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Peak endurance
April 28, 2006A hiker must have thought up that old saying, "Take it one step at a time."
Maybe even a hiker trying to make it to Kearsage pass.
During lunch at a beautiful, serene lake on the first day of the hike last year in the High Sierras, I began to really wonder what I had gotten myself into.
At the high altitude, I couldn't breathe. It was obvious I was going to spend a good part of the hike alone because I couldn't keep up with my trailmates. I was in for an embarrassing as well as painful trip.
But in the just-do-it column: I didn't have any way to get back to Texas for seven days. The backpack of 30 or so pounds had turned out to be not a problem. I had too much pride to just turn around and go back down.
So I stayed on the trail.
Later, Christina told me that she felt she couldn't explain how it would really be on the trail, couldn't really let me know what I was in for. So she figured I'd just have to experience and decide for myself whether I liked it.
It's true, she couldn't have prepared me.
I'd just have to take it one step at a time, thinking about nothing but that one step.
I'd have to just do it.
Posted by at 02:08 PM | Permalink
It's Always the Quiet Ones
April 26, 2006Let's face it. Texas is a state where macho has meaning.
The men here are famous for wearing cowboy boots and hats, swaggering around, pulling out chairs for ladies, driving giant pickups, going hunting and, sometimes, drinking beer and howling at the moon.
I saw the Texas macho characteristics manifest themselves in an interesting way during a six-day hiking trip last year in California.
First of all, I was raised to be macho yet ladylike -- a clash I'm still working out.
My late father taught me how to box but told me not to slump when I'm sitting.
He schooled me in roof removal during a 100-degree day on a hot, black roof but all but cleaned his shotgun when I brought a boy home as if I were a shrinking violet in need of protection.
He encouraged me to "get a way to make a living" but accompanied me on nearly every automobile purchase to keep me from getting ripped off.
So I keep an eye out for machismo and machisma, knowing full well that they can exist in paradoxical ways.
I saw Texas macho play out in my trailmate Lon in a totally different way.
Christina and I referred to Lon as "the quiet little bad ass."
And he was.
Lon was from Texas, but he didn't swagger in word or deed.
He kept up a steady pace through high altitudes -- without any preparatory workouts.
He was also soft spoken.
But everyone was always craning forward to listen to his quiet voice because he talked knowledgeably about the trail, footcare and much, much more.
Many a time I was trying to set up my tent -- for 15 or 20 minutes -- and Lon came over, did a little abracadabra, and the stubborn thing was up in about two seconds. Granted, it was his tent -- but still.
He wasn't bristling with gym-nurtured musculature either. His build was average.
But he'd already hiked the John Muir Trail, 211 miles from the Yosemite Valley to Mount Whitney, according to the Pacific Trail Association. He'd also summited Mount Whitney already, more than once.
It's fair to say he'd earned his bad-ass badge, but he was a thoughtful bad ass.
More than once he told me as I gasped for air at the high altitude, "I hope you're able to enjoy the trip at least somewhat."
And he wasn't being sarcastic
Lon had read a book about footcare and carried with him an assortment of Japanese and German tape and other mysterious items that made life much easier for my trailmates and me.
When I got a blister, he put some tape on it that was like a second skin and advised me to leave it on for the rest of the hike. And that's all I got was one blister in six days and 50 miles.
He did, however, wear a hat and boots -- a hat to keep off the sun and hiking boots.
He did not howl at the moon but was known to snore like others of our party.
Lon also did all the cooking -- not exactly a traditionally macho undertaking.
Many times I grasped a cup of his delicious instant vegetable soup in shaking hands after a day's foot travel. His morning oatmeal and coffee seemed to facilitate the intake of oxygen into my lungs.
Lon was the brains behind the trip.
He mapped the route, arranged for the food and brought some extra equipment -- like the foot tape -- that turned out to be crucial.
Lon broke the mold for macho, and I would have to say that between the foot tape, the cooking and the tent setting up, he was my trail hero.
And he was the best kind of Texas macho.
Posted by at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Onward and Upward
April 25, 2006Onion Valley Campground was the launching point for my six-day trip over Labor Day into the High Sierras.
My friend Christina and my two other trailmates kept talking about something called "a pass." That didn't mean much to me at first.
But it would. Oh yes, it would.
Onion Valley Campground is in the Inyo Wilderness, and the trail starts at elevation 9,200 feet, according to GORPaway.com.
Our goal the first day was to climb Kearsage Pass -- 11,823 feet, according to GORP.
We got a relatively early start and spent a few hours hiking until lunch at a beautiful lake. Fishermen were floating on the water, and plenty of other hikers were on the trail. The sun shone, and the view was idyllic.
