Читать книгу Mud, Rocks, Blazes - Heather Anderson - Страница 12

TEN MONTHS AFTER SETTING the self-supported fastest known time on the PCT, I decided to attempt the unsupported FKT on the John Muir Trail. Looking at my backpack as I sat in my Whitney Portal campsite at 8,374 feet, the burden to prove something weighed heavily on me. The backpack held nothing more than some food and a lot of desire, but it was everything I needed for the hike. Unlike a self-supported effort, where I could acquire supplies along the way, this time I would be entirely self-contained, start to finish. My body felt like it had recovered from the previous summer, but my mind was still clouded with doubts.

I would start up Mount Whitney in the wee hours, and from that summit attempt to run the 211 miles to Yosemite Valley in less than three and a half days to break the men’s and women’s FKTs. The setting sun turned the peaks around me pink. I gazed at them, knowing that I was here to fully immerse myself into the glorious, wild landscape ahead of me, much of it already familiar where the JMT ran congruent with the PCT. After I left camp in the morning, my plan was to not sleep until I’d seen it all, and drunk it all in. I desired to be alone with the mountains, but I was also terrified of failing and finding out that Anish, the FKT setter, was a fluke. I secured everything in the bear locker and crawled into my tent.

I slept fitfully. Fear had never kept me up before. I awoke at 2:26 a.m. and crawled out of my sleeping bag. Shoving a muffin down my throat, I turned on the SPOT, a personal locator beacon that would track my efforts, and in the warm darkness headed up toward the highest point in the Lower 48.

The climb started out feeling easy. I didn’t have any trouble breathing or an excessive heart rate. My watch beeped, telling me to eat, and I was surprised that I had to force myself—I knew I should be hungry. I passed dozens of hiking parties on my way up the mountain. By the time I reached 13,000 feet in elevation my head felt fuzzy, as though I hadn’t slept in a week. My heart pounded in my temples, and a small stabbing pain in the front of my head told me I needed more oxygen. By 14,000 feet my legs felt wobbly and I grew dizzy. In another 500 feet, I reached the benchmark on the summit. There, I plopped down and made myself eat something, even though I was so nauseous I could barely swallow without wanting to vomit. My legs were weak; the dizziness and fog in my brain was worse. I looked at my watch. It had taken me less than five hours to complete the eleven-mile approach. Now, the 211 miles to Yosemite Valley could begin. I stood up and headed down Mount Whitney—running.

I ran past the people I’d already passed on the way up that morning. Many cheered for me and gave me high fives even though they had no idea what I was actually doing. To them I was a woman in a dress running down a 14,000-foot mountain. I reached the intersection for the Whitney Portal Trail I’d ascended and turned right onto the John Muir Trail. Less than an hour later I was at Guitar Lake. Again, I tried to eat. I gagged and couldn’t swallow. More oddly, I wasn’t experiencing hunger pangs even though I’d been moving for approximately eight hours. I decided to stop forcing it, and trust my body to tell me when it needed food, as it had when my appetite faltered in the desert on the PCT.

Hours later, as I ascended to Bighorn Plateau, I stared up at a tiny notch in a formidable rock wall. The streak of snow clinging to the rock below the pass was a familiar face. Forester Pass looked impossible—as it always did—and yet I knew that it wasn’t. To reach the switchbacks blasted from vertiginous rock walls, I passed through the tarns below the ice chute and then began to climb. Immediately I felt my pulse pound in my temples. I stopped and put my hands on my knees, head down. Holding still, I breathed deeply for thirty seconds before continuing.

Reaching the pass, I sat down on a rock to rest for the first time since the summit of Whitney. Though still not hungry, I was desperately thirsty, even though I’d been drinking. Combined with the heat and exertion, the arid air of the High Sierra was dehydrating me faster than I could drink. Downing what little water I had left, I plunged into the snow and made a beeline for the bare switchbacks far below. Back on clear trail, I again started to run.

The descent from Forester is long, even while running. Down, down, down I went, into a deep valley. It seemed that only recently I had been here, uncertain as to whether or not I was going to set the PCT record. Now I ran toward another record, to convince myself that I deserved the last one. My head swam with altitude and irony. I reached the junction and turned to climb toward Glen Pass, but I simply couldn’t. Sitting down, I tried to eat, but couldn’t do that either. No matter what I tried to put in my body, it came back out. I’d been on the move for sixteen hours.

I climbed slowly, stopping frequently to catch my breath while I gazed down at Charlotte Lake. A year ago, I’d been awestruck by its sparkling beauty. This time—though I was there at the same time of day with the same golden Sierra light pouring over everything—the lake looked dull and lifeless. I climbed on.

