Bishop, the second visit

And so it was, we made our second appearance at the Bishop Hostel. Which was in its own way hilarious because they were all joking that we would be back before we left the first time, to which we had assured them we would not. And naturally, since I hadn't been able to eat due to nausea for the past three days, I immediately went to get myself this absolutely delicious smoothie sold by a coffee shop just around the corner. Unfortunately, it didn't quite go down as easily as I had hoped. This was my first hint that something wasn't right.
And it wasn't. Things got worse really fast. Every time I ate something I had immediate and intense searing pain that left me incapable of standing up without almost blacking out. And it only kept getting worse. So I decided to go to the hospital...which long story short did not turn out to be very helpful. And so things continued to get worse. And so I went back to the hospital. Once again, not helpful. They didn't diagnose me with anything and sent me home. Three days later I literally couldn't handle eating anything but crackers and water. One bite of cracker, followed by three gulps of water to help the pain. Trying to eat other things, like refried beans for example, would result in me being instantly on the floor feeling like someone was driving a knife through my chest; often tears were involved.
And then I discovered I could handle protein drinks, like Ensure. No kidding, I cried I was so happy. For the past week I had been able to get less than 500 calories in me a day which included absolutely no vitamins, fats or proteins. Within one day of drinking several Ensures and Muscle Milks I was on the mend. And now I am 100% back to normal! Yay!

But, backing up a bit. I'm leaving out the adventure aspect.
If you recall from an earlier blog, Nick and I had two friends who were renting a cabin at lake Tahoe for a week. This was definitely still happening. Also, my friend Stephanie had decided to drive up to see me. Stephanie and Amanda are two of my close friends from college who were hiking the Appalachian Trail (aka the AT). They had recently decided to get off the AT due to many factors and complications, and were both going to drive from the east coast to the west coast to come see me. But then Amanda decided she was going to be lame and go back to Texas. However, Stephanie decided to still be awesome and drive over! So she did, and she got to me the day after I got down the mountain. At this point Snake Charmer was still around (concerned I wasn't showing signs of getting better). But upon Stephanie's arrival he decided I was in good hands and that he wanted to get back on the trail. So the next day Nick, Snake Charmer, Stephanie and myself all piled in to Stephanie's new car and drove up to Mammoth (to drop Snake Charmer off) and then up to lake Tahoe to our friends cabin.

The cabin was huge and awesome, complete with a hot tub! Our friends Tess, Teal, Gizmo, Dirtnap and two new people were all there! As well as Tess and Teal's two adorable dogs Pearl and Luke (and another one named Gruff). Unfortunately I was pretty much at the peak of my misery. I could only down crackers and water and therefore did not have enough energy to walk for more than ten minutes much less go for a swim. Despite this, Stephanie and I did still walk out to the lake and chill in her hammock for a bit....until it started to rain on us haha.

But despite my disappointment about not being able to fulfill my dreams of being happily aquatic for a week, I was surrounded by wonderful friends who were taking excellent care of me and having a great time. How can you not be happy when hanging out with such good company?And eventually, as mentioned earlier, I figured out I could drink things like Ensure, and that made life considerably better. But, the time came when we had to go. And after making some arrangements, Stephanie and I drove up to Oregon to go stay with my Aunt Laura until I was 100% better.
The drive up was wonderful. Stephanie and I stopped in at the Capitol building and also at a beautiful sea-side dock on the way up. Oh! And we got to see those giant statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe.

"What happened to Nick?" you may be asking. Excellent question.
Shorty before I got Sick, Nick had started talking to me about wanting to get off the trail for a while. He has family in San Fransisco and a friend in Northern California that he wants to go visit. So we had talked about it and decided to go have a great time at Lake Tahoe and then go our separate ways. And that's precisely what we did. Therefore Nick is currently in San Fran and Stephanie and I are in Oregon.

And Oregon in awesome. We have been to the beach several times and done a lot of sand boarding. Tomorrow we plan to go kayaking and if it rains we'll detour over to the aquarium and museum (heck, we might do that anyways). 

On Thursday we are going to leave my Aunt's house to go spend three days exploring Portland and tackling an eight mile day hike that takes us to an array of gorgeous waterfalls. And then I'm going to get back on the trail. I don't know precisely where yet, but definitely after lake Tahoe and past all the highest peaks. I truly never want to experience AMS ever again. And certainly not whatever mysterious thing I just went through after where I couldn't eat anything.

In the Sierras

Matt (the owner of the Bishop Hostel) and his Mom gave Snake Charmer, Nick and I a ride to Kearsarge pass (Rogue got a separate ride about an hour before us) on a day that looked ominously cloudy and grey (but wonderfully cool). We arrived at the bottom of the pass pretty late in the morning (about 11), but still managed to top Kearsarge and then Glenn Pass (Two passes in one day is not to be scoffed at ladies and gentleman). We then camped at the beautiful Rae lakes, where it started to rain on us.

Rain is actually very pleasant to fall asleep to, but kind of an annoyance to pack up in. So, the next morning since it was still raining, Snake Charmer and I decided to stay under cover while Nick left to get a head start. That day continued to be grey and drizzly but was actually quite wonderful. We caught up with Rogue around lunch time and then walked through gorgeous country as the rain made everything shiny and wonderful.Then we ran into a girl who was taking a survey about feet for her graduate thesis, so Snake Charmer and I stopped to collect wild onions for dinner while we took her very long, but very interesting survey about our feet. We even gave her our e-mail so she could send us her findings.

Then, since it was already pretty late in the day, we called it a nero and camped just seven miles later at a suspension bridge at what was apparently a really popular and large campground. But it was right by a river and allowed campfires so it was a win-win for us! At this campground we met a father with his two sons (who I think were around the ages of 13 and 15) who had decided to go for a 4 day back-country backpacking adventure....with no rain gear and only cotton clothing. So basically, they were soaked and freezing and about a 2 or 3 days walk from civilization. So we made a campfire (why they didn't have one, I don't know) and invited them over to warm themselves and dry their clothes. They were grateful for the fire and we were grateful for the company, so it worked out great.

The next morning was sunny and beautiful, and so Snake Charmer, Rogue and I decided to sleep in and then enjoy a morning fire that we could cook breakfast on. Not to mention have some time to take a dip in the river and wash some socks! So we did, and Nick went on ahead early in the morning, as he had taken to doing, to get a head start. When we finally got moving, Rogue got a decent start on Snake Charmer and I. Too bad too, because we passed this awesome, long, flat slab of stone that the river was rushing over. And when I say large, I mean this thing was at least 150 feet long. So naturally Snake Charmer and I had to stop and take a joy ride on this natural slip-n-slide! (Sorry no pictures of this one. It had been threatening rain so my phone was all tucked away) But just know that it was freezing, kind of terrifying and 100% worth it. And so marked the end of the good times. After this, I started to get sick.

 As I believe I've mentioned, I'm a very slow hiker. So whoever I'm hiking with (mainly Nick), I just tell to go ahead at whatever pace they want to and then wait for me to catch up every couple of miles. Nick and I have had a very good system regarding this, where he knows about how to long to walk before waiting for me, etc. However, whenever we add third or fourth parties to the group, our rhythm gets pretty shaken. That, and Nick assumes that someone else is taking over as my hiking buddy for the day. These are usually pretty safe assumptions. Not that day.  After spending a good amount of time goofing around on the slip-n-slide, Snake Charmer and I were decently far behind everyone else. I wasn't feeling very well at this point but I thought it was just a combination of my allergies and having been on an unusual, albiet relaxed, hiking schedule. So I told Snake Charmer that I wasn't feeling on top of my game but not to worry and to please feel free to hike on ahead (Snake Charmer hikes faster then me by quite a bit, and actually Nick, too). So he did.

And well, that was a tremendously bad call on my part. At about 9,500 feet I began having AMS symptoms (or Altitude Sickness). At first I just thought my blood sugar was dropping (we all know how Hangry I can get haha) so I stopped to gorge myself. Terrible idea. My stomach was churning and the food just made me feel more lethargic, light-headed and weak. I even threw up a little. And yet, I still wasn't convinced it was the altitude. After all, I had climbed Mt. Whitney at 14,500 feet, so why would 9,500 affect me like that? I made up my mind to keep going. After all, maybe Snake Charmer was taking his lunch break just up ahead and I would be able to catch him. It was an encouraging lie, but a lie none-the-less. About a mile and 1000 ft in elevation later I was miserable. I had to stop because I was so light-headed and nauseous. I spent and hour unable to sit up on my own and trying to make myself throw up (to no avail). It was awful. And yes, I was crying.

At this point, I knew I was experiencing AMS. And what's the worst thing you can do when experiencing AMS? Keep going up. And what did I do? I decided to keep going.

