn right now. And the ordeal didn’t end at the top. We needed to get down too. A long way down.

Even though I thought I expected it, her choice was a shock. It hit me in the chest, hard. I never considered this scenario, that we would get this close, but not all the way. With grim acceptance of the discomfort, I had been stoic as we ascended. Now, as I fumbled with our Garmin to mark our high point, I broke. Turning away from Flower Power to hide a sudden rush of emotion, I pushed the button while simultaneously feeling the warm gush of tears flood my eyes. I didn’t speak more than one word at a time as the device launched our location into space, assuredly confusing and worrying those who were following our progress. I couldn’t trust my voice not to break. I swallowed my sobs. My face twitched and squinted. My belly somersaulted and clenched. This fucking sucked.

---

Earlier:

The alarm found me already awake, lying on my back, staring at the moon-glow through the translucent walls of the tent. It was only 3am, but already the voices and footsteps of the early risers were long gone up the trail. “Whitney for sunrise” was a FOMO-inspiring proposition, but the realities of a deep alpine start were plenty to convince Flower Power and me that it wasn’t worth the cold and dark. Nope, instead of leaving at 1am like lunatics, we were shooting for the far more reasonable 4am start. Flower Power must have already been awake as well because she sat up and started rustling immediately. Summit-day jitters fluttered in my stomach, and I could only wonder how they rumbled in hers.

Just like every jerk who has packed up crinkly plastic things in the dead of night while others try to sleep, we stuffed our gear into our packs, failing miserably to muffle the horrendous cacophony that damn near echoed off the stars above. We had slept in our hiking layers, so I was warm and ready. There was just a frozen tent to roll and a chalky cookie to eat. By 3:40am preparations were complete. Under the bright light of the waning moon, we fist-bumped to start the day one last time. There was just one day left. “Let’s do this, Flower Power.”

“Let’s do this AtHome.”

I hiked behind without turning on my headlamp. She was doing a great job of leading the way, and the tread was bright enough for sure footing. Slowly we gained altitude as the trail carried us up and over the final granite benches at the foot of the mountain. An occasional wind gust stirred the still night, but I was warm in my fleece and wind layers.

Above blinked the headlamps of those ahead. Some were already far along the crest, well into the final push, less than 30 minutes from topping out. Others were zig-zagging up the slope ahead of us, following the switchbacks to the junction at Trail Crest where the trail split. Left to the summit, right to the Portal. Behind us were the rest of the stragglers, too smart or too scared to seek the summit sunrise. All appeared to move slowly, either from the vast scale that shrunk us to ants, or because the darkness stretched time.

The switchbacks were sketchier than I remembered. Sure, it had been 2015 the last time I was on this trail, but the tread was narrower and more eroded than it had any right to be. I wasn’t expecting a sidewalk, but I was hoping for better than this. With the shadowy gloom lurking below, I was tense. Flower Power must have been mortified, but she kept taking the next step, steadily working her way to the next turn. When she stepped over a mess of unstable talus or across a slipper slab, I moved close, gripping both poles in one hand and holding my other near her pack like a fleshy guardrail. If she noticed this or was bothered by it, she didn’t let me know. But I didn’t really care. I wasn’t going to let her tumble. Our fears were stupid and irrational, and I was committed to keeping them that way. Soon, my pits and back were drenched with sweat. I wasn’t overheating, but I was tense. This was stress sweat, the clammiest and least comfortable kind. But Flower Power was planted and methodical. Although I knew she was terrified, there was no sign that I could see. I was frustrated that the trail wasn’t as smooth as I’d hoped, but so far our team was rising to the challenge.

Finally, the sky began to lighten and the trail did find a little more width and smoothness. I breathed a bit easier and took short moments to look around and consider the larger picture. We were high already, and making great progress. Maybe our overall pace was a little bit slower than anticipated, but the early start afforded us plenty of time to be careful. Besides, in this wind, we weren’t going to hang around on the summit for an hour like we had planned. Nope, unless it warmed up significantly with sunrise, then it was going to be a very fast turnaround.

And holy smokes, this wind really was having a day. The defeated fellow who had descended past us in the dark after turning around wasn’t wrong when he warned us of the cold and wind. Even after hearing his glum assessment, I figured that we had a good shot, what with all of our layers and stuff, but now I wasn’t so sure. Flower Power’s hands were uncomfortably cold already, which likely meant that her core was as well. I was hanging in there, but the wind was more persistent and ferocious the higher we climbed, and there was a lot more climbing to do. Fine at 12,500ft might not be fine at 14,000ft. We stopped for a short break to add our final layers, because as we all know, it’s easier to stay warm than it is to get warm. I just hoped that we hadn’t left it too late.

With my fleece, puffy, and wind jacket, I was as cozy as a fresh burrito. The warmth was glorious, but it didn’t last. Flower Power was in her fleece, puffy, and rain jacket herself, but her hands continued to be the concern as we followed the final switchback to the precariously perched junction at the top of the ridge. The hikerbox handwarmer that I’d slipped in her mitten earlier was a dud, and a few of her fingers were numb. Frostbite was probably not an immediate concern (right?), but it was on my mind. I didn’t ask if it was on hers.

At Trail Crest, we joined a few other hikers in stashing some gear to be collected later as we attempted the out-and-back to the top of Whitney. I kept my pack on, preferring haste and carrying everything rather than fiddling in the intense cold, but we pulled Flower Power’s bear canister from her pack and tucked it behind someone’s backpack. High on the sharp rocky ridge, the trail bent around the base of a vertical spire of rock. Call us stupid for trying, but we scampered around the corner hoping to find shelter from the tempest, only to discover that the wind was howling from every direction. It didn’t make any sense, but there was no time to consider this oddity. Movement was our only remaining defense against the cold, so we hurriedly added Flower Power’s baselayer leggings under her rain pants. We were all in now, completely on the edge of what we could withstand.

Another fist-bump, this one less enthusiastic, and we were on the move again. Honestly, I was kind of surprised that we were trying for the summit at all. A distant voice in the back of my mind was already yelling its unwanted opinion that the safe move was to descend as quickly as possible — safe, inglorious, and scary — but there was no time to debate. We needed movement to survive, so we defaulted to the plan.

Although sunlight was bright on the opposite side of the ridge, the trail was destined to remain shady for hours, hammered by the wind and frozen. At first, there were a few long switchbacks across the bouldery slope just south of Mount Muir. We stumbled forward, unsteady on our feet as the gusts threw off our balance. I noticed that my entire body was clenched tight against the cold and shuddering barrage. If we could just turn the corner ahead, it might be calmer on the other side, I told myself.

However, when we got there, the sight wasn’t exactly encouraging. The trail along the gnarled ridge was awesome, a nifty bit of trail work, but there were no handrails. I didn’t blame Flower Power for pausing when it came into view. The wind still whipped, the trail was scarier, and we were colder. Could we do this? Was it stupid to try? My comfort had deteriorated. Was I thinking straight?

Here, we finally paused, unable to ignore the severity of our situation any longer. Leaning into the mountain, we let a pair pass us, and I longingly watched them take methodical, confident steps forward. I wanted to follow them, knowing that we probably shouldn’t. How do you know when to roll the dice and risk moving forward? How do you turn around so close to the goal? Hindsight can judge the outcome of the choices we make, but not of paths untaken. If we turned back now, we would never know if we could have made it.

I remembered the awful feeling from the Southern Sierra High Route when I’d lost the nerve to attempt a traverse of Mount Baxter. It was the first and only time fear had turned me around in the mountains, though I probably should have a few other times, and it was a major bummer. Something had felt ‘off’ during the approach, turning me into an unpleasant sweaty knot of stress, and I’d agonized over the decision to give it a shot or backtrack to the easier route. Ultimately, Spice and I turned around, and I’d never forgotten the disappointment, even though I still pretended to this day that in following my gut we had avoided disaster. Here, high on Whitney, this felt similar. But we didn’t have the luxury of warm weather for an hour of deliberation. We needed action and movement.