Sunset grew nigh as I pushed upward into the rocky basin south of Glen Pass. I ground to a shuffle as I climbed, unable to breathe. My heart was pounding so hard, I expected to go into arrhythmia. I stopped often. My legs were weak. My head spun. The top looked so far away. Yet, I knew there was snow on the north slope. I had to get over the pass before nightfall so I wouldn’t be routefinding on icy snow in the dark. Out of water and still unable to eat, I pushed forward, counting breaths and footsteps to take my focus off my body.

I reached the top as the horizon sucked the last rays of light out of the sky. There was indeed snow—more than I had anticipated. Squinting, I tried to recall the course of the descent. A large step took me across the moat separating the rocks at the top of the pass from the boot pack entrenched in the snow on the downward slope. I slipped many times as I followed the tracks leading from bare rock to bare rock. At each, I looked for a cairn—when there was none, I would guess and pick my way across snow once more. Slowly I wound down from the pass. Water poured from under a rock and I drank with gulps of desperation. Finally, I crossed the ribbon of indigo water that connected the Rae Lakes before plowing into the winding terrain on the other side.

“There is a spring coming up,” I told myself out loud. “It’s just ahead. Not much farther.”

I reached it and filled my bottle and water bladder. I drank— then I drank more. My kidneys ached, but I reassured myself that it was from my pack bouncing against my back. It was a lie to keep my mind from panicking about muscle death induced rhabdomyolysis or subsequent renal failure. There were always mental games to play when I knew I was going onward regardless.

I tried to run. I should be able to run! The miles descending alongside Woods Creek were easy. Instead I hiked, reaching the camp near the suspension bridge across it at midnight. I simply couldn’t fathom going any farther without sleep. The ascent up the Whitney Portal Trail seemed ages ago. I sat down and napped for ten minutes, then got up and began the climb to Pinchot Pass.

I’d run through the dead of night many times before, yet this time was much more difficult. I stopped frequently to catch my breath, and my progress grew tremendously slow. I crossed the twenty-four-hour mark still unable to eat. My mind wandered to other things. It was a blessed feeling to think of something beyond my present suffering, but I fought it. I cannot stop focusing. I’m barely a third of the way.

The sliver moon rose and I clicked off my headlamp. I stood in the absolute blackness and gazed up at the Milky Way slicing the star-riddled sky. Aware that I was staring at the edge of the galaxy in more ways than one, I took a deep breath, cementing that moment in my mind forever. Then I moved on.

As the light turned gray, the hallucinations began. Every tree was a person. Every rock, a tent. I started seeing people where there was nothing to shape-shift. I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. But it didn’t matter. I believed in the trail under my feet, my breathing, the movement, the nausea, the waves of exhaustion . . . all of that was real. The miles and miles ahead of me, the passes left to climb, the thousands of feet of elevation gain—those were real.

At the top of Pinchot Pass I turned on my music for the first time. I started running, increasing the volume to drown out the pounding of my heart—and to keep me conscious. I ran and ran and ran. The hallucinations faded somewhat. After I crossed the South Fork of the King River I turned the music off and resumed climbing.

I passed thru-hikers breaking camp and soon they were behind me in a line as we crossed tree line and strode across rocky plains. Then the hallucinations returned, fast and furious, as fatigue made me dizzy. Finally, without preamble, I stepped aside and sat down. The thru-hikers passed me and I closed my eyes. Five minutes later I snapped awake, reminded that I had to press onward. I rose to my feet.

As I walked, the shadows and rocks jutting out from the wall ahead of me suddenly shifted into the biggest cottonwood tree imaginable, seemingly 2,000 feet high. I blinked and shook my head, but it remained. It looked like those dot paintings from the early ’90s with 3D images that pop out when you stare long enough. I looked down at my dusty trail running shoes rhythmically striking the ground. When I looked back up, the tree was the side of a mountain again. I squinted. Now, a tree. I continued to play with my vision, watching the hallucination appear and then vanish, as I walked across the barren landscape. The trail turned and began to ascend. Looking upward, I was discouraged by the thousands of vertical feet spiraling above me.

I reached the end of the switchback, bent over at the waist, placed my hands on my knees and lowered my head. Breathing deeply into my belly, I waited for the spinning behind my eyes to subside. I counted breaths. After forty-five I could no longer feel my heart trying to escape my chest. I straightened, and waited a moment to let the blood pressure equalize. The end of the switchback was fifty yards ahead. “I only have to walk to there,” I said.

