Down is Worse ~ Much Worse

Post #7 in the series...
 This photo was taken by Brin Morris, a very talented photographer who was part of the nine guys hiking with Mark and Sean. When I saw it afterwards, I told myself that Mark was looking out wondering where I was and if I was okay. He would soon find out!
As we neared the bottom of the 97 switchbacks, I looked up and saw a group of guys coming down behind us. The first one I recognized was in SIL, Sean. I started yelling his name!! Realizing it was me, he shouted to hang on. When he finally reached me, I burst into tears, told him it was the worst day of my life, harder than I ever imagined, my knee was hurt and I had failed. We didn't make it all the way to the top!! We came up short because of weather less than a mile out. Now, anyone who knows Sean will say he can be a pretty tough, demanding guy. He is also pretty smart at assessing a situation fast. He took a firm but gentle approach with me and said another guy was coming down with something to help my knee. What he said next was even more important. "Mark is behind us. He'll be here soon."
Not long afterwards, I saw two guys making their way down the switchbacks. It was a slow, but steady pace that could only be Mark. I sat on a rock and waited. When he finally got to me, I became racked with sobs and both sadness and relief. "Get me off this mountain!" A word of thanks to Mike Fergin, who was Mark's trekking buddy throughout the four days, as they kept the same pace. He came up to me, gave me a huge bear hug and held me tight for a little while. When he pulled away he looked at me and said, "Everything's going to be okay."
When I said we had failed at our final goal, Mark said, "I can't believe you made it that far! I never expected you to get up there. It was the right decision. Look at the mountain. It's being hit with really bad weather. You guys did awesome!"
By now my knee was swollen, aching with every step and I was moving very slowly. Mark decided to let Eric and Mike leave us behind and and go at their own pace to get back to Whitney Portal. He would stay behind and get Kim and me out. Little did I realize at that moment, it would be six hours later before we were back at the portal! My logical brain knew that we had gone over 10 miles up, so there had to be, after the switchbacks, about 7 miles to go. My crazed mind kept thinking it was only a short distance.
When people tell you downhill is worse than uphill, most people really don't listen. Let me tell you, IT IS WORSE!! It is made harder by these giant steps you have to take every so often to descend the mountain. Raising your knee, hundreds of times, is difficult under the best of conditions. With an injured knee, it is even worse. My husband would step down first, pause, turn around, reach for my arm, and help me down. He did this hundreds of times during that six hours! Kim silently stayed behind me, complaining very little. She would tell me later, she began to silently cry and just let the tears fall without telling us. Her water had run out, she was exhausted, and, she too, wanted off the damn mountain!
During these final hours, we would come upon other climbers and ask how much further. One would tell us four miles, we'd keep going and then, another person, further down the road told us 5.5 more miles! Each time I would start sobbing and say, "I can't do this!" Mark offered to pitch his tent and stay the night so we could start fresh tomorrow. The only thing I could think of that would be worse would be having to sleep and still walk off this mountain in the morning! "Get me out of here!"
Other people we encountered in those last miles were amazingly kind. "Is she hurt?" "Can we help?" "We have Advil." "Do you need food?" To all those nameless people out there last Monday, I say thank you and I apologize for being a blubbering idiot! This adventure taxed me more than anything I have ever done. The fear I felt, along with the sheer exhaustion turned me into a zombie.
To add insult to injury, I fell in the water once and was soaking wet for ages. I fell on rocks twice and had gravel in my already sore knees and scrapes up and down my legs. Actually, on the straight paths, Mark said I moved faster than his own pace, but those darn step downs were incredibly slow due to my knees. Where the right one had been the one initially injured at mile 2.5 (some17 hours before!), I had over compensated using the left knee so much, it was now hurting worse than the right! I was a mess! Mark kept me from just giving up and stopping completely. He had to have been exhausted himself, but he kept up his encouraging words. Plus, there was no other way out. You had to keep going.

Photos were the last thing on our mind at the time, so I had to find this photo on the internet to show you of, yet another, water crossing. Picture it filled with water, up to the top of highest logs and in complete darkness. After my last disaster of trying to unsteadily cross over water and falling, my kind husband just stepped right into the water and walked along side me holding my hand the entire way across.
We started this climb in the dark using headlamps and we would end it, some 21 hours later, in the dark using headlamps and that was when I noticed some interesting things in the woods...