The Wonderland Journal

Miles hiked: 23.2

Mile marker: 775.9

It’s 11:00 PM when my alarm goes off. I empty my bag of anything that won’t be necessary for the big hike today. We’re going to climb 4.000 feet in about seven miles. Mount Whitney is 14,500 feet high, which is where we’re going today!

I frantically throw my things around my tent. Possum fur socks, puffy vest, rain gear — I shove everything warm into my pack that I can think I might need. 

Micro spikes. I can’t forget those. 

Everyone else seems to have packed up their tents. I thought they were leaving them out. Oh well. That’s a later problem.

It’s chilly and dark with the stars lighting the earth as much as they can with the little bit of moon that’s provided. In fact, I can’t actually remember seeing the moon at all.

My pack is light. It’s 11:30 pm when get in line and begin the hike to the mountain. I’m a little nervous for today. Walking in the night is always an eerie experience. Plus, today is going to be a big hike. It’s a lot of uphill and we need to be there by 5:30 AM. That’s when sunrise is. Actually we’re shooting for 5:00,  that way we can get set up for the big show!

The creek rushes by us as we walk. It’s loud for a while until we get away from it. Then we walk in silence, only the crunching of our feet and trekking poles the only sound to be heard. 

The path turns into a creek that we walk through. It’s not too deep, but my shoes still make a splash as I walk through it. The rest of the group is getting ahead. They’re so fast today! Dad is behind me. Before we left today, he said, “Savannah leads.”

“Why me?” she said. 

“Because you’re the fastest! I’m sticking with Tails.”

Dad sticks behind me as we walk. I lose the path a couple of times, and we have to turn our white lights on to find it. The rest of the group loses the path. I look up to see three red lights staring back at us. 

“The path is this way!” Savannah says. 

We walk up the path and follow the group. 

We have to pass through a snowfield to find the path again. It’s hard and crunchy snow. 

We finally reach the rocky ascent! I can’t keep up with the group. Step after step, I climb the rocks. The hike is endless. I pause it to take off my fleece. 

Everyone waits for us at the switchbacks. 

“You good, Tails?” they say. 

“Yeah,” I respond. That’s a lie. I’m queasy with borderline nausea, my head hurts with some random pressure, and I’m a baby when I’m sick. 

I’m not doing well. 

“How are you doing?” Dad asks. 

“Frustrated,” I say. 

“With what?”

“The hills.” 

“We can go back, if you want. This is just for funsies.”

“No, I’m good. I made it this far.”

We still have about 1800 feet of elevation left. I can do this. I hate this right now, but I know I can do it. 

I haven’t hated a hill this much since that one that led us to the spring weeks ago in the desert. I don’t know why I think I’ll ever like hiking. Who am I to think I could change my relationship with hiking?

This hike is awful! I’m tripping on the rocks. I’m tripping on my trekking poles. I’m tripping on my own feet!

I’m so frustrated that I can’t keep up with the others! Why am I so weak? I’ve always been so weak. As a kid, I was so unmotivated to play sports or even games with the other kids. I hated exercise. 

And here I am, 20 years later and I’m dragging behind the others because I am too weak for this. I may succeed in a gym, but Mount Whitney is showing me who I really am. Weak. Unable to accomplish any significant physical thing. 

Here’s what it’s like to hike in high altitude — oh, did I mention altitude? This isn’t any regular uphill hike. I have the battle of altitude fighting against me. Nausea. Headaches. That’s altitude. Not to mention taking an interrupted nap to then wake up before midnight to go on this God-forsaken hike. 

Walking in high altitude means I can take a sip of water without breathing heavily after, as if it takes a lot of exertion to drink. It means that if I try to speed up my pace, my heart slams in my ears and I can’t catch my breath. So I have to keep the pace steady. I can’t push too hard or else I’ll be doubled over gasping for air. 

If I vomited right here, would it wash away down the ridge? My stomach is empty and nauseas. If I stepped right off this cliff, then I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. 

But I can’t leave my group even if I wanted to. What would they think if I just turned around? I thought about it after Dad offered that we don’t have to do this. My group would be sad. Sad that I missed the Whitney sunrise moment, that we weren’t all there to experience it together. 

I would be a horrible person if I asked my dad to go back down with me. A truly awful person. 

Besides, I can do this. I know I can. I just can’t take breaks. I’m pushing to keep moving while I don’t feel well, and I’m not a trooper when I don’t feel well. So I’m currently behind the group, Dad somewhere behind me to layer up, and I’m the person who can’t keep up. 

I feel so weak. 

Even the moment of fun I had for two seconds as we went downhill about a mile ago can’t make me feel better. 

The rocks continue up and up. They’re big rocks, too. Ones that take your entire leg and hip muscles to push you upwards. 

The rock path turns into large rocks that show no path. I stumble forward. The horizon is a slightly lighter blue than the darkness of the night. I wonder what that is. The sun hanging out close to the edge of the horizon?

There is a hut with people in it. My people? 

The hut is rectangular and out of this wind that is beginning to cut my skin. I fall into the hut. Two people sit while one stands. They aren’t my group!

“Did you see a group of people go by?” I ask. 

“Yeah, they went that way,” a guy says. 

I go back into the wind. Man, it was warm in the tent! 

Where are they? I walk forward through the rocks and see a guy. 

“Did you see a group walk by?”

“Yeah over there. They may have gone around.”

I keep walking. I’m stumbling through this rock mountain top. Slightly nauseas. Pressure in my head. I don’t feel well. 