This was my logic (I'm making no claims as to it being sound logic):

 1)Because Nick had left early, I was carrying the whole tent instead of splitting it like we usually do, and it was looking like it might rain. So if I didn't make it to him, he wouldn't have anything for a shelter (The man was only carrying an umbrella for rain protection).
 2) The only way out of these mountains and into town was up. I had to go up no matter what, so it might as well be now.
3) If I didn't keep going, someone was going to end up having to walk a crap-ton of miles backwards to try and find me. The rest of my crew was so far ahead (I was assuming) that they wouldn't realize I was missing until dark. Because I'm slow, but not that slow. So they would all be expecting me to be no more than and hour behind, and therefore not be worried until it was way too late. This also made me not want to turn around and go down the mountain because it would further elongate their backwards trek.
4) I was in bad shape, but I truly didn't believe that I was near death. Therefore, I felt like it was better for me to get over this mountain and to the only people I knew were anywhere near me (especially to Snake Charmer, who also has his Wilderness First Responder certification) than to go backwards or even stay by myself. Help sounded really good right about then.

So after a lot of calming exercises and some really heavy self pep-talks, I got up, I strapped on my unbelievably heavy pack, and I walked.

And I walked.

And I walked.  

It felt like an eternity. It took me almost two hours to walk each mile. But you know what, I did it. And well after dark, just as I was finally approaching the 12,200 ft summit, I saw a headlight peaking over the top. It was Snake Charmer, who had just backtracked over 2 miles from the other side to come find me. I was so incredibly relieved. We got me down the other side and made camp not nearly low enough, but lower none-the-less. Then the next morning he took all the heavy things and put them into my giant pack for him to carry, and all of the really light things into his much smaller, lighter pack for me to carry. Not too far down we ran into Rogue, which was convenient because I almost blacked-out. So then they didn't let me carry anything. Rogue took my pack and we walked five miles down to the lowest point we could get to, 10,000 ft (still not really low enough), and then Rogue walked back up the mountain five miles to retrieve his pack. So much for me not making people walk a ton of miles to get to me....haha. But it didn't matter, I did feel considerably better and we were in a beautiful campground next to a river that turned out to also be about a five-minute walk from the trail-crews main camp. So what that meant is, if things got worse, there was someone who had donkeys and the ability to call in a helicopter.

And well, things didn't really get worse, but they didn't exactly get better. The next day we zeroed at that spot to try and give my body time to adjust (I wasn't showing any signs of Pulmonary or Cerebral Edema). I was doing pretty good, but my stomach couldn't handle more than one bite of anything at a time every 30 minutes or so. And small bites, at that. Same with water. But I made myself eat and drink as much as I could handle all day. I still could barely stand up or walk for more than a minute without getting blurred vision and extremely lethargic, and my headache was never-ceasing.

Luckily, however, the life really is awesome. We had thought that we were going to have to get me up another 12,000 ft pass which would be followed by yet another 12,000 ft pass before I would be safely back in the town of Bishop at about 5,000 ft elevation. But this was not so. Only two miles back up the mountain was a 3 mile, unmaintained trail named Taboose Pass Trail up to Taboose Pass that was only 11,000 feet. So naturally we decided to take me up and over that one. And so the next day Snake Charmer, once again, carried all the heavy stuff for me, and Nick, him, and myself made our way up Taboose Pass. It was a slow process and as we got higher I was slow, completely out of breath, nauseous and definitely feeling drunk. But you know what, we made it with time to spare. And even better, this pass was headed to an essentially abandoned parking lot that was followed by a 10 mile desert road walk to the highway where we could actually hitch. But what happened? We ran into a retired gentleman who used to work for the Forest Service and Park Service doing a day hie up this insanely steep and rocky pass! When we told him what we had been going through he, without hesitation, cut his hike short, turned around and hiked down the rest of the way he had just come up just so he could give us a ride into town. Goodbye fears of the 10 mile desert road walk! It was incredible, amazing, and angels really do exist. They're called people. And they are wonderful. We got me to town.

While in Bishop....the first visit

So on the last post I talked about how we were out of food and were planning on heading into Bishop the next day. Well, the next day came and in the morning while we ate breakfast we ran into three of our friends passing by our campsite: Rogue, Heroh and Dune. After finding out that they were, too, heading towards Kearsarge pass to go into Bishop, they all stopped and ate a snack with us while we finished cleaning up camp. That day was slow ( at least for Rogue and I who stopped to enjoy frequent breaks) but very pretty. The pass itself was incredibly steep and rocky near the end but we all made it over with some snacks to spare and stopped to take lunch at the lake two miles down the other side.Once we reached the parking lot to hitch into town, we got picked up by these two cool young hikers that Nick and I had actually run into a day before on the trail (how cool!). They had a very tiny vehichle though so Rogue, Nick and I were packed in tighter than sardines. I quite literally had to look up at the ceiling because there was no other room for my head. It was a long (bout 40 minutes) and very uncomfortable ride, but we still all managed to laugh a lot and have great conversation.

