2026 Mt. Whitney Hike: Day 7, Crabtree Meadow To High Desert Camp: Fearless

 Day 7:
Distance:  11.11 Miles
Elevation Gain:  2169 ft.

The rain which dogged my footsteps during the afternoon and evening continued throughout the night in a semi-regular pattern; I awake at midnight to discover that the water had penetrated portions of the bottom of my tent.  Some of my clothes - my pants in particular - are now wet in spots.  Fortunately my foam pad keeps me above the level of the tent.  I readjust my clothes - shirt and socks in the sleeping bag, pants hanging on my back in the tent vestibule, other items in the tent now confined to the edge of the pad - and try to go back sleep not haunted by the fact of wet clothes in the morning.

We have a leisurely rising time and period of getting ready this morning.  The rain had thankfully stopped over the night, so part of the morning's rising is getting rain flies shaken off and gingerly packing tents to minimize water in the backpack itself.  There is also an element, perhaps, of allowing us to reflect and drink in the victory of the previous day's achievement.

A quick breakfast of oatmeal, the final packing of the wet things, and we are off around 0900.

As we are getting ready to leave, a mule train comes through.  We have seen this group a few times over the last two days or so.  They are used, I believe, both to resupply the back country rangers as well as to support other kinds of hikes.  It is an interesting reminder of an earlier era.

We have a descent down from Crabtree Meadow and come to what to me is some of the most beautiful country of the hike: stark granite and pine trees.  I love this part of the hike for reasons I cannot fully describe; there is something both peaceful and clean and precise about this area that appeals to my soul.  It is made more enjoyable by the fact that the day is cool and overcast from the previous day's weather; hiking through this in the hot sun would likely not be as enjoyable.

Our last trail lunch happens at another stream; trail charcuterie.  One of our fishermen has one last go at a stream; this matters because this is our last water source until mid-day tomorrow.  We will have to carry water for the next 24 hours.

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Throughout this hiking day, all I can reflect on are my experiences from the previous day on Mt. Whitney.

I find myself in a curious purgatory of joy and regret:  joy that I made it to the top at all (and a second time; the amount of hikers that do it more than once is likely higher than I think but still much less than do it once) and regret that I did not have more time up there and was not up there with the rest of our group.  That is what it is: I cannot go back and change the weather or even my speed (I could increase my endurance, but I have a short step base which helps nothing).

But I also spend a great deal of time thinking about the weather coming down.

It is not that the weather coming down threatened my life in any way; at no time did I feel I would blow off the mountain.  But it was a challenge:  wet, miserable, windblown, picking my way down 2,000 ft. of path.  Only one or two moments did I have an experience of true fear when I stumbled in a step before I caught myself.

Fear.  There it is.

Fear has come up a lot recently in my personal writings and the work I am doing in counseling.  Specifically, fear of people.  Or rather, fear of people and what they think of me.

This has been a challenge for me as long as I can remember:  as a person who is a people pleaser, one becomes incredible sensitive to the nuances of personal interactions and potential issues.  One becomes almost hypersensitive to the possibility that someone will become angry - or perhaps worse, someone will simply dislike you. And maybe judge you.

But I have just come down off a mountain in snow and rain and wind.  That, my mind tells me, is a real and potential existential threat.  People's opinions of me, not so much.

And so, as I hike through the day and then sit, chewing my lunch,  I find a certain sort of fearlessness.

This is a new feeling for me, one I examine with a sort of wonder.  But as I examine it, I realize that it is a real thing:  I can picture specific individuals that I find challenging because of an internal fear I have of them and their opinions (or their reactions).  What, this new feeling asks, can they really do to you in real life compared to the challenge of coming down a mountain in a storm?

I am not quite there on my journey to overcoming my fear.  But now I find I have a powerful weapon in my hand, an image of blowing snow and rain - and continuing on.

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After lunch, water bottles are topped off and the water jugs filled and assigned out - there are more people than jugs, and so I am spared (This is all Rainbow Bright's doing; she has been very clear every day about what bear can of food I am to carry.  I am apparently struggling more than I know.).

With that, we set off uphill.

We start another ascent and then enter an area of lesser ascents and descents and even areas of level walking.  I (once again) quickly enter my own bubble of the hike - like many other portions of this hike, I am part of a team but often on my own.  The granite sand crunches under my feet as the sun makes places of light and shadow on my path as I trudge on.

Around 1600, I reach the last camp of the trip.

We carefully choose our campsites with an eye to another evening of potential rain as the sky is threatening - and given our previous experience, no-one wants to spend our last day out hiking cold and wet.

Dinner (pictured above) is a sort of Thai Ramen mix.  It is delicious beyond words.

After dinner and suitable digestion, we set off at our guides' insistence for a low hill a several hundred feet away - the sunset, they assure us, is worth the walk.

They are absolutely correct.

They also do a sort of ceremony, one I have come to expect on these hikes.

Everyone that participates in a TSX hike gets a trail name.  This is based on the guides' observations of the individual during the hike.  They are all offered in good grace (and good humour) and are taken as a sort of token of having successfully achieved a hike. They are awarded on the last full day of the hike.

We go through this ceremony; the rule is that if you have a trail name you keep it.  About 50% of us already have one; the other 50% are offered theirs.  They are all spot on; our guides (along with everything else) are great observers of human nature.

My trail name, you may recall, is Survivor.  It taken from the fact that at the end of each day we have to recount a rose (something we liked), a thorn (something we did not like), and a bud (something we are looking forward to).  My first rose for every hike I have been on is "I am grateful I did not die today".

It is amazing how such a thought can transform one's life.

After the sun sinks below the horizon, we head back to our camp under threatening skies.  Wake up time will be very early tomorrow as we have a full day of hiking plus a full day of getting back.

The twin thoughts of "Survivor" and "fearless" wander through my mind as I drift off to sleep.