I was completely miserable.
For all the working out I had done, it was plain that my body wasn't prepared for the assault of life -- not to mention exercise -- at high altitude. I had started wheezing by the third step up the trail. By lunch, I truly didn't think I could take another step.
I sat down with crackers and tuna -- or something. The memories of that first day are somewhat spotty in places, no doubt because of my oxygen-starved brain.
Storing memories wasn't my first priority. Breathing was.
My trailmates, on the other hand, seemed to be taking it all in stride. In fact, they strode right by me -- with my blessing -- and were about 45 minutes ahead of me until lunch.
But here's where they showed true character. They waited for me before digging into our rations.
Yes, waited.
I barely knew two of the three -- and they waited.
Those are true trailmates.
Posted by at 11:34 AM | Permalink
Trail hygene
April 20, 2006Flashes of blinding white dotted the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range during a hike I took there over Labor Day last year.
It wasn't lightning though.
A hard truth of the trail is that 99.9 percent of the time, the normal conveniences of civilization are, well, back in civilization. Sure, you could clean up with a quick dip in the near freezing waters of a glacially-cold lake at 12,0000 feet.
But some important part of your anatomy, a toe, a nose, what have you, might freeze and fall off in the water. Therefore, bathing is reduced to quickie splashes by a lake or stream -- the same place you'll get your drinking water from.
By day 3, I noticed a strange, sweetish smell rising from my body. I kept waiting for my trailmates to comment on it, but they were apparently, too wrapped up in their own odiferousness.
I ended up wearing the same T-shirt, long johns and khaki shorts for all five days of the hike. I simply couldn't waste energy changing clothes. It took everything just to get through the 10 miles or so of the day.
The T-shirt became stiff enough to fend off the strongest wind. It also acquired an odd brown spot on the front, but I was past caring by then. The only thing I changed was my socks because foot hygiene -- that's a different matter.
Books have been written about taking care of feet on the trail, and I at least did the minimum.
Perhaps the hardest to get used to part of trail hygiene was the outdoor toilet situation.
There was no actual toilet. It was wherever you could find a secluded place, hopefully by a rock that would be good for holding onto for balance.
My friend Christina brought a neon orange children's play spade with her. Last year, she tried to use her trekking poles to shovel dirt over the more obvious signs of outdoor toilet usage. The poles didn't work too well -- thus the spade.
At key moments, Christina quietly slipped the spade into her high-tech hiking jacket. She also loaned it to me to slip into my $1.90 Value Village pullover.
Before a trip to the outdoor toilet, a hiker might say something like, "Well, I'm going over here for a minute" or, "I'm going to change clothes."
Trailmates would then respect their fellow hiker's privacy for however long necessary. It got tricky if everyone started changing clothes at once, of course.
And it got even trickier if other groups of hikers were around.
At first, the whole business, whether for a quick trip or for a longer session, seemed like an ordeal. First, came the awkward escape from the campsight. Next, the desperate search for a good place. Then finally, the almost guilty answer of nature's call, conducted crouched down, wobbling on unsure haunches and praying nobody ventured by.
Good hearty double-servings of instant oatmeal apparently kept us all in running order, so the outdoor toilet expedition wasn't optional.
By day 2.5, my attitude had undergone a seismic shift.
The outdoor toilet became another routine task on the trail -- with one exception. I still strove to be secluded at those moments.
Just before undertaking the last leg of the trail to Mount Whitney, we camped amid a pine grove. A few other hikers were scattered around.
On trail-tired legs I hunted and hunted for a good spot. I finally decided that a boulder, plus the vacant bank of a river would serve well for my purposes.
I squatted gratefully, did my business, stood up, stretched and pulled up my shorts. That's when I noticed a hiker standing among trees on a rise about 20 feet away behind me. Too late, I also noticed his tent.
And so the final vestiges of my modesty floated up into the clear brightness of the alpine sky.
I decided that if he'd seen anything, and his unbroken gaze seemed to indicate that he had, then it was his fault.
He shouldn't stare. That's ungentlemanly.
That incident prepared me for the veritable crowd camped on the other side of Whitney. Privacy was basically impossible.
The best policy was to simply look away, back away and continue a conversation with a trailmate, and, if someone discovered me during an inopportune time, the best policy then was also to look away while the person or persons in question backed away.
Heck, it wasn't even worth mentioning by the fourth of fifth white flash -- mine or anyone else's.
Posted by at 03:15 PM | Permalink
Whatever Shall I Wear?
April 18, 2006I suppose women and metrosexual males are famous for asking the question above.
