A Hard Week · Aug 4, 11:13 am by Jennifer Pharr
Normally when you get sick, you have the comforts and conveniences of home to make you feel better. You have a bed, a toilet, lots of toilet paper, modern medicines, and a doctor who is simply a call or short car ride away. When you get sick in the backcountry, and it is 40 miles to the nearest point of egress, these options no longer exist. Instead you are faced with two choices:
1) sending a friend ahead for help (which typically results in a helicopter ride for you)
or
2) hiking
Now hiking 20+ miles a day is difficult enough already, but when the majority of those miles are spent wondering whether or not you will pass out, then those miles truly become a Herculean task. That’s why after leaving Tuolumne Meadows a week ago, I had my doubts about whether or not I would reach Sonora Pass on my own two feet.
After taking a day at Tuolumne to travel into Yosemite and do some “off-trail” miles up to Half Dome and Yosemite Falls. I returned to the trail the next day feeling rested and eager to begin the following section. It wasn’t until the ensuing morning that I started to notice a change. I now felt tired and weak and even the moderate climbs seemed to take it out of me. But hey, all hikers have these off days and this was mine, right?
Nope. Later that evening as I sat nauseous, dizzy, and dreading an unpleasant but needed bathroom trip into the mosquito infested darkness, I knew something was wrong. Luckily, looking ahead to just such scenarios, I had been carrying meds with me since the beginning. I promptly gave myself the official self-diagnosis of sick, very sick, and soon began taking any combination of meds and antibiotics that I thought might work.
And, although these meds were effective, they hadn’t quite reached full strength the next day, when it seemed, unfortunately, my illness had. The worst part was that beyond not being able to keep food in my system, it was difficult to consume food as well. The thought of eating made me feel sick, but since hiking all day without eating really wasn’t an option, I somehow managed to choke down 1,000 calories—a meager allotment, but enough to see me through 22 miles and the daylight hours.
On a positive note, I felt absolutely so horribly sick that the bazillions of mosquitoes flying around my head only seemed secondary in nature, whereas everyone else claimed they were insufferable and the worst of the trail. I will say, however, that I indeed bear the mark, or marks, of having an illness that requires running into the woods and remaining exposed while in a marshy still-water section of California. One night I actually counted over 200 mosquito bites on my body before losing count and giving up.
Somehow, despite the lack of nourishment, constant trips into the woods, and swarms of blood-sucking vampires, I made it out of the woods and to the road at Sonora Pass. It helped that I could actually glissade the last 2,000 ft. to the road instead of walking them.
A long way to the right, the road offered the possibility of doctors and a hospital, but deciding that the meds were finally beginning to run their course, I opted instead to go left and spend the night at a rustic wilderness retreat. There, as I suspected, a hot shower and home cooked meal served me just as effectively as any hospital could have.
After a day of rest and regaining my strength, I once again headed back to the trail. Lower mileage, easier terrain, and far fewer mosquitoes kept me hopeful for the section ahead. Yet, admittedly, in a lesser fashion, the challenges continued. Instead of mosquitoes, we now dealt with thunder and lightning storms. Coming almost every afternoon, they drenched us with rain, pelted us with hail, and forced us to hike much faster than we otherwise would have. It was a harrowing sight to be running off a ridge to safety and see the flames and smoke of a nearby lightning-induced wildfire on a nearby mountain. And, even more spooky, to awaken in the morning to the smell of smoke and a thick haze produced by nearby burns.
And, yes my illness persisted as well, but like the rest of me, it decided to head north and I actually began throwing up. Sadly, this broke my 14-year vomit-free streak and has now forced me to start all over. But start over I will and continue hiking I shall. Despite the bugs, storms, fires, and disease, I kid you not, I saw a sunset from the top of a mountain this week that made the past seven days entirely worth it.
No one said hiking to Canada was easy, and it’s not. But somehow throughout the challenges I learn, grow, and fall more in love with what I’m doing.
I feel much better now and look forward to the miles ahead, knowing that while they might not be easy, they will, in some form or fashion, be wonderful. And, if not entirely wonderful, then at least memorable.
Until the next time, all my best.
jp
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