Lower Palisade Lake to Bench Lake Ranger Station
Great start to the day. The first thing to tackle was Mather Pass – another 4 miles and 1500 feet in elevation gain with lots of switchbacks and rough, talus terrain. When Omar started to pull ahead we decided to set a goal for me – I would make it there within 3.5 hours. This was the most jagged terrain I’d seen so far – pretty much no greenery, just a big horseshoe of towering peaks and the bluest sky I remember seeing the entire trip. I really felt the asthma start to act up on my way up the mountain side, and had to take more breaks than I anticipated. But I was determined to keep positive, and would set mini goals for myself, and not pay attention to the people passing me, including a family of four that looked like a sled dog team – moving at a steady pace in perfect sync. I was a little jealous of that. Hike your own hike became my mantra heading up. I would set the goal of making it up at least 2 switchbacks before stopping to catch my breath and that worked pretty well. I finally hit a point where I turned one switchback, and saw a very long, continuous stretch – I’d seen it from further down and based on where I thought the pass was, it constituted being (relatively) close to the top. At one point I heard two separate people with big ‘whoohoo!!!’ shouts. I still couldn’t tell where the pass was, so tried to use that as a guide – no use with all the echoing in this area. But clearly someone (and I rightly assumed one was Omar) had made it to the top!
By the time I made it to the top I was tired but really excited – I’d even made it in just under 3 hours, way ahead of schedule! Omar was up above me, off trail, so I dropped my pack and navigated over the talus rocks to get to where everyone was congregating for their photo moments. The ‘sled dog’ team was up there too, chatting with Omar. They said ‘you must be Ally!’. Here’s where the amazing thing about trail life comes into play. Of course Omar had already mentioned me while waiting for me to get to the top. But when he introduced himself as Omar, they immediately asked if he was with Ally. How, you ask? It all started back at MTR – they had apparently seen the note that I left for him at the junction in case he had been lost, and hoped we had found each other. A couple days later, at Muir hut, they saw our names carved in the bench inside the hut, so knew we had found each other. They were obviously hiking a faster pace to have caught up with us, but I thought that was pretty spectacular that part of our journey was followed by total strangers, through just a couple of markers. Now of course, an argument can also be made that it violates Leave No Trace principles….but I already went over that, so I’ll leave it at it being a very small world on this 211-mile stretch of California.
Then I got the story of the ‘whoohoo’ at the top of the pass. As I guessed, one was Omar. Omar….being Omar, was heading up the pass, and some guy was gaining on him from behind. Not one to be outdone, he kept picking up the pace until he was basically SPRINTING up the mountain to get there first. There haven’t been a lot of moments that I really yearned to be the first one to arrive somewhere on the trail, or necessarily keep up with his pace, but this was one of those moments. I still laugh thinking about it, but that pretty much sums it up. Omar refuses to do anything less than be the best at whatever he sets his mind to. I might get this backwards, since I’m way behind on posting this and now almost 2 months post JMT, but I think even though Omar did make it up first, the other guy had his victory shout first, so then Omar had to follow suit. Men.
As we were packing up, we met a group of three guys just getting to the top. We stopped and chatted for a couple of minutes, then headed down. Heading down on the other side should have been the easy part. But, true to the schedule my feet had the last several days, they started to hurt badly again. They’d actually never stopped hurting, but with the asthma kicking in on the way up, I was concentrating more on that than my feet. Every step again became excruciating. After making the initial descent, Omar had stopped at a small but gorgeous alpine lake, had already taken a dip, and was trying to lay out in the sun to get dry. Looked like a great spot, so I asked if we could take another break and I could take a dip. Obviously, this was when the wind started to kick up, which made getting in the lake far less desirable! I know that getting in cold water should be much like taking off a bandaid, quick and only momentarily painful. I opted for slow, steady and horrifying. By the time I inched my way in, the three guys from the pass had made their way down and jumped into the lake and were swimming around. But it was still refreshing, and I got to rinse out my hair – maybe a day or two had been rinsed off the several-day horror that was my hair.
Laying on the itchy grass, Omar was unusually quiet. When I asked why, he just said he was soaking it all in, because we were getting close to the end. I’ll also interject with a short story from one of the guys. Apparently they had met a solo (I think PCT) hiker who had an encounter with a bear in LeConte Canyon a day or two ago. Sleeping ‘cowboy style’ just on the ground, using his bear canister as a pillow, he’d fallen asleep. Only to be woken with warm air blowing in his face. Waking up, and just seeing a big fuzzy blurry figure in front of his face, he swung and punched what he soon after realized was a bear – sniffing his food that he was sleeping on. Thankfully, the bear walked off after the encounter. Amusing to hear as a story, but it made me glad again we hadn’t really had any ‘real’ bear encounters!
