“The starfield was so densely crowded in the clear night sky that constellations disappeared.”
Carey Davies in the High Sierra,
had continued to unfold before us over the course of the day continued to both match and wildly surpass my hopes. But the hot afternoon had taken its toll on Jamie, and that night in camp, it became clear his morale had collapsed. “I can’t handle another day like that,” he said blankly.
It was a three-day walk back to the start of the walk, and we had at least three days ahead. There were no escape routes. Jamie’s only options were to press on or go back – but ahead lay the daunting prospect of Mount Whitney. Most of the ascent on the High Sierra Trail is loaded towards the end of the walk; if anything, the days ahead were going to be longer, tougher, hotter and higher. As we went back to our tents, it was obvious where his thoughts were leaning.
I tried to nod in an understanding way while being internally wracked at the options this would leave: either we would keep the group together and all walk back with Jamie to Crescent Meadows, or split somehow, with me carrying on to complete the walk, and at least one of us journeying alone, depending on what the three pieces of the puzzle decided to do. A fitful night followed where I wrestled with the dilemma and wondered if I had been selfish in dragging my friends here.
The next morning, as we sat on logs boiling water in the orange light of the dawn, it seemed Jamie’s resolve to go back had hardened overnight. Then, just as we were about to make a final decision on what to do next, another hiker, who had walked the trail last year and was now repeating it with his friend and daughter, wandered over for a chat. We explained the situation. “Hey, you’ll be fine,” he said to Jamie, waving away his concerns with reassuring Californian breeziness. “That last day was the hardest on the whole trail. Mount Whitney’s hard but it’s nothing like that.”
I had my (silent) doubts, but Jamie appeared to be convinced. And so the three of us went on.
HEAT AND HANDGUNS
We descended 2000 feet into the kiln of Kern Canyon; the lowest altitude on the hike, and the hottest temperatures (30C+). Our salvation came in the form of the ice-cold streams that we encountered every few miles. Even in late summer, in a year when drought and wildfires blighted California, water seemed to be abundant. Even so, it was a hard, and - given Jamie's apparent susceptibility to the heat - even nervewracking slog. On most of the big mountain walks I have done, heat has never been persistent or strong enough to tip into 'hazard' territory. Here it definitely was, and as hikers accustomed to northern climes,
“The clamour of the world fell away completely, giving way to the rhythm of our footsteps, a drizzle of forest birdsong, and a feeling of
enormous American stillness”
it was something of a learning curve.
We camped amid the pine groves of Junction Meadow. By now we had learned the hard way that a 'normal' start time would mean us walking through the intolerable heat of the afternoon, which was especially hellish for Jamie, so we got up at 4am to get a head start on the sun for the 12 mile walk (and 2500 feet climb) up to Guitar Lake. We finally reached our home for the night around midday. On the way we saw a bear cub perched in a tree, and stopped for a while to marvel at the exquisitely beautiful Timberline Lake.
Tomorrow’s aim, Mount Whitney, loomed several thousand feet above us as we we whiled away the afternoon, shielding food from fearless marmots. We were now in a – literally – heavily policed conservation zone. At one point a ranger appeared from nowhere to reprimand us for camping too close to the lake. He seemed like a laconic Edward Abbey type so I made a slightly risky quip about the gun in his holster (god bless America!) and he joked about pulling it on us for our camping transgression. We laughed a bit too loudly. I asked if there was any important news from the outside world. “Not really”, he shrugged. “Our president’s still a disgusting, embarrassing asshole.”
Squalls of rain blew through in the night but we crawled out of our tents at 3am to clear skies. The Milky Way was a dazzling bridge of light vaulting above the jagged black outlines of the mountains. We set off up the long sequence of switchbacks, climbing through a world of bare rock by the light of a headtorch with the cold universe shining above us. Eventually we reached the saddle in pre-dawn light and joined the route leading up to Mount Whitney’s summit – its equivalent of the ‘tourist path’. After a week of hardly seeing anyone, the human traffic on the trail was surreal. Jamie and Chris opted to descend from here, while I pushed on to the summit.
A little while later, I was stood on top of Mount Whitney not long after the first rays of sunlight had fallen on it. To the east, the Sierra plunged down like a giant tidal wave into the arid Owens Valley, where there were signs of the civilisation we had seen and heard nothing of for almost a week. To the west, where we had come from, rows of mountain ranges receded into the distance, rays of light striking their tops. At 14,494 feet (4417 metres), this was about as high as the summit of the Matterhorn – a pretty good place to watch a sunrise. This landscape had been a lot harder than it looked; and I reflected on the hard and important lesson that just because the sun shines, it doesn't mean the mountains don't bite. Far from it.
Several hours later, after eight miles of knee-smashing descent via an endless series of switchbacks, I staggered into Whitney Portal, sat down on a café bench with Chris and Jamie, and ate the best cheeseburger of my life. Things I had yearned for over the last week were close to hand: mobile signal, a shower, beer, further cheeseburgers, and sleep. But instead of exultation, the thought of returning to ‘normal’ life was bittersweet.