I repeated this technique over and over and over and over as I ascended from the valley floor to the rocky heights of Mather Pass. Three switchbacks from the top, I mustered my strength and walked again, head down, staring at my feet. A few yards from the turn of the switchback, I glanced up from my feet to see a cinnamon bear with chocolate paws and ears clambering toward me, cutting up from the switchback below. I stared at the hallucination as it turned toward me, a mere ten feet away. I could see the texture of the fur, the annoyance in its eyes . . .

“Hughhhh!” the bear huffed as it started toward me, eyes locked on mine.

I blinked, my mind moving slowly. I would hallucinate a happy bear, not an angry bear. This is not a hallucination!

I backed away. The bear followed me, and not slowly. I did not trust myself to walk backward without tripping so I turned sideways and shuffled away, looking in its direction but no longer allowing it to make eye contact. I reached the end of the switchback and scooped up two medium-sized rocks as I clambered off the end of the trail, then turned to face the approaching bear.

“BEAR!!!!!!!” a woman yelled from above me, confirming it wasn’t a hallucination.

The bear stopped walking toward me and looked up. It tried to climb up between the switchbacks, but slid back. Walking a few more steps toward me, the bear tried again to cut the switchback. This time it was successful. With a burst of incredible power, it bolted along the trail, off the end of the switchback above me, and across the rocks—disappearing over the pass.

I looked at the trail I’d walked already and then ceded to the bear. I have to repeat the switchback. I sighed and dropped the rocks.

A few minutes later, I sat on Mather Pass and closed my eyes. My head swam. I need sleep. I’ve got altitude sickness. I looked down at my hands—they were purple. My body had prioritized circulating oxygen to my working muscles at the expense of my extremities many hours ago. My kidneys ached. I tried to remember the last time I’d peed and couldn’t. In fact, I couldn’t remember much of anything. I tried to talk to the group of thru-hikers who’d arrived minutes after me, but forgot what I’d said as soon as I’d spoken. A few moments later I started my descent toward the Golden Staircase. I can’t stop. Not if I want to break this record. And I need to know my answer. I can’t stop until I know.

When the trail flattened out, I ran. I reached the tightly packed switchbacks of the Golden Staircase and turned on my music. As I traversed the flatland that led to Le Conte Canyon, I wondered who the woman running alongside me was and why she couldn’t run any faster. If it weren’t for her I was certain I could have run so much faster. Why I was running with her wasn’t clear, but somehow, I knew I had to stay with her—no matter how slow she was moving. After a few miles a realization came crashing through the fog in my mind: I AM that woman.

The clarity was immediately followed by two confusing questions. Who am I? Where am I?

I ran in a daze as I pondered, but I simply did not know. Floating alongside myself, watching my body struggle, I was happy to be weightless and unable to feel its pain. Finally, I remembered the answers to my two questions, pulled from some far depth of memory that seemed incredibly difficult to access. I am Heather Anderson. I am running the JMT in California.

My mind was a frayed wire, barely connected to my body. From the safety of examining my situation beyond the confines of a corporeal husk, I could understand that my disassociation indicated I might be in serious trouble. I’d never come close to having an out-of-body experience before, not even while running the hardest ultra-marathons or during the PCT FKT. Is this what it’s like to die? I thought about snipping that frayed wire and drifting away, up and over the Sierra. To be free in the mountains in a way I’d never been before.

I came back to myself abruptly, and found that I was wading deeply through the symptoms of altitude sickness. Their severity was surprising—brought into stark relief by the reprieve I’d just experienced. My kidneys were stressed. My lungs and chest ached. A rattly, wet cough had begun. I knew my body was circulating oxygen to my moving muscles at the expense of everything else, including my digestive tract and extremities— maybe even my brain. A lack of calories was also taking its toll, and I could not go any longer without sleeping. Spotting a level area beneath a pine tree three yards off the trail, I climbed up to it. There, I lay down and closed my eyes, giving myself permission to sleep for two hours. Consciousness left me almost immediately.

I snapped awake an hour later. After putting on my shoes and getting to my feet, I looked down, surprised and relieved to see that my hands were pink and healthy looking. I felt alert as I hiked. All I needed was sleep. I’m fine now. A few minutes later, I met two thru-hikers—Willie and Carson. We fell in stride together, chatting as we climbed toward Muir Pass. Moving three miles per hour for the first time since the earliest miles of the JMT, I felt normal. When we stopped for water, they paused to filter, while I simply dipped my bottles in and continued on. I did not care about the long-term risk of Giardia; I just needed to survive the next one hundred miles.