After our break, moving further down into another canyon, I couldn’t shake how badly my feet were hurting. They weren’t getting better, they were getting consistently worse. They weren’t better after being off of them at night, they were in the same amount of pain that I had left them in the night before. I really started to wonder if I had done (or was doing) serious damage to my feet. At one point Omar asked if I was OK and I said no, we needed to stop and talk for a minute. Feeling another sob-fest coming on, we talked about my feet. I kept saying I wasn’t sure I could do it, that I didn’t think I could make the mileage each day. I kept telling myself that if we didn’t have a set amount of food that limited us to a certain number of days, I could do it with an extra day or two to compensate for my slower pace. Basically I was saying it was time to stop, without actually saying it was time to stop. Omar asked what the worst that would happen was if we kept going. I figured, broken foot or feet. Not being able to put any pressure on my foot and need to be helicopter evacuated. Doing permanent nerve damage, or needing surgery. I didn’t really think that was the case, but he asked for worst-case scenario. He asked what I was thinking. Well, that was a loaded question, I had about a million thoughts going through my head. I didn’t want Omar to be disappointed with me. I have always considered myself a strong individual, with a decently high pain tolerance (I still pride myself when I dislocated my knee at 18, playing softball, I caught the ball for the out, held onto it, and it was dislocated for about 4 hours without me shedding a tear, albeit with some yelling and screeching). But Omar is on a level all his own, and I didn’t want to let him down by giving up, when I figured, had the situation been reversed, he wouldn’t have. But then I needed to listen to my body – something my Auntie Ann had told me before I left – you only get one. If the pain had stayed constant even, not getting better, I could have dealt with that. But every day being progressively worse was telling me something wasn’t right and it wasn’t just me having a sore foot. I was so excited for this trip and EVERYONE knew about it. What was I going to tell them? Oh, I didn’t finish the trail because my foot hurt. Yes, I’m a baby. But then I thought of how far I’d come, with hardly any practical, real world backpacking experience. I had my intuition, and book smarts, but I’d done a damn good job out here in the wilderness, away from everything I knew, for 15 days now. That’s something to be proud of whether 15 days, or all 20 days. I was so close, could I really give up? But I knew what kind of terrain and mileage was coming up. Nothing under 12 miles each day, with lots of ups and downs, including Forrester Pass at over 13,000 feet, not to mention Whitney itself, ending with a 17 mile day.
I knew what I needed to do, and that this was the time to do it. But Omar wanted me to say it out loud. The moment I said “I’m quitting, I need to leave the trail” I lost it and started sobbing all over again. Omar texted my parents to tell them we were quitting, and going from there. I knew that there was a ranger station nearby, at Bench Lake, a couple of miles before our stopping point for the day. I also knew there was a trail up and over Taboose Pass that would lead back out to the road. I wasn’t sure which road, since my map didn’t show it, but it was a start. We needed to go to the ranger station.
After that, Omar moved really slowly. He’d always checked on me, but moved with purpose ahead of me. I had officially taken the wind out of his sails, even though he said he wasn’t disappointed in me. We were really quiet. After quite a while of total silence, we finally picked up a little conversation again, about where we were at, and how we’d gotten there. We started to talk about if he would finish the trail, or leave with me. I was under the impression that I would walk myself out, albeit slowly. He was under the impression that when we got to the station, we would get horses or something to get me out, I wasn’t walking anymore than I needed to. Well, we could talk about that later. I wanted him to finish, and he was worried I would be upset if he went without me, even though this was my goal. Sounded very similar to me being worried he would be upset or disappointed that I quit – I think we made great hiking partners, we each had our strengths, but really took each other into consideration for big decisions. I wanted him to finish. This may have been my dream to start, but as soon as he said he would go, it became his dream too, whether he admitted it or realized it. I wasn’t going to let him not finish. Besides, if he didn’t finish, how was he going to help me get ready to finish next year??
We talked about a lot of different things, but I think the most poignant was when we talked about my ‘pattern’ that I mentioned on day 3. My pattern of having a goal, trying, failing in some way, then going back and finishing at a later time. My problem is that I have huge ideas and dreams, but I don’t take full consideration when preparing for them. I obviously spent a great deal of time preparing for this hike in a lot of ways. Purchasing equipment, making all of our food, maps, itineraries, time tables, reading books, training and getting in shape. But that’s kind of the order that I put things in. Getting in shape was last. I did work hard, but not hard enough. I knew asthma would take its toll, but I probably could have done more to be in a better place at the beginning. I couldn’t have predicted getting sick at the start, but I could have focused on my breathing. I did train with an elevation mask (reduces air flow to simulate high altitudes), but I should have trained for longer periods of time, and taken it out hiking instead of just on the stair master. Now that my feet were a huge issue, I could have trained better for that. I wore a weighted pack while at the gym, but not at the full weight I was going to carry, and like an idiot, wore gym shoes not hiking shoes. Would that have solved it? Who knows, but it’s something I could have and should have done to help mitigate potential problems like that. Omar wondered back on day 3 if I’d complete the trail – if this would be another stop in my pattern. Well, clearly it was going to be. But I told him that a ‘failure’ in that black and white definition, had never hit me so hard as this had. I anticipated that this would be the failure to break that pattern. Now, when I make a goal, all aspects of preparation, be it mental, physical, purchasing things, whatever, start immediately. If you’re going to have big goals, you have to have big follow through and live and breathe those goals every day. This trip had taught me that. I overcame a lot of obstacles to make it to day 15. And without Omar, I don’t think I would have ever left Tuolumne Meadows. I know I wouldn’t have. So even if I didn’t finish the trail, Omar’s ‘job’ there was to help and support me achieve my dream, and my need to stop doesn’t at all take away from the fact that he accomplished that job 110%. We hugged it out, and we were good to go. No disappointment between either of us, and ready to figure out the next step.