But it could be a matter of life, death and a good night's sleep on the trail.
A promised land of gear flashed by me in the pages of "Backpacker" magazine.
Doodads and doohickeys that just about slipped your hiking boots on for you glimmered out at me.
For more than 10 years, I've gotten by just fine with a pair of leather, rubber-soled hiking boots -- brand forgotten and unimportant -- and a flimsy polyester backpack from Wal-Mart. My fashion on the trial consisted of a T-shirt and bicycle shorts and an old sweater if it was cold.
An overnight stay meant breaking out the tent bought long ago from Wal-Mart, the cursed contraption that weighed a ton but kept the mosquitos off. It wasn't a backpacking tent anyway, just something to keep the rain off.
But there in those magazine pages were things I'd never heard of before, many made out of titanium or fabric apparently once worn only by astronauts or race-car drivers.
It seemed the well-dressed hiker traveled light and high-tech, outfitted with boots that nearly floated off the ground and a backpack with clever pockets for everything imaginable.
The tent, trekking poles and Z-pad effectively became a part of their body on the trail.
I read online diaries in which hikers gave long, detailed accounts of testing everything from headlamps and trail mix for durability, utility and weight.
It was possible to spend thousands on the accoutrements.
So the gear thing posed a problem.
At first glance, I had nada. But I knew I'd have to look harder because my budget for the upcoming Labor trip to the Sierras was basically nada.
My friend Christina came to the rescue, arranging for gear through a series of her friends.
Once I actually got to California, there would be a backpack, tent, Z-pad and trekking poles waiting for me. Hallelulah!
One thing I wouldn't give up and certainly couldn't buy new -- my boots. The leather was battered from days of trekking through the Wichita Mountains. The ankle supports were disentegrating but still supportive, and the orginal laces were still there although broken and then tied together on one shoe.
I'd bought those suckers when my daughter was about 10, and I never needed another pair for 11 years.
As for clothing, that would be a T-shirt, khaki shorts, several pairs of socks, a "new" $1.90 pullover from Value Village and various other sundries -- none of them actually new.
I was ready to climb any mountain - or so I thought.
Posted by at 11:17 AM | Permalink
Flatlanders' Lament
April 11, 2006The hikers on the cover of "Backpacker" magazine are svelte but muscled, glowing with tans and confidence.
Let's just say, I'm a little different.
The biggest glow I ever got from hiking came from the sweat dripping into my eyes as I squinted into the sky in hopes of spotting a rescue helicopter.
Before I set foot within 50 miles of Mount Whitney -- literally -- I knew I'd have to get in shape. I read up on workouts for backpacking. Many had titles like: "It only takes a month!" or "Get in the best shape of your life in six weeks."
So I thought I was starting ridiculously early when I hit the treadmill about two and a half months before the hike.
I added a weight workout with Jill, the newspaper's librarian/assistant to the editor. Pumping iron at Gold's with her was like having a personal trainer, cheerleader and realist all at once. Second-in-command coach was Julie, one of our managing editors.
Between the two of them, I almost became a regular at the gym.
But the first workout was the hardest.
The next day, I took baby steps all day to spare my aching thighs, never raised my arms from my sides and wept between telephone calls.
But in the end, miles of walking, pounds of pumped iron and the occaisionally ignored cookie paid off.
I lost 20 pounds and found energy I hadn't had since high school.
But it wasn't enough, not near enough.
I found that out the first day in the mountains where up means way up and a fish out of water gets more oxygen.
Before five days of backpacking were over, I'd ask myself again and again, "What were you thinking?"
It became my theme song and my lament. Nobody was around to hear it though.
They were all way ahead of me.
Posted by at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
High Times
April 06, 2006Cold. Craggy. Uncaring.
Mount Whitney stabbed into the California sky, towering above me.
Winded. Weak. Scared witless.
I cowered below, alone.
Thousands of feet of altitude, endless switchbacks and a skinny stripe of trail stood between me, a decent meal and a feeling of safety.
How had it come to this?
Ignorance was a definite factor and so was friendship.
Backpacking across mountain trails had long been a dream for me.
I had a friend, Christina, who'd already lived that dream, and she was planning to do it again over Labor Day 2005 in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range.
She and a group of coworkers were going to thread around trails there and climb Mount Whitney -- the big draw for the hike.
Here's a description of the giant from www.desertusa.com:
"Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states, rises like the phoenix from the western rim of the Great Basin Desert of California. At an elevation of 14,495 feet, Whitney looms high above Death Valley, the lowest point in North America at 262 feet below sea level, less than 100 miles to the east."
Sounds tall, all right, but down here on the North Texas prairie, 14,495 feet doesn't have just a whole lot of meaning.