An hour or so later the rejuvenation ran out and my pace slowed. I was well into the rocky, lake-riddled terrain dominating the southern approach to Muir Pass. My chest ached like it had never ached before. My hands were a dusky purple again. I went into yet another coughing fit. Phlegm shot out of my mouth and I stared at where it lay, blood red like a ruby, on the ground. I looked up at the ridges far above me before taking a deep breath, and walking on.

A few minutes later Carson caught up to me.

“Where’s Willie?” I said.

“He stopped to eat. I figured if Anish can do this without eating so can I. Mind if I hike with you?”

“Not at all. I’m just going really slowly now. I ran out of energy. And I just coughed up something red. It looked like blood.”

He was silent for a little while. “I don’t mind this pace.”

We walked on, talking about the mundane topics thru-hikers talk about.

“What do you do for a living?” I asked.

“I’m a paramedic.”

I laughed, which turned into that same wheezing cough. “So, you know all about coughing up blood, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Do you have any burning in your chest?”

“Not burning, per se. My lungs are just sore. Like an overworked muscle. I think maybe it was just from all the dry air and dust.”

He was quiet for a minute. “Yeah, maybe. I’d say if it happens again you should go to the hospital.”

We began to lose the trail in the rocks and runoff, wandering and problem solving together. Every once in a while, I would say, “Oh! I made this mistake last year. The trail is over there.”

Darkness fell before we reached Helen Lake, and I knew I was moving at a glacial pace. Willie caught up.

“I have to sit down,” I said. “You guys go on ahead.”

“Nope, we’ll wait.”

Twice more I stopped to sit and tried to send them on. Carson assured me, “I want to wait.” I stopped apologizing and instead was thankful for the company.

We reached the top of Muir Pass just before eleven. When we stepped into the hut, I was surprised at how warm the half dozen sleeping hikers inside had made it. Willie and Carson went about setting out their bags and preparing for bed. I took a bite of a bar and sat down next to the door, leaning against my pack. I closed my eyes and slept.

Thirty minutes later I woke up, and took another bite of the bar. One bite at a time was all I could manage. It had been taking me seven to ten hours to finish a bar over the last twenty-four hours, rather than eating the allocated bar-per-hour. I fell asleep for another fifteen minutes. The next time I woke up, I stood, swung the door open quietly, and stepped out into the brisk midnight air. I knew I had crossed a threshold—now my very life was in danger. Yet I couldn’t relent, not now. Leaving Muir Hut, I was driven not only to find an answer, but to follow the trail as it dropped thousands of feet. The only cure for altitude sickness is to go down.

I staggered down the pass, crisscrossing between tarns and rocky flats. After crossing Evolution Creek—tired of stumbling and tripping—I sat down and fell asleep for five minutes. Walking again, I felt demoralized. There was so much more climbing on the twenty-mile descent than I remembered. I’d been counting on moving faster through here and getting to a lower elevation quickly. When I tripped and nearly fell into large, silent Wanda Lake just inches off trail, I realized I’d fallen asleep while walking. Scared, I sat down and napped again.

Ten minutes later, I awoke and realized I couldn’t remember which direction I’d come from. I consulted the Halfmile navigation app, and was thankful I’d double-checked, since I’d started out facing the wrong way. Soon I was walking alongside a beautiful, but stygian, lake. The stars twinkled on the water’s surface in a mesmerizing fashion. Suddenly I realized it was the lake I’d almost fallen into.

I stopped, confused, and looked down . . . there were my footprints going the opposite way. I looked at Halfmile and obligingly backtracked. I looked at Halfmile again, confused. I started to cry. “I KNOW I passed this lake going the other way!”

No matter how my fuzzy mind contorted, there was no way I could understand what was going on. Halfmile must be wrong. There must be a glitch. I pulled out my compass. The needle spun and pointed in the same direction Halfmile said to go.

“No, no, no . . .” I said adamantly.

I knew—no matter what my frazzled brain believed—I had to trust my instruments. I knew the compass and the Halfmile app weren’t wrong. I walked back past Wanda Lake for the third time that night as the first blush of light tinged the horizon to my right. I realized vaguely that after my first five-minute nap I must’ve turned the wrong way and walked for over an hour back toward the pass, hence the unexpected amount of uphill effort.

Light came and I tried to run. I kept waking up to find myself standing in bushes off the trail, not knowing how I got there. Then I would realize I’d traveled one hundred yards from where I last remembered being awake. Over and over I slept while moving; once I even started drooling as though I’d been asleep with my mouth open, face-first into a pillow.

