Week 9 ON THE TRAIL

6/28/2022

Hi, next installment for your delight and delectation.

This week I climb the highest mountain in the USA, meet a new furry friend, and sample the liberating delights of an open air toilet.

Mount Whitney, at 14,505 feet, is the highest mountain in America, outside of Alaska. Although not on the PCT, it is only 8 miles off the trail, and I would summit that before Forrester. The effects of altitude are a concern at anything above 10,000 feet.

Rest, hydration, and acclimatization are the watchwords. I had been gradually climbing for many days before Whitney, and rested for a day before moving on to Forrester.

Most PCT hikers do the same, but things can still go seriously wrong. On the day before I climbed Whitney a young lady, who I had met days before, tragically died of altitude induced complications as she passed over Forrester. The climb up Whitney was long and tortuous. Thank goodness there was barely any snow, because the climb took almost 7 hours. I started before first light, at 04.30, and summited just before 11.30. That was a tough, tough four and a half thousand feet.

Even though my body was reasonably accustomed to the altitude, I was still huffing and puffing, needing to take frequent breaks to catch my breath, and let my heart slow down! But that's no surprise, as due to the lower air pressure as I climb, my body will struggle to cope with the reduction in available oxygen. At sea level air contains about 21% oxygen - at the top of Mount Whitney that falls to about 12%.

The weather was kind, sunny and not too windy, always good news when one is clambering over boulders on the side of a (very high) mountain.

I stayed at the summit to have my lunch, and found that I had phone signal, so decided to phone WhatsApp my wife. She was suitably Unimpressed at my achievement, and just chastised me for walking so many miles off the PCT!

Coming down the mountain was very tricky near the top, where it was ragged and required a lot of scrambling, but became much easier further down. It took about 4 hours, and I was so glad to get back to my tent, which had been left set up at our base camp. A unique facility was available to me at camp. I have never before seen an open air toilet of such majesty - a delightful throne atop a wooden covered pit, with a single sheet of corrugated iron providing the merest modicum of "privacy".

I found it strangely liberating to sit in such conditions, but I would feel uncomfortable to make a habit of it. And I met the first of many furry new friends in the Sierras - Marmots. They look like furry beavers, are the size of small badgers, and are not too much bothered by us hikers. Apparently, if you leave your tent open, and wander off for a few minutes, they will be in looking for food. If you leave them too long they will also leave you some presents of their own. Fortunately, this did not happen to me, but several hikers at our camp were unlucky enough to have very smelly tents to sleep in that night! Until next time....

After arriving at Kennedy Meadows the only way was up - up into the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. And it was up, up and up, as the highest peaks are all at the southern end of the Sierras. Forrester pass is the highest point on the PCT, at just over 13,000, and I would climb over that in my first week in the Sierras.