That would all change.
Posted by at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Random Acts of Violence
April 02, 2006He was nobody's dream man, but I dreamed about him.
He stood in the curtains in my hotel room and then sat beside my bed whispering my name in the dark. He was a double murderer.
Watching him die gave him life, and he's clung to it ever since.
I first saw him in a courtroom a few years ago at the Wichita County Courthouse. He shouted, cursed and backpedaled on a request to waive his right to appeal his death sentence.
A carpenter with a seventh-grade education, he shot a mother and her grown son for reasons that were never clear.
He wasn't related to them and apparently had no quarrel with them.
The killer stood outside a Wichita Falls home and fired at the mother through a glass door.
Then he chased down her son who'd fled to the garage and shot at him until the 30-30 rifle ran out of ammunition.
It's not unheard of for the struggle for justice to consume an innocent man. But the man I watched die was condemned not only by a jury of his peers but also by his own family.
The killer's courtroom antics that August prompted one of his long-suffering relatives to say, "I think they need to hurry it up."
I asked a prosecutor if the man's outrageous actions in the courtroom would carry any punishment for him.
The prosecutor said no, he's going to die. What more could be done?
A defense attorney's last-ditch effort to halt the execution on the grounds the man was mentally challenged failed.
He was going to die, and, as the senior crime reporter, I was going to watch him.
I never considered trying to escape the duty.
Journalists have to look into dark corners and tell society what's there.
Back away from observing an execution, and what next?
A thick December rain started long before I reached Huntsville where the death chamber and all its attendant rituals was.
I'd spent a good 45 minutes looping around Fort Worth, feeling lost in more ways than one.
But I and the other reporters had plenty of time to wait for the tense minutes it would take the state to put him to death.
He would die an impersonal death before a group of reporters and officials.
Neither his nor the victims' friends and family members came to watch.
A prison chaplain was at his side though.
The convicted killer was strapped down on a gurney on the other side of a viewing window. His face was pointed at a microphone that seemed ready to strike.
I leaned close to the window, tensed to record every sigh, cough and last word.
He expressed no remorse in his final statement.
A concoction of deadly drugs flooded his sytem. His face went slack like a sack empitied of contents. His skin was the color of death.
Within seven minutes, a doctor pronounced him dead. I banged my head hard on the viewing window's thick glass when I looked down quickly to record time of death.
The deadline clock was ticking.
I rushed back to a hotel room to try to contact absent relatives. At times, a query for such comments elicits a few choice curse words and then a dial tone howling in my ear. But not trying could mean silencing someone who wanted to talk.
A relative of the slain mother and son told me she'd sat through the trial, and that was bad enough.
"I just didn't see where going and watching him die would help me," she said. "I had closure when they sentenced him. This wasn't closure for me."
Her voice carried a lonely remoteness that had nothing to do with the miles of telephone line stretching between us.
Within a couple of hours, I'd made the last call, written the last word and given a Wichita Falls television station a phone-in.
That's when I noticed it was pitch black outside and the rain was falling harder than ever.
Adrenaline and the recent events kept me awake two or three hours. I'd seen dead bodies before but never watched a man die.
Then it started.
He was in my hotel room, silently threading in and out of the long curtains at the windows.
I jerked awake and, against all common sense, checked the drapes. Then I went into the bathroom, flicked on the light and peered in the mirror, my mind blank and my body tensed to flight or fight.
Bone tired, I fell back into bed and a restless sleep.
Soon, he sat in a chair by the bed and watched me quietly for a long time, like a cat watching a sparrow.
Finally, he said a single syllable, his hoarse voice giving it an unfamiliar obscenity, "Trish."
I willed myself out of the nightmare, felt my way to the bathroom and clicked on the light. The comforting yellow pool of light kept me company the rest of the night.
Being a reporter has taught me random acts of kindness and "paying it forward" surface in the strangest places. It's also taught me that an enthusiastic minority are out there murdering, molesting, raping and maiming in apparently random acts of violence.
The double murderer came to my mind at 4 a.m. today when I woke up out of a sound sleep screaming so loudly I thought someone might call the cops.
I'd dreamed a man was hunched down beside my bed, getting closer and closer to my ear. He whispered over and over, "Trish."
But I could see in the semidarkness from the bathroom light that I was perfectly alone.
If I'm asked to cover an execution again, I will do so without hesitation.
It's my job.
Plus, it's a sure bet that others have done an unimagineable amount of suffering before an execution takes place. What are a few bad dreams compared to that?
And I'm already sleeping with a light on anyway.
Posted by at 05:43 PM | Permalink
