Family Camping

"What I like about camping is you can get really dirty.  Either you're all by yourself, so no one else sees you, or everyone you're with is just as dirty as you are, so nobody cares. "

 Family Camping 2013 found us returning to our favorite spot ~ Convict Lake. We had the best site this year, right near a running stream. We fished, hiked, ate good food, cooked s'mores over the fire, slept on mattresses that deflated overnight, relaxed, laughed, talked and got REALLY DIRTY!!! There's no way around it when you are camping. Now, Jack, he made a special point to get dirty! Boys just know these things! Through it all, we kept saying what incredible memories we were creating for these kids, not to mention the adults as well. Uncle Kevin said if he had to pick only one vacation all year, he would pick family camping. Not sure if that makes him smart, or crazy!!

Post Script to MW

I needed to add these photos of my "adventure wounds" ~ black and blue marks, banged up knees and a purple toe. There is a song by Train that says, "These bruises, make for better conversation. We all got bruises." I have written this blog for almost four years and never before have I had so many readers, comments, likes, and encouraging and kind words sent my way. Thanks for reading the saga.

"You have 3 choices when bad things happen to you: You can let it destroy you, you can let it define you, or you can let it develop you." 

My hope is I am still developing...

Kevin was right...I should have said "NO!"

Epilogue

Final Post #10 in the series...
I totally hate this photo. I even asked my friend to remove it from Facebook. She said she loved it because it reflected the whole adventure. Funny, it was so early on, we had no idea what we were in for, like lambs to the slaughter!
 Five days have passed since this all happened and I am still reflecting on "the day we will never speak of again!" What did I learn from it? It was the hardest day of my life. I would rather give birth again than climb that mountain! My husband is the main reason I made it out. He is the best person I know in a crisis. I trust him with my life and want him by my side when the going gets tough. He tells corny jokes. He annoys me beyond words, but I would place my life in his hands under any circumstances. In most relationships, there are times when your two lives seem to run parallel. On this day, on this mountain, our two lives intersected in a way that I will never forget. It has changed me and helped me see what is right in front of me. His love and support kept me going on that mountain and will keep me going through the rest of our life together. 

Search & Rescue

Post #9 in the series...
Near the end of our ordeal, when I thought I couldn't take another step, Mark said he would carry me if he could, but he had a 40 lb. backpack on his back. I, being the crazy woman that I was at the time, said, "Let Kim carry your backpack and you carry me!" Sorry, Kim! It was the delirium talking. We kept going and going and going. We finally saw lights nearby. We heard people shouting our names! After 21 hours on that mountain, we were finally back! 

All the guys had waited with Sean for our safe arrival. They waited at Whitney Portal for hours! They had discussed a plan. If we had not come out by 10:00pm, they were putting on their backpacks and walking in until they found us. They would pitch tents and help us get out in the morning. Their kindness and good hearts brought tears to my eyes. I sobbed as they put me in the backseat of the car. We were hungry. We were thirsty. We were off that damn mountain!! Thank God!!!
Remember that musty motel? It looked pretty good to me at 10:00pm that night. For whatever reason, my hotel key would not open the door and I had to slowly walk down to the office to get a new one. The night manager said, "Your daughter has been calling and calling. She is very worried about you. I think she called Search & Rescue. Checking my phone, I found both she and my son had called me several times leaving me messages because they were so worried about us. Sorry for the scare, kids, but it does a mother's heart good to see that her kids care so much.
Search & Rescue had told Amber that hopefully, we happened upon some benevolent hikers that had let us hunker down with them for the night because weather was coming in and it wasn't good. If she still had not heard from us by 9:00am the next morning, she should let them know and they'd start the search. Thank goodness that was not necessary! I had my own Search & Rescue. His name is Mark Svoboda.

Scavenger Hunt

 Post #8 in the series...
Walking for hours in the darkness, I started to notice some things on the ground. I saw plastic toys, sheets of stickers, flowers made from rocks and leaves and the large rocks had been painted like animals and people. Finally, I said to Mark and Kim, "Can you believe that someone has gone to so much trouble to place all these toys and objects out here in the woods? I bet it is for a scavenger hunt." They both stopped and looked at me and said, "Susan, there is nothing there except rocks and leaves." Stunned, I asked them again about specific things I was seeing right then!  No, they assured me, none of it was real. None of it!! Even after my logical brain told me it didn't exist, I kept seeing all of it!! Although I had not experienced altitude sickness (severe headache, vomiting, etc), I was suffering from delusions brought on by exhaustion, pain and fear. Part of me still doubted Mark and Kim telling me nothing was there, so when I came upon another set of toys, etc, I stopped and scraped my stick across the area, hoping to find that they were indeed where I saw them. Later, Kim would tell me she would watch me stop and drag my pole across the path. It annoyed her because she couldn't figure out what I was doing and just wanted me to keep moving! Needless to say, where I scraped my pole, only dirt and leaves moved, nothing else.

I can close my eyes right now and envision these objects very clearly. They were so incredibly real to me and I will never forget them. I can see the images of frozen people off to the side watching my every step. I did not feel threatened by them. I was told they were not real, but they never left me. Retelling this part of the story to EB (future DIL), she commented that perhaps this was how my mind stopped thinking about every hard step and every long mile. Looking ahead at these strange objects left haphazardly in the woods kept me going.
A scavenger hunt for a scrambled mind...

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...

Trail Crest ~ No Happy Trails

 Post #6 in the series...
After the grueling switchbacks, we made it to Trail Crest which is at 13,650 feet. This marked the final leg of the journey to the summit which was another 1.9 miles. This sounded easy in its distance. What we didn't realize is that it contained several sections with steep drop offs and difficult terrain. I probably drove Kim and Eric crazy for the last few hours because all I kept saying was, "I need to get to Mark." My husband had been with a group of nine guys for four days who came in from the south through Cottonwood Basin, making a gradual ascent up the mountain. My son-on-law had a great idea to carry a tie that we would each place on the Trail Crest sign. The plan was, whoever got there first, would wait as long as they could for the other group. If they decided to continue to the summit, that group would tie the ribbon as a signal to let us know they were already on their way up. When I turned the corner and saw the ribbon, I started crying...again!! They were nearby. Mark was going to be able to help me off this mountain. I felt renewed will and wanted to get there as quickly as we could. When we saw their backpacks piled to the side, I knew they would be coming down the main trail with us! I was as overjoyed as I could be after climbing for ten and a half hours!

We tied our ribbon as well so they would know we were there, just in case we missed them. Eric took the lead as it was becoming even steeper and more treacherous. At times, the trail was less than two feet wide. My body ached from fear and exhaustion. Just a little while longer to go. I needed to get to Mark. We made it through the rock towers and past the windows. Eric wanted us to appreciate the beauty around us. All I could think of was the edge of the mountain and how close we were to it. Just put one foot in front of the other. Keep going.
We had less than a mile to the summit, .8 of a mile to be exact, when Eric asked us to stop for a minute. I said, "No. Let's just keep going and get there." He said, "I want to take a picture in this spot." Kim and I both said we just wanted to keep going. Eric calmly said that the reason he wanted to take a picture right here was because our uphill journey was over. We were going no further!! What?!?! After all this time and effort?!?! This adventure had sucked most of the strength, energy and desire from my body!! We had to finish. He pointed out that we had run out of time and into weather. While we had been keeping our heads down watching the trail, he had been keeping his head up watching the clouds roll in. Afternoon thunderstorms during the summer months are a danger to all climbers. It is not only a concern at peaks, but also on exposed ridges. At that time, it was 10:45am. He said at the rate we were going, it would take us another hour and a half to reach the summit. That was much too late to have enough time to descend before the storm started. The words were coming out of his mouth, but all I could think of was that they were exactly the words my husband had said to me many times. He said you need to be going down off the mountain by 11:30am. We would never make it in time. Kim burst into tears and I followed. This was too much work to come up short. So close and yet so far! Robbed of our chance by something beyond our control ~ the damn weather!
AT first, I suggested the two continue without me. After all, my knee injury was slowing us down. They could possibly make it if I stayed behind. Eric would not hear of it. "No one gets left behind," he said. There was no changing his mind. Truth be told, he sacrificed his successful climb to the summit for us.
Very soon, his decision to turn back would prove the logical one. As we made our way down the same 97 switchbacks, it started to rain and hail on us. It made it easier to hide the tears rolling down our faces.
As the saying goes, "What goes up, must come down." We had 10.4 miles under our belts and the only way out would be another 10.4.
"I want Mark!!! I can't get off this mountain without him!"