I see Rafiki’s head from the ground. He and the others are buried in the crevice of the mountain as if they were piled in a canoe. 

“Tails!”

I strip myself of my pack and fall into the crevice. I put my head into my hands to hide my face. 

A sleeping bag is thrown over my legs as I hang my head, completely exhausted from the trip up here. I shed a tear, and would have shed more if I’d been in a better context for it. 

“Better spot over here!” I hear Dad say. I get up and throw my pack over my shoulder. Dad is in a nook and I drop next to him. 

“Do you have your warmies on?” Dad says. I don’t. “Get them on!”

The right side of the sky is obstructed by a rock. Savannah immediately starts preparing hot chocolate for everybody. 

Savannah is thriving! She’s only wearing her shorts and puffy coat, and it’s about negative 100 degrees outside! 

I pull my thermal pants and rain paints on, then realize my rain pants are backwards. I fix it. I pull my wool socks over my hiking socks and gators. 

I’m shivering next to Dad, looking at the half-sky. Luxy is in front of me. 

I have to move. 

I try a few spots, some slanted, some too exposed. I end up sitting next to Rafiki, who is shivering in the freezing wind. 

Funny thing, I held a different image in my head about how this morning would look. I expected us to all be sitting on our sleeping mats on a flat rock, looking at the sunrise with a full panoramic view. We would be squished together in uncomfortable — but not painful — cold weather looking like caterpillars in our sleeping bags. 

Not scattered in an alcove of rock, shivering with fingers that don’t even work anymore due to the wind and not able to see the full sunrise with other people around!

The world is silent for a moment. We pass around hot chocolates as the horizon turns to warm colors. 

My hands are freezing as I sip my hot chocolate. It’s so quiet out here that every time I take a sip I can hear my gulp — which I feel very awkward about my audible noises, by the way. 

The light from the sun begins to show. It’s bright orange that with streaks of flaming red. It looks like a dragon breathed fire across the sky. 

The group around us slowly trickled in. They are whooping and cheering as the sunrise glows. It’s one of their group member’s birthdays today, so they celebrate with a birthday song. 

Sunrises are profound in the quiet. Peaceful. My body has turned into an icicle as I watch the sky burst open. 

I wish the group around us is quieter as we witness this incredible moment. Oh well, they’re just having fun like the rest of us often do. 

Even with the cheering of the large group, our little tramily sits bundled underneath sleeping bags with mugs of hot coco to warm our hands on the outskirts of the sunrise. 

The mountains to the left are dusky blue. In front of us is an explosion of warm colors overtop every shade of cool blue mountain ridges. 

I’m so exhausted after our night hike. I doze off a couple of times, my chin dropping to my chest and pulling me back awake. 

I don’t want to miss the sunrise, but my drooping eyes don’t seem to care. 

The sun breaks through the horizon. It slowly surfaces, its orange egg yolk shape poking over the mountain tops. Surprisingly, the sunrise before the sun emerged was more beautiful. 

People start to shuffle. We crawl out of our nook, revealing ourselves to the party group. 

“Rafreaky!” Richy — now Crank — shouts. “Katy! Hey guys! I didn’t see you here! You’re so quiet!” 

We take our summit shots as the sun shines light over the whole mountain. Rafiki started his naked summit shot tradition at the end of the Appalachian Trail, so he decides to continue this. 

He passes Savannah and I his clothes and rips his shorts off, shouting, “Don’t look!”

Immediately the party group begins to cheer and Rafiki holds his cowboy hat over front and raises a fist in the air. He’s shivering madly as the wind cuts through his bare skin. 

Dad captures the photo and I toss Rafiki his shorts. In about two seconds he is dressed. We all grab our packs and navigate the jagged rock floor. 

We begin the long descent down. It’s still cold and I’m wearing my puffy — something that we normally don’t do when walking. If your down puffy gets wet, it can ruin the down feathers inside of it. 

I’m still feeling a bit queasy and headachey. I look at Luxy — her face is pink eyes slightly red, lips slightly purple. She looks like she just climbed a mountain! Only when I pass Socks and she points out my lips are blue do I realize I’m looking a little altitude affected as well. 

We’re in a fishbowl of rock walls. The walls look like bear fur, the striations stroking downwards. We pass purplish blue flowers that have leaves like succulent worms. 

Clusters of Barbie pink flowers remind me of nerds as they blossom from candy-green leaves. Little alien antennas poke out from the flowers. 

Snow decorates the rock walls as we descend. The sky is Gatorade blue as we walk down the rocky dirt path. Our entire scenery are the rock walls that encompass the path. The lakes appear beneath us as little bits of grass scatter the ground. 

We pass a rock wall that is layered with black stripes and looked like a swirled chocolate and vanilla cake. The mountains behind it are jagged and look like Mordor from Lord of the Rings. 

The walk down feels like forever. We finally reach our campsite. I have so much to do, but I inflate my air mattress and lay it out. I trip on my tent stake and need a bandaid for my bleeding toe. I eat something, because I should. And I finally lay in the shade and pass out under my sleeping bag. 

I am exhausted. 

I wake a while later. We’re soon getting up to continue our hike. 

We pack up and begin the walk with a river crossing that we walk straight through, shoes and all. 

The sky is bright blue with puffy white clouds. Alpine trees are everywhere as we look out at the mountains. 

It’s been a long day, but we make it through some more miles before finally settling down for camp. 

I am wiped after Whitney!