2026 Mt. Whitney Hike: Day 3, Big Wet Meadow To Colby Lake: Senses

Day 3: 

Distance:  4.83 miles

Elevation Gain:  1944 ft. 

It is a fair question to ask how I sleep on such outings.

The answer I always give is "Not worse than I do at home".  It is a bit surprising given the fact that I am essentially sleeping on a foam pad and sleeping bag on the ground - but as it turns out, we go to bed early enough (anything past 2000 is a late night on the trail) that by default I allow for the inevitable waking up and lying there.  My sleep pattern becomes a rhythm of sleeping on my back until my right knee hurts too much, then rolling on my left or right side until my knee hurts, then rolling back on my back.

To be honest, at my age I anticipated sleeping much worse.  As long as I monitor my liquid intake in the evening (and thus forego the need to get up at night), I feel relatively rested.

Naps help.

We are slightly later in getting up today: our mileage is less but it is almost all uphill.  Breakfast is oatmeal and additions (as I have oatmeal almost every day in real life, this is more like going home).  Luxuriously, by 0730 we are on the trail.

When I say up, I mean up.  We are cutting around the left side of Whale Back Ridge, which looks ridiculous from the valley floor. Many things end up looking ridiculous from one point of view when hiking; then you do them and they are no longer ridiculous.

As part of our walk, we stop by and see a cabin referred to Shorty's Cabin, names for a trapper that had several cabins around the area.  He predated this area as a park and effectively got grandfathered in, although after these became government land he could no longer trap there.  He trapped around the edges and still used the cabins; he was active up to the middle of the last century.

For lunch, we stop again at what is generally called Waterpark, a large granite area with a potential slide and pool at the bottom.  We spend a fair amount of time here - we continue to beat the clock in terms of lunch - and have lunch.  I soak my feet and have lunch and watch The Outdoorsman fly fish in the pool.

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One thing hiking confronts me with is the use of my senses.

I seem to largely ignore them when I am in my "real" life.  Perhaps "ignore" is a strong terms:  there is simply much less to sense in the homogenized environment in which I live.  Part of that is due to the modern office environment: noise is at a minimum, smells are reduced so as not create issues.  There is minimal contact with people or the environment beyond the room is "hot" or "cold".  

Arguably, it is like we are living in a cocoon.

Being outside and away from "regular life" gets us away from all that.

Colours are bolder and not muted; smells can be "loud" or subdued (smell is my least developed sense).  I feel the trail beneath my feet and grasp greenery from time to time simply to feel it. My feet become gritty with dust, my face and torso wet with sweat.  Sadly, I reek of myself after only one or two days of not showering.

On a stream crossing, my foot missed the rock and became wet.  I walked with my wet foot all day; when was the last time I had a foot wet longer than five minutes?  When was the last time I simply accepted it and continued on?

To hike, or to engage in any activity that involves being out and about or fully involving ourselves, involves our sense.  The fact that we have dulled them, or allowed them to be dulled by modern living, should bother us more than I think it does.  We have civilized them, neutered them, reduced them to the equivalent of "indoor voices". 

We should seek our "outdoor voices" more often.

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(Lunch - Peanut Butter and Jelly tortillas and dried mangos)

At about 1400 - well before we were anticipated - we arrive at Colby Lake.

Camping here is all on granite.  Tents are secured by rocks instead of stakes.  I throw my tent up and take a two hour on again-off again nap; the sun beating down on my makes the tent too hot.

Others disperse and do various activities:  hopping in the lake, fishing, thinking.  A group swims across the lake.  I continue to nap, then slowly get up and wash my socks and feet.  I find I am worn out at the end of the day.

Dinner, as noted above, is fajitas - again, one of my favourites.  These hikes cost a bit more than some other ones, but are worth every penny for the food if nothing else.

We go to bed a bit earlier than normal; tomorrow is the Colby Pass, arguably the first test of the hike.