Claire Henley: Adventures West (Kennedy Meadows, The High Sierra, And Altitude Sickness)

(Editor's Note: Chattanoogan Claire Henley started an adventure of a lifetime on the remote Pacific Crest Trail in April. Along the way, she had many adventures and found herself a husband named Big Spoon).

“In the fell clutch of circumstance/ I have not winced nor cried aloud./ Under the bludgeonings of chance/ my head is bloody but unbowed.”

-William Ernest Henley, “Invictus”

The day we arrived to Kennedy Meadows, it rained. Big Spoon and I were fresh out of the desert. This was the first rain we’d had in weeks. Already, I could tell the defining difference between the Southern California desert and the Sierra Nevadas would be water. It was late afternoon in early June. The rain was cold, the drops big, the clouds as black and loud as a deep, snoring sleep. Kennedy Meadows, where we planned to take the next day off, was a field of dirt centered in the booming mountains. The Sierra rose to over 14,000 ft. at their highest. It wouldn’t be long before Big Spoon and I made our way up.

We set up camp behind the General Store next to a tall canvas tepee as the chilling rain came down. A multitude of tents surrounded us. Kennedy Meadows was the place to resupply and rest up before entering the sky scraping crests we’d all walked for. Hikers often said the 700 miles of desert was just a lead-up to the Sierra. The juice of the journey was starting to flow. I had to buy a bear canister–a $65 hunk of plastic with a locking lid, required for storing food in the mountains so bears couldn’t break in. After purchasing the bulky item, I weighed myself on the front porch of the General Store, surprised to read from the scale that I had gained 6 lbs. Six weeks of continuous hiking morphed my whole body into solid muscle. I walked with legs of steel.

My body was stronger now, but that day I had a debilitating migraine. The abrupt climate change from an arid land to moisture in the high mountains triggered it. All my life I had battled migraines. They started as a prick in the head, like the first peck of a bird trying to break out of its shell. Then the pain increased. A subtle smell fumed like gas; a faint sound blared like a siren; and the softest light pierced my eyes like the sun. At its worst, a migraine made my skull feel like it was being repeatedly bashed in by a sledgehammer. Dizziness and nausea pitched in as side effects. The only remedy that worked was a very still rest in a dark and silent place.

I went to sleep that evening without eating dinner and didn’t wake until morning. The rain had cleared out–a rich blue sky took its place–and my migraine had also passed. I was starving. Big Spoon and I got dressed in shorts and light jackets then walked to the front of the General Store where many hikers stood waiting. Grumpy Bears Restaurant was 2 miles down the road. During hiker season, a bald, skinny local swung by the General Store every morning at 7 to pick up hikers in his beat-up blue truck and drive them to the restaurant. When the local arrived, the mass piled into his truck bed. A total of 19 people crammed in the paint-chipped back.

The shack-style restaurant served eggs, bacon, and all-you-could-eat pancakes. Big Spoon and I sat at the corner table with the Tallyhos. They made it to Kennedy Meadows the same day as us and planned to head out after breakfast. As we ate, Pandora held the restaurant dog–a chihuahua named Pixie–in her lap while Saltlick observed the American Indian art hung all over the walls. It was good to reconnect with my first friends on the PCT, especially since there was no telling when I’d see them again. That was the way of the trail. It taught you how to love, and it taught you how to let go.

***

The next morning, after our day of rest in the dusty meadow, Big Spoon and I set off into the High Sierra. Glassy black obsidian decorated our path. It was another sunny day. Within 3 miles we came upon the South Fork Kern River. The water serpentined down an orange and narrow riverbed. Big Spoon and I slipped off our shoes and waded into the clear and shallow water. It was cleansing and cold–a true treat after the waterless stretches in the desert.

At mile 717, we stopped for the day at Monache Meadow, lush and green. The elevation was 7,864 ft. We crossed a steel bridge and made camp on the plump grass next to the river. A drake and duck floated nearby, and beneath the bridge, dozens of swallows swept in and out of their nests made of tightly clumped mud. After dinner, Big Spoon and I sat beneath the bridge and watched the dancing swallows as the sun slipped down and lit up the clouds above the mountains like gems atop a crown.

“What’s the purpose of life?” I asked Big Spoon as we sat.

He thought a moment then replied, “Experience.”

He went on to say life should be lived as in a library where one could dip into many different books on any given page. Only, in life, one should dip into many different experiences to see what he could find. “Like these swallows beneath this bridge,” he said. “I wonder how many people come down here to watch them. But look at how amazing they are, how flawlessly they fly into the tiny holes of the nests they built.”

I liked that. Life as a library where endless stories were told. And we got to choose which story to be part of. The important thing was to choose.

***

Over the next two days, Big Spoon and I hiked at an average elevation of 10,000 ft. My body could feel the altitude. I was lightheaded, heavy, and short of breath. The High Sierra slowed us down. But that wasn’t a bad thing because there was so much to see. Auburn marmots sunbathed on boulders; black squirrels scampered on fallen limbs; and yellow deer grazed in the fields. We were in the Golden Trout Wilderness of Sequoia National Park. Trees were everywhere. Among the trees was the bristle cone pine–thick, tan, and twisted like a screwdriver–the oldest tree in the world.

