Peak Experience

Listening to Nora Croix describe her tribulations during a 19-day, 220-mile solo backpacking trip along the John Muir Trail in the High Sierra last summer, you might get the feeling that she never wants to set foot in the wilderness again.

That assumption would be wrong. Sure, there were brutally uncomfortable moments--horribly blistered feet that made every step a hot-coal experience and altitude sickness that made the thought of eating repulsive--but Croix said the overall experience was sublime.

“It’s the most beautiful country imaginable,” said Croix, an English teacher at Aliso Niguel High School. “Part of what’s great about it is dealing with all those annoyances, being able to look at them and say, ‘You know what, I don’t have to have the perfect situation in order to be content.’ ”

That includes an especially unpleasant meal by Thousand Islands Lake, where mosquitoes swarmed her mouth with every bite.

Yummy, huh?

“There’s no way to say it to make everyone understand,” Croix said. “If you don’t hike, I don’t think you could ever appreciate why you would want to do something like this, but people who do hike don’t need an explanation.

“They understand the joy of being out there.”

Croix still covets the priceless images. Watching steam rise off the frost-covered grass in Long Meadow in Yosemite National Park. Personal views of the rugged Ritter Range made famous by Ansel Adams. The sunset from the top of Mt. Whitney--pinks and reds in one direction, blues and purples in another--before spending the night on the highest point in the lower 48 states.

Croix’s hiking pace was slow but steady.

“After about the third or fourth day, it’s just what you do,” she said. “You get up, you hike for 10 or 11 hours, you make camp, you go to bed, you get up the next day and do it again. It’s like getting up and going to work except the scenery’s a lot better.”

Getting to that point took a leap of faith for Croix. A 32-year-old mother of two, she previously was only a weekend backpacker, but for years wondered about longer trips.

The Pacific Crest Trail, 2,650 mountainous miles from the California-Mexico border to Canada, piqued her interest, so she decided to give herself a taste. She settled on the John Muir Trail that runs from Yosemite Valley to Mt. Whitney, following the Pacific Crest for much of its length.

Croix also decided to tackle the hike by herself, both as a personal quest and a chance for some quiet contemplation.

“I wanted to challenge myself,” she said, “and say, ‘OK, I’m totally on my own here. If I get lost it’s my own fault and I can find my way out.’ ”

To make sure she was prepared, Croix enrolled in the Sierra Club’s Wilderness Travel Course last winter. In the 10-week program, she learned the basics of survival in the back country, including scrambling on rocks, winter camping and navigation with topographical maps.

That knowledge and those skills came in handy soon after she made the 5,000-foot climb out of Yosemite Valley in July. Huffing up a trail toward 11,000-foot Donohue Pass on her third day, Croix encountered her first snow of the trip and briefly lost track of the trail.

It was a scary moment, but consulting her topographical map, she was able to figure out where she was in relation to where she was supposed to be. Then she scrambled down some rocks dotted with snow and ice and rejoined the trail.

“I was pretty nervous,” Croix said. “That was the only time--that and one creek crossing--when I thought, ‘Hmm, this could be bad, potentially.’ ”

The other scare--at icy-cold Evolution Creek--was over quickly. Stepping gingerly over mossy boulders, Croix slipped into the rushing, waist-deep water but was able to keep her balance and reach the other bank. She then discovered that the trail had been rerouted to cross the creek at a more placid location.

“Once more it was one of those situations,” Croix said, “where if I’d been more detailed in my planning, I would have saved myself a little effort, but it worked out OK because I knew how to get across.”

Croix considered it another lesson learned, much like her painful experience with improper footwear. She bought trail running shoes just before her trip and wasn’t able to break them in properly.

Any hiker can tell you the excruciating result: blisters. And blisters on top of blisters.

It got so bad that Croix considered quitting the hike. Instead, at one of two developed areas along the route she made a phone call to her brother, Tom Mullin. He was already planning to resupply her with food by backpacking in from Bishop in the last half of her trip, and added her hiking boots to his list.

“Immediately after my brother brought me my boots it was like night and day,” Croix said. “It went from the day before, wondering if I should hike out with them, to thinking I could do this again next year.”

The Sierra Club’s Wilderness Travel Course will start on Jan. 9 in Orange County and Jan. 31 in Long Beach. For information call (949) 495-5272 or click on https://angeleschapter.org/wtcindex.html.

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Hot On the Trail

Aliso Niguel High School teacher Nora Croix could write an essay entitled “What I did on my vacation.” She hiked the 220-mile John Muir Trail in 19 days this past summer. A look at her route: