4421 meters, I did it! Our march up Whitney (or Hwitney, as Coyote would no doubt prefer) started at 1 am, in pitch black darkness. A train of headlamp lights formed along the slopes of the mountain. It made the walk feel like an expedition into the unknown. Periodically, I ran into others, always checking that no one was having symptoms of altitude sickness. Every little ache was enough for me to think I had fallen victim to it. Luckily, no such thing happened to any of us and after a little under 4 hours, with plenty of breaks to catch my breath and slow my heartbeat, I reached the top.
There, in the freezing cold and biting wind, I watched the sunrise, huddled in my sleeping bag, along with the others. It was magical, sitting here on the highest mountain of the contiguous US, watching the sunlight stretch to the surrounding mountain peaks. This must be the highest I’ve ever been. I felt proud that we all did it. Beetle got a pretty bad case of altitude sickness, but nothing so serious that he had to go back. Guillaume, Wicked Dinger and the Noods were at the top as well. Mash shared his bottle of whiskey with me to celebrate. Someone came to me as I was strolling the mountain. He saw me shivering and asked if I wanted a puffy. I told him I was good and asked for his name.
‘I am Sensei’, he said.
The descent went much faster and now we could actually see the trail we had hiked up to. And as expected, it was overwhelmingly beautiful. Mermaid, Solemate, Guardian and Bandit were coming up the mountain as we went down, preferring not to mess up their sleep schedule for the sunrise. We paused at a lake at the bottom to have some snacks. Sitting there felt oddly like going out a full night and watching the sun go up. The adrenaline of the climb wore off and tiredness kicked in. I dragged myself back to camp and took a nap in the shade. The annoying thing with daytime naps here is that shade has a tendency to move, causing you to wake up in the full sun, drenched in sweat. Not wanting to go through that again, I packed up and walked to our next campsite along with Andy/Pants. I don’t know if it was because of Whitney, but climbing up felt a lot easier than it did yesterday, even being at higher altitude than then. Maybe I’m adjusting. The site we camped at was an idyllic meadow, complete with gently streaming river. Truly, the perfect place to sleep, were it not for the hordes of mosquitoes that completely ruined the experience and forced us to retire early into our tents. Part of the experience I guess.
