Guitar Lake – Whitney Summit – Whitney Portal (15 miles, 3,035′ elevation gain)
Cumulative Distance: 231.9 miles
Cumulative Ascent: 43,080 feet
Okay. So here I am more than a year after I finished. I actually just recently went back and hiked most of the JMT again with some girlfriends, but that’ll have to come later. Maybe.
Now, where were we?
I set my alarm for 0030. The plan was to start hiking around 0100/0130, meet Jace up at the Mt Whitney Trail Junction at about 0500, summit together (hopefully timing it out to get there for sunrise), and then head alllllll the way down to Whitney Portal for a grand finish. It was going to be a long, brutal day.
I barely slept at all, I was so anxious and cold. Little mice kept scurrying around me all night looking for food and dragging hikers’ trash across the rough granite. I thought I was going crazy at first when I was deliriously in and out of sleep hearing what I thought might be the wind or leaves rustling. With no trees in sight, I was confused and sat up to see in the darkness what I was hearing. They were cute, but beyond annoying. Wide awake, I laid back down and watched the first headlights making their way up the giant wall of blackness before me. I wondered why they were all starting so early. It would be another hour or so until my own alarm went off, and I saw the first headlight start leveling out and moving north. They must have made it to the junction. They were insanely high above me and I started to get nervous about hiking alone in the pitch black at such a high altitude. Thoughts of hikers calmly walking off the edge of Everest or K2 to their death started racing through my mind. Hypoxia is no joke. I also kept thinking about all my flight attendant training with our discussions of TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) during aircraft decompressions and dropping sugar packets on the galley floor to test for hypoxia. Are the sugar packs hilarious? Molly, you hypoxic, girl.
My stomach started to hurt with the anxiety of the trail before me and excitement of seeing my husband for the first time in forever. It was our one year anniversary and we tried to get a permit to meet the day before, but it didn’t work out as planned so we were one day late. I had sent him a HAPPY ANNIVERSARY message from my GPS Transponder yesterday only to realize he was hiking his own hike and wouldn’t have the cell service to receive it.
I couldn’t wait any longer, so I started getting ready well before my alarm was set to go off. I heated up some water for coffee and heard some stirring near me. I looked over and saw that Gabriel was awake too even though he had planned to start about an hour after me. “Good morning! Wasn’t expecting you to be awake,” I whispered to him. He hadn’t been able to sleep either. I told him I was planning on leaving early after my cup of coffee because I wasn’t hungry. He scolded me to eat. I’d definitely need the calories if I were to get through the day. He was, of course, right. I forced a giant serving of oatmeal down, gagging throughout the ordeal. It was horrible and the altitude wasn’t helping. After I managed to choke that down, I took a couple bites of a bar, but couldn’t finish it so I threw it in my hipbelt pocket.
We said our goodbyes and I was off into the darkness with only my headlight lighting the way. I was so scared of falling off the side of the tallest mountain in the lower 48. I had no clue what I was getting into and petrified that it would be Half Dome all over again. What if a gust of wind blew me off a cliff? What if there was ice? What about a landslide? So many unknowns and there I was putting one foot in front of the other in the dead of night. These next seven miles were the hardest of the trail and in complete darkness. It was so cold, I couldn’t feel my face, legs, arms, or feet. The pain was excruciating and my stomach started hurting more.
Up and up, G eventually passed me and I kept winding my way up the switchbacks. As I looked up I could see more headlights zig-zagging in the black sky above. It was surreal hiking vertically into a black void. Thankfully, the darkness helped ease my vertigo. I couldn’t see the edge of the cliffs or how far down they would bring my limp body if I fell. The only time I truly grasped how high up I was, was when I started to see a bunch of headlights back down at Guitar Lake 2,000 feet below.
Everything hurt, not in the normal aching way from hiking or the weight of my pack, but because I was completely frozen. I had never been this cold before. I was trying hard to not hike so fast that I’d start sweating because that would ultimately lead to me getting even colder. I kept taking breaks to catch my breath, calm down, and go to the bathroom in my disgusting WAG bag (turns out my stomach issues weren’t just from stress), but my breaks would make me even colder. It was a hard balance to maintain. I couldn’t understand why I felt this way. I had just hiked over 200 miles already and was in pretty goddamn excellent shape at this point averaging 3 miles an hour.
I was starting to feel overcome by so many emotions and doubting myself when I looked up and saw a headlight quickly pacing back and forth maybe 10 or so feet above me. Could that be Jace? Had I already made it up to the junction? I quickly became excited and scurried up another switchback and yelled out to the headlamp before me, “JACE?! IS THAT YOU?!” The bright light started walking toward me and I knew it was him. I started hysterically crying and threw myself into him. Even now, just thinking about that moment, I’m overcome with all the feels. I couldn’t believe our plan had worked and that it was actually him. He was holding up a piece of cardstock with “YOU DID IT BABE!!!” written in sharpie. I’ve never felt so proud of myself as I did in that moment when I saw his face light up. Our whole plan had worked perfectly, too. He had been there for maybe 10 minutes or so when I arrived.
He was freezing as well, so I gave him my rain pants to put on over his to keep the wind from cutting through the fabric. I took my bear can out of my pack, ditched those at the junction, and stuffed my sleeping bag, water, and some snacks into my slack pack to bring to the summit. We’d be coming back down this way again, so I could cut some serious weight and then pick everything back up on the way down. We had another 2 miles and 1,000 feet of elevation gain until we’d be at the summit.