In our brief time on that corner, I did a lot of staring. I could feel the summit slipping away, so I kept swiveling my head back to gaze at the rounded hump, following the tiny people as they inched up the crest. Elsewhere, the horizon was a dusty rainbow of alpenglow, layering muted crimson on cool purple where the leading edge of day steadily squashed the shadows into the earth. All the mountains around us, there were a lot of them, crowded us now that we were higher with a longer perspective. Rather than defining the horizon, they were squeezed within it, filling to the brim with pink light. If it wasn’t so damn cold, this would have been the moment of the whole JMT. It was achingly beautiful. I tried to appreciate it in that way, but survival had stolen my joy.

I asked Flower Power how she was feeling. The answer wasn’t good. Numb hands, cold feet, concerned about staying steady in the wind — all understandable. I told her it was her call. Unlike that day below Baxter, I couldn’t pull the plug. I wanted Whitney immeasurably more than Baxter, and I was aware that this desire was clouding my judgment. I was unreliable, able to help regardless of the decision, but perhaps willing to push it too far. A minute later, she made the choice to turn around. It was a relief. It broke my heart.

Now my body clenched for another reason as I fought back tears. I slid on my sunglasses to hide my watery eyes before I turned around to face Flower Power. After a tight embrace, I followed her back down to the junction. The decision burst the dam of emotions that had accumulated behind a scaffolding of purpose and desire. It wasn’t only disappointment that I felt now, but an overwhelming cocktail that made no sense. Disappointment, relief, sadness, and more. Already raw and confused from reaching the final day of this thru-hike, I tumbled further into the abyss of whatever it was that I was feeling. Or rather, the brew bubbled out of me in a release that seemed to have no end. By the time we had repacked Flower Power’s bear canister, I was mostly under control, but if I dared consider the agonizing closeness of the summit, my tears flared instantly. That damn wind kept slapping my nervous system with its icy hand. I hung on, hoping to find calm warmth on the other side of the ridge.

The east side was a sight to behold as I crossed the ridge behind Flower Power. It looked and was significantly warmer in the morning sunshine even though the wind somehow still blasted us from all sides. Ahead was a long switchback into the sun. Below were the 98 others that all combined, formed the infamous 99 Switchbacks. Further below, was the first comfortable-looking place of the day. Trail Camp was sun-soaked and flat, surely a good place to finally rest after several hours of intense hiking. Further still, was the deep vee in the mountains where Whitney Portal hid from view. That’s where our hike ended, and I couldn’t wait to be there. I just wanted this to be over so that I could forget about it and move on. Hiking for hours, steeping in this disappointment, seemed like torture.

To our left was the brilliant escarpment of the Whitney ridge. The vertical faces of innumerable spires buzzed with light, gleefully shielding the warm rays from the one stretch of trail where we had really needed them. They filled me with longing for a different outcome. Getting over this was going to take some time.

However, although Flower Power and I were probably not in danger of freezing to death anymore, we were still far from stable ground, and the switchbacks, which diminish to an afterthought after a successful summit bid, weren’t letting us go without a fight. This hike was far from over.

There were some sketchy washouts and eeky bits, but mostly the switchbacks ground us down with their rocky tread. Wind still shook us and we could watch it rip in glittering flurries across the lakes below, but at least we were warming up. And though I felt warmth, I still shivered in all my layers, feeling proudly self-conscious in my baggy windbreakers whenever a group of day hikers in shorts panted past us. What a difference the sunlight made. They were warm and I was still thawing. I hoped that they had more layers.

Finally, finally, fiiiiiinally, we reached the last of the switchbacks. It was 10am, and after over six hours since starting it was time to take a break. We found a sheltered spot among the boulders and dumped our stuff. I made a deposit in my wag bag, too tired to care much that I was barely hidden from the scattered residence of Trail Camp. Truly, I was just grateful that my body hadn’t forced me to take the most uncomfortable dump of my life higher on the mountain. After that, I sat on our mat and popped off my shoes to bask in the warm sun.

There was still a lot of uncomfortable churning happening below the surface of my consciousness and in my guts, but at least we were safe. We’d survived whatever the hell that was up there, and although I wished for a different outcome, Flower Power and I had gotten away with our lives, which was the only thing that mattered. I was still deeply disturbed and disgusted by the conditions and longed for those feelings to dull as they would with distance and time. However, I was becoming more resolute in my belief that Flower Power had made the right choice. It sucked that we needed to turn around, but the vicious wind left us with just one dangerous alternative. We had done the right thing, but our righteousness did nothing for my disappointment. They were separate, tearing me apart in the middle.