View From Kearsarge

All I could see of Rogue in the Sardine Car

All I could see in front from the Sardine Car

All I could see of Nick in the Sardine Car

Once we arrived in Bishop the first thing we did was, of course, eat. We tried out Schat's Bakery which was awesome because they sold stuff a day old for half-price or less, and then went and got a cheap meal from Carl's Jr., which had the amazing deal of two large shakes for $4.00!!! (Nick clearly took advantage of thus several times. 

After this, we went on a hunt for the Bishop Hostel we had been hearing so many good things about from other hikers (for example, that is was only $15 a night for PCT-ers). But it could not be found! All the hotels insisted there was no hostel and the locals we asked looked at us like we were asking where they stored the alien spaceships. Anyways, finally after some blog-digging on the internet I found someone who had posted the hostels phone number, called the hostel, and found it. And it, was awesome. It is on old (over 100 years old) blue Victorian house run by a really cool young man named Matt (who also had really cool parents who were visiting). We found out no one in town knew about the hostel because he had just opened it two weeks ago!! How crazy is that? But Kudos to you, Matt, you're doing a great job!

When we arrived at the hostel (on July 02) we had told ourselves (as we often do when in town) that we were only go to stay one night. You see, we have two friends who were renting a cabin in South Lake Tahoe from the 12 to the 18th of July and we wanted to at least hike up to Mammoth before then, so we were on a pretty tight schedule. But then, you know, what kind of Americans would we be if we skipped the upcoming Fourth of July party that the Hostel was hosting? And so many of our friends were there! Like Sarah and Avocado, Wyoming and Cowboy, Pounce and even Snake Charmer Showed up (our friend from the trail angel's house in Onyx). Not to mention all of the new friends we made: Moonshine, Vennie, Yuke (who has an awesome Ketchup-bottle tattoo, Gator (who was from Texas and had the best mustache I've seen on trail so far), Joe (who gave us a ride to the hot-springs), ans so man more. So we stayed, and it was great. 

Matt's mom made this beautiful cake all by hand/ from scratch (seriously it took her hours and was incredible), they had a hot-tub (that we managed to squeeze 12 people into...there was no water left by the time we all got out), a ping-pong table, live music provided by hikers (including Nick) and fireworks!

So after we were all done having a good time, Rogue, Snake Charmer, Nick and I all headed out to re-summit Kearsarge Pass once again rejoin the beautiful and challenging Sierra Mountains.

Bishop

We've made it to Bishop everybody! And we're staying here until the fourth of July.

To touch up on Lone Pine: This town was awesome and is apparently movie-making central. A piece of everything from Star Wars to Gladiator to Django was filmed here. We got to visit the music history museum and it was amazingly fun.

We spent the night in the hiker-approved baseball dugout directly behind the police station

Movie Museum

 

After spending two more days than planned in this small awesome town, we finally hit the trail again.

Hitching back up to the trail

I got a stove! I can cook things now yay!

 This was the first lake we saw over 11,000 ft elevation (so cool!) It was crazy though because we were awoken by a pack of coyotes in the middle of the night.

We are officially out of the desert

Smile! :)

 Then we decided to climb Mt. Whitney ...the highest mountain in the continental United States! Which, by the way, Snake Eyes loved and bounded up like he was part billy goat while I thought I was fighting altitude sickness like a crazy person. It's okay though because we both made it no problem!

Takin' a break

Panoramic View From Whitney

 

 After that we descended and prepared fopr the next peak, Forster Pass, which is the highest peak that is part of the official PCT (13,200 ft).

Nick Using his no-cook heating kit

Once we got over Forester we realized that we were gorging our food like never before (elevation and mountain climbing requires a lot of calories y'all!) So we decided to hike into the town of independence which was a few days before Bishop (our planned stop). The night before we hiked the pass to the road though we camped with two hikers who were doing the John Muir Trail (which overlaps the PCT) and were telling them how we only had enough food for the morning and kind of lunch of the next days 8 mile trek uphill to a road with no guaranteed hitch into town. So, needless to say, we woke up the next morning with some food left on top of my bear vault and a note that read, "Starving is no fun. Happy Trails" written on toilet paper. The love and sense of community on the trail never ceases to amaze me.

Food left by friends