Whitney Trail Junction where I met Jace and ditched my pack
Up and up we went, freezing our asses off. Again, I really cannot even begin to explain how cold it was. I couldn’t wait for the sun to come up so we’d be able to see again and feel its warmth on our bodies. We kept taking turns vigorously rubbing each others hands and legs trying as hard as we could to get warm. I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore at all.
When we got to the final stretch, I don’t exactly remember what happened, but Jace told me to sit down. He said I looked like a deer in headlights and said we needed to turn around. I lost it. I hadn’t come all this way to be within 500 feet of the summit to succumb to hypoxia. I sat there on a rock, bawling my eyes out. The sky was just starting to barely become light and I started worrying that we wouldn’t make it in time for sunrise. We agreed to let me chill for 20 minutes or so to see if this would pass. I drank some water, ate some more of my bar, calmed down, breathed, and started to feel better.
We made the final push to the summit and literally arrived just as the sun peaked up over the horizon. I was surrounded by fellow hikers I had met along the way and it was magical. Everyone was wrapped in sleeping bags and fighting the cold. Someone mentioned that it was 16 degrees. Jace whipped out a bottle of champagne, but we were too cold to drink it. Everyone raced into the emergency shelter to hide from the cold and huddle together. There had to have been at least ten of us in that tiny room, trying to find warmth, congratulating each other, swapping trail stories.
The first peek of the sun from the highest place in the contiguous United States
I have to say, the whole summit experience is a blur. I was so cold, so out of it, so overcome by emotions. Once I got up, all I wanted to do was leave and be able to feel my hands again. I only took a couple crappy photos, and that’s probably what I regret the most. I wish I had more photos of the whole experience- good and bad. Our hands were just too frozen to take any.
We were up there for maybe 30 minutes at most, which also makes me pretty sad. I had wanted to spend at least an hour up there to take it all in. I had stood on the very top of the contiguous United States for only a short moment, but it was incredible.
Looking southwest. Hitchcock Lakes below and the slope on the left is Mt. Muir
We started back down and within 20 minutes or so I already started feeling better. The sun was up, my mind becoming clear again, and the circulation to my body regained. Now that it was daylight, we could see everything we had just hiked and it was so insane. I was thankful I hadn’t been able to see the sheer drop-offs on the way up. We got a good view of Mt. Muir, which, I have to be honest, kind of pisses me off. He got some “little” guy named after him as we stood on top of Whitney, his arch nemesis. Josiah Whitney called Muir an ignoramus for his theory of glacial formations in the Sierra. Welp, joke’s on you, Jo, because you’re a dolt and Muir was right. But, yeah, Whitney gets the highest mountain in the lower 48 and Muir’s mountain is literally there in Whitney’s shadow? Not cool, man. -___-
Passing by The Needles, you get glimpses out from their Windows to incredible scenery below. Again, we barely took any photos, so for that I am sorry.
At the junction, I packed up all my things again and said goodbye to the John Muir Trail. The summit had been the official terminus and the trail out to Whitney Portal isn’t technically part of it. We still had more than 8 miles to go and I had heard that the final descent was the hardest part of the trail aside from what I had just done in the dead of night.
The Needles. Formed by avalanches, in case you wanted to know
Da Needles again. Dat pointy guy in the middle is my homeboy Muir
Peering through a window, eastward. The V is Whitney Portal with Alabama Hills and New York Butte behind, respectively
The Needles and Muir, Hitchcock Lakes, Mt. Guyot, the Kaweahs. It’s a party
Another glimpse through a window framing Lone Pine Peak and then Death Valley in the very distance
Down and down the famous 99 switchbacks we went. Part of the trail has been blasted away with steel railings and a cable to hold onto as the trail section there is covered in ice almost year-round. Down again until we reached Trail Camp, where Jace had set up the night before. We got to his tent site and ate as he broke down camp. He surprised me with one of my favorite snacks: Oreos! I started crying, Jace took a photo of my insanity, and that photo is now my picture ID on my friend Kellie’s iPhone. Fun fact. I guess.
Aaaanyway, after Jace was all packed up we kept going down. “Only” six more miles or so left and they were the longest six miles of my life.
I twisted my ankle 8743652384562435 times and hurt my knee. I was impatient, exhausted, and couldn’t wait to finish. I had trailhead fever, which caused me to hike like an idiot. Jace made me stop to rest again annnnd, you guessed it, I started crying. I was seriously hurting myself. My foot and knee were in excruciating pain from me twisting them over and over as I tripped my way down the damn mountain. I know better, why was I doing this to myself?
Jace doing his best “ah-hyuck”
Whitney Portal in sight! The end is near!
Finally, we arrived at Whitney Portal and we were greeted with cheers, beers, and food with friends and fellow hikers. It was such a great experience to sit at a table with everyone, especially G, after our incredible journey.
Well, here it is. The end. I should probably have some well thought-out ending to put here, but I don’t. I still don’t have a nice little bow that I can tie on top of this whole experience. I turned out that I had a tiny fracture in my foot from that last day hiking, so that took a while to heal. But it was the mental part that really killed me. Hiking alone for over 200 miles in the wilderness is the most insane thing I have ever done. I loved it. I hated it. I’m so proud of myself. I feel like I can do anything because of the JMT. But immediately after, I said I would never do it again. That feeling gradually turned into a horrible post-hike depression that lasted for months. I was thankful I had other people to reach out to in order to cope with how I was feeling, because part of the depression as you re-renter society is that “no one gets it.” Everything feels fake and wrong and too fast and… you just want to go back into the wilderness.
So I did. Again. A year later with two of my best girlfriends.
trips and trailmix 