Part 1: Backpacking
Tuesday was my first double-digit mileage day. Wednesday was my second. Thursday was my first teen-digit mileage day. Friday was my first mileage day in the twenties.
It was 2:30 PM on Thursday, July 18. We had arrived much earlier than expected to our camp at Moraine Lake and were relishing in the joy of our first “easy” day of the trip, a mere seven miles of hiking after the 24 that we had done in the previous two days. I had just taken a refreshing dip in the lake when we were approached by someone who identified himself as an off-duty ranger.
“Is one of you Laura Patton by chance?” He asked doubtfully.
My heart seized momentarily, but I looked up from my roll of Ritz Crackers and answered, “Yes, that’s me.”
“Your family is trying to get a hold of you, they want you to call home if possible.” He relayed the message that had been given to him.
I stared at him, confused. I was 30 miles into the backcountry. I didn’t have cell service, and the only way I would get it would be to hike 30 miles back to Sequoia National Park, where we had started our trip three days ago.
Meanwhile, the ranger radioed back to HQ to tell them that he had located me. More information came through his walkie talkie in unintelligible static. The ranger started explaining that there was another ranger somewhere on the trail with a sat phone and that I could try to find her. He listened to his radio again. “Her Dad is in the hospital” he repeated back for clarification.
“Did you just say my Dad is in the hospital?” I asked disbelievingly.
He nodded his head. Shit. What?! I jumped to my feet and started cramming things into my backpack.
“I’m hiking out now,” I said.
“I’ll go with you,” Chelsea offered as she jumped into action.
As information came through to the ranger, he relayed it to me, as I half listened. “Now Allison [my brother’s girlfriend] says it would be better if you just hiked back, rather than trying to call,” he continued.
The rest of our party put their heads together and quickly began organizing logistics. We switched tents- Chelsea and I would take the two-person and Kristen, Ben, and Becca would take the three-person that we had previously been sharing with Kristen. We would hike out and take the truck, which was parked at the trailhead at Sequoia. The remaining three would continue the hike to Whitney, where they could be picked up by Kristen, Chelsea, and Ben’s mother. Thankfully, we had two water pumps, two first aid kits, and two stoves, so each group had what they needed.
Within ten minutes, Chelsea and I were back on the trail that I had been cursing just an hour before, because I was tired and sore and hot. I prayed quickly, ‘let my Dad be ok.’ My mind began racing. What had happened? Different scenarios rolled through my mind, one after the other. Heart attack? Stroke? I immediately ruled those out, my Dad was young and in great shape. Maybe he slipped by the pool and hit his head. Maybe he slipped on a dog toy and hit his head! I started thinking of all the possible situations that could have occurred because of something my dogs did- my dogs that my Dad was kindly babysitting for me while I was on the trail. Yes, maybe something had happened with the dogs and my family wanted me back to take the dogs off their hands. Still, more possibilities flooded my mind. After I had ruled out natural things like heart attack, feeling that was impossible, I decided there had to be some type of accident. Maybe he had been in a car accident. Maybe he had been in a motorcycle accident. I saw my Dad winding around a turn on his CBR 600 and being smashed by a careless driver. I shuddered and tried to push the image out of my head. The thoughts wouldn’t stop and I knew that in the current situation they were not productive. I didn’t know what happened, and I had no way of knowing until we got out of the backcountry. All I could do was hike.
The day seemed to have grown hotter in the afternoon hours. Unfortunately we had several miles of climbing to do and not a bit of shade covered this exposed section of trail. I was worried about Chelsea, as she has a hard time staying hydrated, and the conditions we were hiking in-- hot, sunny, and uphill, were sure to be taxing. I, on the other hand, was probably borderline hyponatremic, consuming upwards of 6 liters of water in the first half of the day and peeing way more often than was convenient.
I tried to keep my mind occupied with other thoughts, but all I could think about was my Dad, laying in a hospital bed. I turned on my iPhone speakers and listened to music but even that wasn’t enough to distract me. Eventually we just hiked in silence, the only sound to be heard was the rhythmic cadence of our trekking poles striking the earth. Finally, we made it to the summit of our climb. We sat down and swallowed some energy chews before beginning the descent.