Solemnly, we cooked up the ramen that we had been saving for the summit. It was damn tasty, and the salty broth banished the last of the cold from my core. But it was our friends, Pebbles and Crunchy, that lifted our spirits the most when they caught up. They’d been first to the top, hiking by moonlight and flirting with dangerous cold themselves, and it sounded like an ordeal. I was thrilled that they made it up and down safe and sound. Their description of conditions higher on the mountain provided satisfying confirmation that we’d done the right thing (i.e. a hypothermic hiker bundled under sleeping bags in the summit hut), but again, doing the right thing was separate from disappointment for me. I didn’t really care about being right, but I did care about not summiting for some reason. Surprisingly little of me was jealous of their success, but it still teased at the front of my brain. Yep, it was going to take a while to work through all of this.

They left after a pleasant and heartfelt goodbye, promising to give my brother and dad good tidings if they saw them at the Portal. We packed and followed. The air was warm, but the trail was still rocky as we picked our way down the precipitous descent. Soon we were just two small dots caught in the flow of other bedraggled hikers. Most had turned around like us, and we all stumped with a stiffness that hinted at our fatigue. As we did, my thoughts couldn’t be stopped from swinging back to the summit and how much I had wanted to reach it. Flower Power was doing a better job at moving past it, already finding comfort in the knowledge that it was the conditions, and not us, that had kept us from the top. But I wasn’t ready for validation or silver linings, so I wallowed in my confusion, committed to riding the rollercoaster, impossibly trying to decouple the bad from the good.

There had been so much success, so much to be proud of, during these last 20 days. I’ve always been a believer that it’s the journey of a thru-hike that holds the value, not just the end. But I’d also never failed to reach the end before. This was a new experience for me, and it was challenging that ideal, even if I wasn’t ready to give up on it yet. What would reaching Whitney’s summit have changed about Flower Power’s grit and determination to pull herself over Mather Pass? Was our fabulous rest day at MTR diminished because the cold stopped us an hour short of the top? The answer was “no,” obviously, but we were definitely missing the pretty bow on top that would make answering, “So how was your trip?” an easy one-liner. How the heck was I going to sum this up?

I found that this complicated finish was shining a light on all the other confusing aspects of the JMT, enhancing the other sticky bits that otherwise would have been easy to forget. Now I looked back, and yeah, this had been a really tough hike. Physically, it was harder than I expected, highlighted by Flower Power’s heroic effort as a 5’2” 69-year-old. She did great, and impressed me the whole way with her tenacity and perseverance, but her challenges with the humongous Sierra steps and rocky trail were eye-opening. Many stretches of the JMT were more rugged and taxing than I remembered, and I was equally in awe of her as I was disappointed that I hadn’t anticipated these challenges. How would this trip have been different if I had prepared for this from the start? And not only had the JMT been tough on our bodies, but it had also been more mentally and emotionally draining than I appreciated until now that I was running on fumes. It was a full-on experience, wonderful and arduous, an epic journey set in the most epic landscape. How could I possibly have expected any less?

After a few breaks, a few bars, and a few thousand feet of descent, we could finally see Whitney Portal. The air was warm and calm. Somehow the vibes were good. Both Flower Power and I recognized that this was it, and I was glad that she naturally adopted a slower, more contemplative pace and mindset. I warned her of the rushing river that awaited us at the bottom, the one made of real-world tasks and worries that would inevitably carry us away whether we resisted it or not. It was our choice to wade in slowly, giving ourselves time to process the experience before getting swept off our feet, rather than cannonball without a second thought, but eventually, we’d be swimming. Both methods were alright, but I hoped she would allow herself the time to decompress slowly. The slower the better for me. I wanted lots of time, a luxury, to consider this journey.