The ranger station was further than I had envisioned, especially since I was now officially done, mentally at least. We had to cross a pretty decent sized river, with rocks spread out pretty far apart, especially for those vertically challenged like myself. Getting across, I managed to pull a calf muscle, which hurt and was annoying, but I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t get through after walking on these feet for the last several days. Didn’t even mention it to Omar. I figured we had to almost be there anyways.
We finally ran into a National Park Services trail worker, Cedric. He was an EMT, and took a look at my foot, but couldn’t do anything immediately – he suspected severe plantar fasciitis. He suggested trying to walk in my camp shoes which were more cushioned and might provide a little comfort. He said his boss and another trail worker were a little further ahead, if I felt like I needed additional help. So we kept moving, uphill, and Omar got ahead to look for the trail crew. He found them, and brought them downhill to meet me and take my bag (for those keeping score, that’s the third time he’s been the knight in shining armor relieving me of my bag so I could walk unburdened). We made our way about another tenth of a mile to the Bench Lake Ranger Station. Basically a wooden platform. What I found out later was that this ranger station isn’t always set up – we were just extremely lucky there was a trail crew working in the vicinity. Tim and Dan checked my foot much the same way Cedric had, although apparently the NPS had also contacted them by that point, as my parents were working on the other end of civilization to get me ‘found’ and out of there. I asked about self-rescue over Taboose Pass. Knowing Omar was going to finish the trail, I would have done that solo. Which didn’t bother me too much, except I found out that Taboose Pass is very rugged compared to the JMT – the side outside of Kings Canyon NP is not well maintained and there are several instances where trail finding is necessary, and I didn’t have a topographic map of that segment of trail. That pretty much eliminated that right there. Then I asked about horses. But with the balls of my feet in the amount of pain they were in, I couldn’t realistically sit in a saddle with my feet in stirrups, especially over that rough terrain on Taboose. So……it sounded like a helicopter was the next option. Just what I HADN’T wanted when Omar threatened to press that SOS button the day before. Overly dramatic as far as I was concerned. It was decided that Omar and I would stay at the ‘station’ (meanwhile, it had started to hail – thank you summer weather in the Sierras), and the trail workers would come back up in the morning, reassess, and coordinate a helicopter if needed.
These trail workers were amazing. Two of them EMTs (Tim and Cedric) and their boss, Dan. Their care and professionalism, despite ‘only’ being trail workers, taking to the need to assist someone in distress, was awe-inspiring. I not only owe them specifically, but the whole NPS. As a nature lover, I’ve always appreciated the National Park System, but this definitely renewed it with even more vigor. I also won’t lie – they were all pretty cute too, which helped. Although I was a blubbering red-eyed, splotchy faced mess, crying every time I said I was leaving the JMT and that Omar was continuing to Whitney, so not exactly at my best or most alluring! But I can pride myself on my sense of humor – I kept up conversation with them, joking that I might have to pretend I was in more distress just so I could head down to their camp for the night – they had said they were making PIZZA for dinner. PIZZA! Crying or not, I usually have a pretty optimistic look on things. I remember when I was clearly in shock after dislocating my knee, and them having to cut my pant leg off, I just kept telling everyone that a) mom owed me a pair of designer jeans to replace them (which still haven’t been received, FYI) and b) I was glad I’d shaved my legs that day.
Through the hail, we got camp set up, and dinner started. We went through our gear, sorting food and gear, since Omar would need everything for the remainder of the trip, and I could take any trash, or other stuff he didn’t need for the last few days. When the hail finally stopped, I looked across the clearing and saw that it had snowed on the mountain – actually where Taboose pass went. So I think that was a sign that I needed to suck it up and deal with the fact that I was going to be airlifted out of the Sierra Nevadas. At least I now had a better answer (pending what the doctors would say the following day) when asked why I had to leave the trail – well, I had to be airlifted you know….it doesn’t get much more exciting than that.
We had a quiet night – we still talked and laughed, but it was a bit of a gloomy atmosphere, and the rain didn’t help. We didn’t even make a video blog that night, a project Omar had been working on since the day before we started on the trail, his way to document the experience.
It still seemed surreal, but I was accepting of it. I was obviously disappointed, to put it lightly. To get so close and have to throw in the towel – it would have been easier in some ways to quit at the half way point, or even earlier. But I was also okay with it, which told me I had made the right decision. I might be stubborn, but I was proud of myself that I could move past that trait and do what my body was prompting me to do – the Sierra Nevada Range and John Muir Trail will be there next year to finish. They aren’t going anywhere, and I can’t visit them again if I permanently damage my body.
Tomorrow would bring a whole new adventure for both of us – going our separate ways after 15 days. But at least I would get a shower out of it 🙂