Soon, we were back at the campsite we had left earlier in the morning. We sat down to contemplate our next move. Despite the situation, my mind remained completely rational. I knew that pushing ourselves too hard wouldn’t do us any good. I knew that if one of us became too tired, both of us would have to stop. If one of us became dehydrated or undernourished, we would both be screwed. I knew that our only way out was together and that we had to be smart. After sitting down for a few minutes it became apparent that both of our bodies had no intention of hiking further that day. It was about 6PM, so we decided to have dinner, make camp, and go to bed as early as possible so we could get a pre-dawn start the following morning. We had hiked 14 miles that day and had 24 remaining until we were out. It was unspoken, but I think we both knew that we would hike all 24 miles the next day, taking an extra day didn’t seem like an option.
Despite not feeling hungry, we forced down some food, knowing that we would need the energy, and also hoping to lighten our packs a bit. We crawled into the tent at 8:00 PM with our alarms set for 4:00 AM.
I didn’t sleep. But I remained calm. I knew that I needed rest and was able to reassure myself that laying silently through the night would rest my body enough for the task that would greet me in the morning. My mind continued swimming, wondering what had happened to my Dad. At 4 AM, the alarm blared and we were soon walking out of camp, packs and headlamps on. It was still pitch black, not even a hint of sunrise provided any light. Not ten yards out of camp, a pair of glowing eyes peered at us through the trees. Then two more sets of smaller eyes shone out at us. At our first campsite, we encountered a mama bear and her two cubs. Could this be them? We strained our eyes into the dark forest. We banged our trekking poles together. No response. Clang! Clang! Clang! went our trekking poles. The animals were unfazed. They couldn’t be bears we reasoned, or they would have been scared. Straining our eyes further, we thought we could make out the shape of deer. We warily continued, looking back every few seconds until we felt safe again.
We knew that the first three miles of our day would be a climb as we had to reach the summit of Kaweah Pass, at over 10,000 feet. We once again hiked in silence. The sun began to rise over the serene scene that lay before us. Granite boulders, grassy meadows, a burbling creek, and giant mountains to either side of us. In my head, I formulated silent goals for our day. The first was reaching the summit at 6:30. At 6:00, we sat down on top of the pass. We were stoked. We had kicked ass on the climb, completing the ascent from camp to summit much faster than we had completed the descent two days before. We knew the next section of the trail was a huge descent down to Hamilton Lakes, and we started off purposefully. As the sun continued to rise, the world became pink. We hiked down to Precipice Lake, which was bathed in ethereal beauty. ‘Damn you, Lake,’ I cursed silently. ‘Stop being so fucking beautiful.’ I was literally mad at the scenery. It felt horribly wrong to be hiking through beauty that was other-worldly while my Dad was suffering some unknown trauma. ‘Fuck you,’ I said again to the lake.
Seeing that my shoes were half a size too small, descents were actually somewhat unpleasant for me. Nonetheless, we made it to Hamilton Lakes in great time. We were at the halfway point of our first half of hiking for the day. We had decided to break up the day into two distinguishable sections. The first half was from Arroyo Junction to Bearpaw Meadow, about 12 miles. There we would stop for several hours, eat lunch, and recuperate for the second half, Bearpaw Meadow to the trailhead another 12 miles. So we were a quarter of the way through the hike and it was only 8:00 AM. Things seemed to be going well.
The next bit of hiking passed rather uneventfully. We hiked down, we hiked up, we hiked down again, and then we hiked up again. About three miles from our lunch spot, the day began to heat up. The climbs became more of a struggle. Our packs seemed heavier than ever. We had packed ten days of food, but had only eaten three days worth at this point, so our packs were still about 45 pounds. On one particular climb, when the midday sun beat down on us, and sweat prickled out of every pore, I allowed myself to think about how difficult our task felt. But I immediately thought of my Dad. ‘We’re coming Dad,’ I whispered. ‘Please be ok.’
Just before Bearpaw we walked past the High Sierra Camp. A staff member was standing on the front porch.
“Do you happen to have a phone?” I asked her.
“We have a sat phone,” she replied, “but it’s only for super emergencies... Are you guys ok?”
“Yea. Yea, we’re fine,” I answered as we scurried past.
The last mile of descent to our lunch spot, a nice creek just past Bearpaw, was pure hell. My feet ached, I could feel blisters forming, and each step down meant my toes jammed into the ends of my too small shoes. I refused to sit down, knowing that getting back up would be much harder. It felt like hours passed as I slowly made my way down. I felt utterly defeated. I kept telling myself that once we sat down and rested for awhile, I would feel rejuvenated and the last 12 miles would be no problem. Still, the thought of the remaining distance discouraged me. We made it to the creek and threw down our packs. I immediately took of my shoes and socks and plunged my feet into the ice cold creek. I unstrapped my Thermarest from my pack and laid down in the shade for a nap.