I dug through my hipbelt. Stupid. I still carried the shard of obsidian that I had picked up at our camp near Bench Lake to show my dad on Kearsarge (he told us to look out for obsidian — evidence of the old trading routes). Risking unknowable bad juju, I intended to place it on Whitney (potentially bringing us good juju). But that didn’t happen, and now I was risking guaranteed super-bad juju by carrying it out of the mountains. Where is it? I felt the sharp edge on my fingertip. It was obvious among the mess of plastic wrappers and hard candies. Pulling it out pinched between fingernail and fingerpad, I held it in my palm for a few seconds, thanking it and apologizing. Who knew if it was the obsidian that had brought down the wrathful tempest, but I was glad to flick it to the base of a huge ponderosa pine. It wasn’t the top of Whitney, but it was a beautiful spot.

A few steps later, I found something I’d been looking for for weeks. A ponderosa pine cone, unopened and sticky with sap lay next to the trail. I wanted one to bring home with me so that I could propagate the seeds and grow some of the magnificent trees myself. I didn’t know if the Sierra variety could thrive in Colorado, but I intended to try. Now, I’m not particularly spiritual or inclined to believe in unseen forces, but I couldn’t ignore the timing. In returning the obsidian to the mountains, I was gifted these seeds, or so it seemed. Perhaps this was just my feeble human brain assigning meaning to soothe a confusing situation, but maybe it was meant to be. I’d never know, but I was stoked to carry the sticky cone in one hand down the final mile-long switchback. Whitney had hurt my feelings, but now I had reason to believe it was for the right reasons. Me and Whitney, we were still cool.

Sure enough, the river tugged as soon as Flower Power and I stepped into the shallows. Arthur (of L2H fame) and Dad awaited us at the trailhead, snapping photos and offering tight hugs. To the store for french fries. Where to put our packs? Where to sit? Sun or shade? The small decisions piled up. Our tired brains didn’t care enough to have answers. And this was just the start. With practice, I hoped that my summarizing sentences would come easily and not yank me back to tears, but I wasn’t there yet. Neither was Flower Power. Befuddled, we struggled to put everything into words. And how could we? After living on the JMT for nearly three weeks, I was farther from understanding so many things than I had been when we started. I didn’t even know the questions to ask myself, let alone the answers.

We finished off the big plate of fries and bought some stickers from the store. Then we were in the car, on our way to the Dow Villa in Lone Pine. That was it. In an instant we were off the JMT. It was good to be in the company of loved ones, without any pretense or expectations. In the shower, I untangled my ratty old braids, watching as the nest of shed hair collected on the drain lattice. The soap stripped the layered oils and sweat from my skin, leaving me dry and itchy under my clean clothes.

Later, there was Chinese food at the same place we all ate during the L2H. Then, there was a shared pint of Ben & Jerry’s in the hotel hot tub. Finally, to bed in a hot room after trashing the crud in my email inboxes. There were worse ways to celebrate the end of a thru-hike. Actually, this was the perfect way to celebrate. I just wished that I wasn’t so confused.

It was done. The last day of the JMT was over. Tomorrow was the first day after, and all Flower Power and I would have left were our memories. The trail was over, which meant that we would need to look back in order to move forward. Taking the next step while hiking isn’t always easy, but sifting for meaning among a mess of memories is harder. Life on the trail was simple, and now it wasn’t. However, despite the complexity, I was happy to be done, and wrapped myself in a protective cloak of gratitude. I sank into it, my gratitude for everything — the opportunity, our health, and everyone that made the trip possible. What a freaking ride.

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There were clouds above the Sierra Crest the next morning. They were the first I’d seen since the day Flower Power and I crossed Selden Pass, and they looked mean. Arthur and I stood at the skatepark behind McDonald’s, watching the spectacular sunrise unfold, more silence than words filling the hour we lingered. With the forecast calling for potential snow up there, it was fortuitous that Flower Power and I weren’t in the mountains anymore. Yesterday was cold enough, and it was worse today. Yet from here, safe on the valley floor, this view was one of the best I’d ever seen.

I didn’t, and would never know why things worked out the way that they did, but this was a sweet moment. Mount Whitney, Tumanguya, sat confidently in the shadows, content to let the smaller, closer mountains snatch the attention. Like a magnet, it drew me in. Like it had for the entire JMT, the same way it pulled at me even when I was a continent away. It was woven into my memories spanning more than a decade, deeply ingrained in my life, and would continue to be, now as an important character in yet another story. I couldn’t guess when, but it was comforting to know that it would be again. I would be back.