Great news - I didn’t die today. :)
This morning we walked past the campsite I thought might be good yesterday. While it was ok, I have to admit that Nick’s was better because his was already touched by the glorious sun while mine was still stuck in the shade. (The sun is my best friend out here - when it’s shining on me I’m warm; when it’s not, I’m cold.)
The first several miles of today’s hike were up on the ridge line, which is my absolute favorite place to be. I love being up so high and able to see all around me. It was glorious.
The fun ended when we got to Knife Edge about 5 miles in - that’s when things got serious. Even though I love being up high, I took one look at the narrow, snow covered trail and actually felt a little nervous. Micro spikes - ON.
A view of Knife Edge from afar - the trail is in the upper right
a close up view of the first sketchy snow trail on Knife Edge. If you can’t tell, it’s basically vertical
Since Nick was taking too long to put on his spikes, I went first. All I could do was focus on one step at a time, so that’s what I did. I thought about Alex Honnold free soloing El Capitan and told myself if he can climb El Capitan without ropes I can certainly walk across a little snow (I love the documentary about his climb - Free Solo - and have watched it at least two dozen times). I made it across the first snow patch without incident, but there were a few really terrifying moments on some of the later patches, where it took me a while to find a secure place for my foot. I did my best to stay calm and collected like Honnold, and I got through just fine. (My friend Betty would have HATED it and I thought of her, too.) Another hiker, Cutie, was up there with us and he did the whole thing without micro spikes and without even taking out his ice axe (although I’m not sure you’d have time to use it if you slipped, anyway). Props to him.
these should give you better idea of what it was like. Nick walking across; Beth walking across
Link to Second Video Video 2 (Editors Note: Sorry for the link instead of the embedded video like the above, Squarespace doesn’t want to embed the portrait shot videos from what I can tell.)
Nick walking across another sketchy section
After we both made it across all the terrifying snowy sections, we stopped for an early lunch break because we needed it. I enjoyed one of Leslie’s brownies and it seemed to immediately take away all my built up tension. (Thanks again, Leslie!)
Grateful to have the scary part of the day over, Nick and I planned to meet again about 8 miles ahead and then proceeded to hike our own hikes.
About an hour later, I found myself on a really rocky section and off-trail (Lieutenant Apples strikes again!) I glanced at the FarOut app and saw I was just below the trail, so I decided to gradually walk upwards at an angle, thinking I’d meet the trail in no time .
Going up meant carefully walking on huge boulders, which was slow going because I didn’t want to step on the wrong one and A. sprain an ankle or B. knock a boulder loose and cause a rockslide. After a while of not seeing the trail, I checked the app again. I was dismayed to see that I wasn’t any closer to the trail than I was before.
This is when I should have looked at the map a little closer. But no, I continued to stubbornly make my way up the boulders.
The next time I looked at the app, I saw I was still no closer to the trail; this is when I realized my error. I should have learned my lesson from yesterday, when the contour lines didn’t make it clear that the lake we were hoping to get water from was down a very steep decline. The same thing happened again, only this time the trail was on a very steep incline, all the way at the top of the mountain.
I considered turning around and going back the way I came, but I really didn’t want to walk down those boulders. Going up is always easier for me, so that’s what I did. I scrambled all the way to the top of the boulder field (at one point crawling over a snowy patch because it was so steep). Above the boulders, there was a bit of really loose gravel, which I managed to get up by crawling (literally) at an angle. At this point a random rock came falling down from above, missing me by about 10 feet; this almost made me lose my resolve as it was scary to think about getting hit with a rock, which was something totally out of my control. However, I had to keep going up because I was committed - getting down without falling would have been near impossible at that point.
Once over the loose gravel, I was finally able to rock climb (again channeling Alex Honnold). It wasn’t easy at all, particularly with a backpack on my back and hiking poles in my hands/hanging off my wrists, but I managed to find a decent route to the top that had solid rock to hold on to (some still broke off, though). One careful move at a time got me all the way to the top. Despite the terrible feeling of being off-trail and very behind, it was exciting and fun to do something other than hike (I really do wish I had gotten into rock climbing when I was younger).
When I finally climbed over the last rock and reached the top, I was utterly spent, both physically and mentally. Too bad I couldn’t lie down - I had over 5 miles to hike to meet Nick and had no idea how long I had been making my way up the mountain. I sent him a satellite text via the Bivy, explaining what had happened so he wouldn’t worry when I didn’t show up in a timely manner, and then proceeded to hike back to the trail.
including this for me - looking down at what I climbed up, except the pic doesn’t clearly show the vertical climb at the end
this is NOT what I climbed but it’s very similar. I didn’t take a picture of what I did climb because I was too focused on not dying
Just as I made my way back to the trail (being on-trail never felt so reassuring), I saw Cutie, who we had passed when he was taking a break. I briefly told him what happened and he said, “oh, well, now you get to go down”.
What?! I climbed my way up the mountain just to go down the other side? Lame. I should have at least gotten to enjoy some time walking on the ridge line for my effort. Sigh.
On the way to our meeting spot, hiking as fast as I could, I passed Puddle. She had a message for me from Nick, who was obviously concerned that he hadn’t seen me for a while if he was talking about me to other hikers. She told me he was still planning to meet me at our spot, which was good to know. Then she told me she saw him about 45 min ago. Yikes. I lost a lot of time getting lost.
When I finally made it to Nick, he claimed I was only 15 min behind him. (I still don’t believe him, though). As I took my pack off to rest a bit I suddenly realized I was starving, so I ate a snack (to include another delicious brownie, which, again. made me feel much better).
While I was shoving food into my face, we discussed plans for camp. I was so exhausted from my ordeal that I didn’t think I could go another 5 miles as we had originally planned, so we decided on 3. It’s 2 miles short of our goal but I’m ok with it. At least the views have been stunning, they keep me going.
Along the trail:
Camp:
