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| Super fail! |
Anyway, all my planning for the hike went off without a hitch. Somewhat amazingly, I would've pulled it off had it not been for the limitations of my own body. What I couldn't plan for was altitude sickness, which -through a series of unlucky mishaps- derailed my trip entirely within the first week. In the short time I was on the trail I learned that I am not only virtually useless with a pack over 10,000 feet, but that I also don't like being alone in the woods in bear country. Lack of sleep from anxiety coupled with altitude sickness (and the ensuing loss of appetite) does not make for a happy hiker. I could've chosen to wait it out and then do a section hike, but I didn't. I'm not sure why... I just may have been too overwhelmed at the moment I made the decision to call it all off.
I came home pretty bummed, to say the least. My friends and family were very supportive, and after a few days I started attempting to turn my disappointment into a learning experience. So far what I've come up with is to stop trying to do everything alone! If I'd have had a partner for the JMT I might not have been so likely to turn back when I started feeling crappy, and I certainly wouldn't have been as nervous at night. Dr B. has already suggested we do a section hike of the trail together next year.
In that spirit, we went out to Bend this weekend and got me back on the horse. Dr. B was not interested in the 5,000 ft. elevation gain climb of South Sister (even though we saw kids in jeans coming down from the summit) but he did drive me, camp with me, and entertain himself mountain biking around Sparks Lake while I tackled the beastly red pumice slopes to the top. That was Sunday, when I was supposed to be coming up the backside of Mount Whitney -- the view from Mount Adams to Mount Shasta was a decent consolation prize.
No more adventures for me for a while, though. I feel like I have some sort of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and I need to distance myself from the experience. We're going to work on buying a house, I'm going to attempt to dedicate myself to running and Pilates while working as much as possible. This probably won't make for very interesting blog posts, so this site may get sleepy for a while. Thanks for reading and commenting, as always, and thank you to all the supportive people I met on the trail. Thanks also to the smart thru-hiker on Amtrak who encouraged me to get back on the horse as soon as possible, and to Ken Harper, an ex-writer for the Christian Science Monitor and fellow Dostoyevsky enthusiast, whom I spent the most fascinating three hours sitting next to on the flight home. This experience was a hard lesson for me, and I have no idea what it will mean for me in the future.