I knew I needed rest, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep for long—I was too cold. And even a dozen five-minute catnaps wouldn’t be enough. I reached the major ford of Evolution Creek, climbed onto a high bank, and looked into the water. I picked a line that avoided the deepest holes and plunged in. The frigid water numbed my feet and awakened my mind. I sloshed out on the opposite side, thankful that every time I’d crossed this creek over the years, I’d avoided getting washed downstream toward the fatal falls.

I ran and hiked onward. As the day grew warmer and my elevation dropped, I grew stronger. When at last it was warm enough for me to sleep, I found a flat spot and lay down. I wanted a twohour nap before climbing Selden Pass, but slept for only fifteen minutes. When I was unable to fall back asleep, I continued on. While the lower elevation meant I wasn’t coughing as much, the cumulative exertion and sleeplessness were still taking their toll. I took a bite of a bar every hour and began to drink more, not bothering to filter. My kidneys stopped aching and I rejoiced in the simple fact that I needed to urinate for the first time in nearly two days. At the pass, I dropped to the ground and slept for five minutes. Then I got up and descended to Bear Creek.

My mind had often left my body over the last thirty-six hours. I wasn’t even sure how long it had been since I began my attempt at the fastest known time. I tried to count the days and miles remaining. About one hundred miles. Maybe two and a half days?

I realized I was on pace to break the women’s unsupported record by a day and a half. I wouldn’t be bringing the parity that I’d hoped for to the three-day gap between the men’s and women’s records, but it was something. I felt slightly better. Two bites of bar an hour. No gasping for air. Nine thousand feet felt so good.

I can still do this. The danger is past now, right? I fleetingly thought of how I’d run off the trail repeatedly in the early morning darkness. How I’d nearly fallen into a lake. The moment I almost lost my balance and plunged off a cliff somewhere in the night. The fatigue would only get worse. My calorie deficit was already immense. But I can do this. I can suffer more. I can suffer longer.

In my mind, I composed the text I’d send from the dead-end road outpost of Reds Meadow—the only place with cell reception on the entire trail—recounting the trauma I’d been through, but sharing that I was continuing on. That way my boyfriend would know why it was taking me so damn long. I know I can suffer more. I know I can suffer longer. But do I want to?

A jarring sound brought my wandering thoughts back to the moment. I stared down at my pocket. The noise came again. A text? I pulled out my phone, which should have been off. I sat down on a log and opened the good luck texts from my boyfriend. I blurted out what had been happening in one verbose, rambling text. Followed by the words, “I can still do this though,” added more to convince myself than him.

The worry I read in the text I received back cut through the stubbornness and the fog in my brain. He threatened to call search and rescue if I did not quit. Finally acquiescing to the severity of my situation, I responded with what I knew was the proper choice, “I need to quit. But I am going to self-extract at Reds Meadow.”

After fording Bear Creek, I climbed up and over Bear Ridge and descended steeply into the deep drainage of Mono Creek. I still floated, barely connected to my struggling body. At half past nine I found a sprawling tree and crawled under it, wrapped up in my emergency blanket and all my clothes. I knew I wasn’t generating enough body heat because I was depleted, but there was no way I could climb Silver Pass without some sleep. I set my alarm for two hours later and hoped I wasn’t going to pop awake after a few minutes.

When the alarm rang, I clenched my eyes tightly closed. Then I sat up and realized I was lying beneath a tree, my cell phone chiming merrily. Cognizance of what I was doing came back and I shut the alarm off. Something about deciding to quit had given me the permission to fully rest. Only thirty-five miles to Reds Meadow. I switched the SPOT to tracking so that if I didn’t arrive my ground crew could find me, and got up.

Shivering, I decided to leave my down jacket, balaclava, hat, mittens, wool pants, and dress on until the climb warmed me. When it didn’t, I wrapped the emergency blanket around me like a . . . I strained to think of the word. It took me fifteen minutes to come up with it: sarong.

I staggered through the dark, cursing the many false summits of Silver Pass. At every bend I hoped I was at the top. I thought it was a 10,000-foot pass, but I passed the 10,000-foot sign and the trail showed no signs of topping out. My cough came back. I spit out phlegm, but none of it was red. I needed to get out. At last I crested the pass. I didn’t even slow down.

Eventually the sun came up and I took off the emergency blanket. I allowed my mind to wander, to do whatever it needed to do to keep me conscious and moving. I wouldn’t sleep again. I was quitting. I just needed to reach Reds Meadow. Only twenty-five more miles.

Midday I reached the Reds Meadow complex and bought a bottle of water from the tiny store. The shuttle bus to Mammoth pulled in moments later and I boarded, sitting down and guzzling cold water as we pulled away from the cluster of cabins. Rolling down the mountain road, I didn’t look back. I felt no regret—only blunt acceptance of my failure.