Friday Fun: Believe In Yourself.
2020 was an interesting – and epic – hiking year for us. We were invited, both at the last minute, to climb Mt. Whitney and on a 3-day backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon – a few months apart.
I had always had this far-flung fantasy in the back of my head that I would climb and summit Mt. Whitney. When we were invited, we were over-the-moon excited to join. We had been training all summer and were definitely up for the challenge.
When we woke up at midnight to start our hike, We were greeted by a black bear in our campsite… it was pretty funny, it was sitting under the canopy we had set up in the middle of the campground looking like, ‘hey guys, when is the picnic?’ lol
We got to the trailhead and started our hike with our headlamps on at 1 am. We hiked up up up and somewhere around 7 or 7:30, we got to the lake below the trek up to the infamous 99 switchbacks and onward to the summit.
We slowly began our way up and WHAM… about a half-hour into our next push, I had altitude sickness. We were somewhere around 12,500 feet. It was really shitty. I cried. I got mad. I felt deep disappointment because I knew I had to turn back.
On our way back down, and when I began to feel better, Jason and I did an inventory of the trip and started planning for a future summit bid. We both acknowledged ourselves for believing that we could do this (and we will!) and how excited and proud of ourselves we were in attempting this adventure.
One of the biggest takeaways that I still celebrate today is that 12,500 is a personal record for me in elevation. Whoo hoo!
This photo was taken on our way back down the mountain, where we got some water and took a bit of a rest. ❤