It was fun to walk with Big Spoon because he saw things in a different light. He found fantastical faces in the hollow logs and warped stone all around. He liked to touch the textured bark on the different trees. He liked to go off trail when it looked like something special existed beyond. One time when he did this and I followed, we climbed up a tall stack of loose scree. A view of majestic mountains met us at the top. The mountains dug into a deep shadowy canyon below. Right as we sat down to take in the view, a silver fighter jet flew overhead, a boom like thunder trailing behind. The jet nosedived into the canyon and played with flight by doing aerial spins. We wouldn’t have seen this treasure from the trail. Big Spoon had a knack for finding other worlds within our own.

When we hit mile 742, we took a 1.7-mile side trail down Mulkey Pass to hitch into Lone Pine and resupply. It was Tuesday, we were out of food, and someone had written in permanent marker on the sign at the trail junction, “Hard weekday hitch.” The side trail ended at Horeshoe Meadows, and Lone Pine–the nearest town–was 24 miles down the mountains. It was late afternoon and no one was around. As we walked out of the meadows towards the road, Big Spoon and I prayed for a hitch. The very second our feet hit the isolated road, a Honda CRV popped into view. Thumbs went up, and the woman driving the car stopped and let us in.

Ask, and you shall receive.

The mighty peaks of the Sierra overshadowed the teensy town of Lone Pine. Mt. Whitney stood at the forefront–the tallest mountain in the lower 48 soaring to 14,508 ft. Big Spoon and I got a room at the Whitney Portal Hostel on the main (and only) strip then walked across the street to a steak restaurant called Totem. We laughed. After 3 weeks of being married, this made for our first official date.

The next day, we relished in town life by strolling the street, perusing the shops, and sucking on fresh oranges. Big Spoon had his beard shaved by a barber who used a straight razor. He sat with his head back in a 1930’s barber chair made of leather and torquoise studs as the barber named Parish scraped away. Lone Pine thrived at an elevation of roughly 3,000 ft. The sun in the valley scorched our skin, but royal purple storm clouds roared over the mountains.

The next morning, an elderly man named Kurt drove Big Spoon, me, and the couple, Shaggy and Baloo, back up to the trail. Kurt, who served 20 years in the air force and then worked for 30 years as an airline pilot, shuttled us in his red van through the famous Alabama Hills–the unique geological formation of crumbled granite rock where over 400 movies, mostly Westerns, had been filmed. Kurt said he had flown all over the world and the Eastern Sierra was his favorite place of all.

He dropped us off at Cottonwood Pass, elevation 9,920 ft. We were now 7,000 ft. higher than where we had been in the valley. It was much colder in the mountains. On the ride up, my head started to throb and my stomach turned queasy. Stepping out of the van, my body felt simultaneously hollow and heavy as lead. Nevertheless, Big Spoon and I hiked to Chicken Spring Lake at mile 751. It was our first alpine lake of the Sierra; sun bleached talus encased the rippling water that sparkled like chandeliers.In order to reach the lake, we had to climb to 11,276 ft. By that point I had a full blown migraine. It was 2:30 in the afternoon, and I dreaded to move. Every step made me feel sicker. Big Spoon pitched the tent in a secluded lakeside spot on white pebbles. I lay on my pad and tried to fall asleep but waves of nausea crashed into me. My whole body tingled as if someone was poking me with cold needles. Mere minutes after crawling into the tent, I hopped out and ran behind a boulder to throw up. I threw up all the food and water in my system, followed by bile, dry heaves, more bile, and, finally, blood. I had never vomited like that before. It was violent and it hurt. It forced tears to shoot from my eyes. And it didn’t stop until I was hurled over, emptied, and gasping for air.

Big Spoon brought me water and rubbed my back as my intestines spilled out. When I finished throwing up, he said he would carry me down to a lower elevation. My head pounded and my body was drained. I had altitude sickness; all the signs pointed to it. All I wanted to do was lay down and be still. Besides, an afternoon storm was coming.

We stayed at the lake. Before I fell asleep, Big Spoon took his thumb and swept it across my forehead in the shape of a cross. He told me his mother used to do the same thing to him as a boy when she tucked him in at night. The cross comforted me, but it was a terrible night’s sleep. Tent-shaking wind resulted in heavy rain the next morning. When I awoke, my head still hurt but the nausea was gone. Big Spoon and I had miles to make. As I readied for the rainy day, I had to remind myself I was on a journey, and journeys weren’t always smooth. In fact, they were often tough, but they were always leading to your destination. I had to remind myself that in a matter of days, I would acclimate to the High Sierra.

* * *

Claire's first book on her adventures while living in Colorado can be ordered here:

http://www.amazon.com/51-Weeks-The-Unfinished-Journey-ebook/dp/B00IWYDLBQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394801373&sr=8-1&keywords=51+Weeks