When I woke up I was in the blazing sun, sweating, and feeling like my blood was boiling underneath my skin. I felt a little nauseous but knew I needed to start pounding water and cooling down if I had any hope of completing the hike. Chelsea forced me to eat lunch, although I didn’t feel much like eating. I put moleskin on the two blisters emerging on my right foot. I dunked my hat in the creek and hoped for some evaporative cooling as we started walking.
Soon enough, we were back on the trail. The rest certainly helped. I was very slow on all the descents, and I would catch up to Chelsea on the climbs. At one point I turned on my iPhone to Taylor Swift. Knowing all the words to all the songs meant that I could sing along and distract myself for a while. I didn’t allow myself to look at the time until the entire album had played. Chelsea and I joked and laughed a bit, knowing that it was important to keep our morale up. Inside I felt guilty for laughing when I still didn’t know what was going on back home. At a few points we thought we might be losing it- slowly going insane or getting delirious.
I tried to tell myself I could only stop every hour, but breaks became more frequent, every 50 minutes, then every 45. We hiked on and on and on and I started hating hiking, hating walking, hating my shoes, hating my backpack. Several times I considered leaving my backpack on the side of the trail.
Finally, finally we could see the trailhead up ahead. We staggered up to the truck and dropped our packs. We had done it. 24 miles and 15 hours later we could stop hiking. I pulled off my shoes to reveal a blister the size of a quarter on my right toe and another the size of two quarters on my heel. I turned my phone off of airplane mode and it searched for a signal. It went back and forth between deciding that I didn’t have any and that I had one bar. I desperately tried to get a text out to my Mom. Retry. Message Failed. Retry. Message Failed. Retry. 28 hours after finding out something was wrong, I was desperate to know what it was. In my mind, my Dad had died 100 times in 100 different ways. I would not admit that out loud, but it was true that I had experienced my Dad’s death over and over and over in my head each step of those 24 long miles. I longed to hear that everything was fine, that everyone was sorry to have worried me, but everything was under control now.
We got in the truck and started driving out of the park. I shook my phone hoping to get some kind of information from it. I had butterflies in my stomach. I wanted to know what was going on, but I also didn’t want to know. After about an hour of driving, my phone started receiving texts. They came pouring in and I caught snippets of a few as they rolled past on the screen. “Just heard about your Dad, I’m so sorry” “I’m so sorry about your dad! I know how scary that is, I hope he’s doing better.” “There’s been an emergency with dad... if you get this text please get in touch with us.” WTF was happening?! There were also texts coming in from my Dad, pictures of my dogs and updates on what they had been up to, “Star ate her breakfast and her dinner!” was the last one he had sent.
Chelsea pulled over knowing that I could lose service again at any minute. I dialed my Mom’s cell phone. She answered, which kind of surprised me because my Mom hardly ever even has her phone on.
“What’s going on?!” I asked desperately.
My mom explained in a very calm voice, very characteristic of her. On Wednesday night, my Dad was standing at the kitchen counter when he collapsed onto the floor. My Mom dialed 911. Sarah my 5’ tall 100 pound sister, started giving him CPR, which she continued until the paramedics arrived. It took the paramedics quite awhile to get my Dad breathing and his heart beating again, almost until they arrived at the hospital. My Dad was then moved to ICU where he was currently unresponsive, due to his brain going without oxygen for so long.
I was bawling. I was honestly waiting for my Mom to finish the story with, now everything’s fine and he is resting comfortably at home. But that didn’t happen. I finished the conversation with my mom and sat shaking in the passenger seat of the truck, leaning against the window. My body heaved up and and down and I sobbed with everything left inside me. Poor Chelsea had seen me in this state before. Three years prior, she had come onto a similar scene- me face down in the hallway of my house in San Luis Obispo, hyperventilating, wailing, and pleading for a different truth. I had just found out that Tim was dead. If ever there was a better friend in the history of this earth, I beg you to show me. Chelsea has been there through it all, never missing a beat, never hesitating to be there for me.
I eventually stopped crying. My Dad was in stable condition and we really shouldn’t have been driving after the two strenuous days we had just completed. When we reached Fresno we found a motel and went to sleep. Surprisingly, I slept. Everything felt unreal so it was easy enough to pretend that everything was fine. We woke up the following day, toasted the Eggo waffles that constituted our complimentary breakfast, hobbled out into the hot Fresno sun, and into the truck.
We drove straight to the hospital.
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