Bragging Rights

I’m standing in a hotel lobby in Lone Pine when I hear a voice from behind me: “I’ve been dreaming of the Sierra.” I turn and find a strange little man gazing out the window at the peaks to the West. Is he talking to me?

“I’m from Scotland and, oh sure, we have beautiful mountains there. But not like this. No, no, not like this. That’s why I dream of the Sierras.” He doesn’t seem to expect a response. He smiles wistfully and slips out of the room.

My first thought is, “Did that really happen?” But then I realize that he has, in a way, articulated my own thoughts. I’ve been dreaming of the Sierra too. It’s been my goal to climb Mt. Whitney since I was a kid growing up in New England, reading stories of the Old West.

When I was young, I suffered from insomnia. So I’d read Westerns late into the night until I thought I could sleep. Then I’d stare at the map of the United States on my wall, the Western states illuminated by a street light out front. Finally drifting into sleep, my imagination would be filled with the magical names of the West, the Rocky Mountains, the Bitterroot Range and, yes, the Sierra.

So now, at age 49, I’m standing in the lobby of the Dow Villa Hotel, where John Wayne bunked while he filmed Westerns in the nearby Alabama Hills. These parts were also frequented by another hero of mine--Humphrey Bogart played Mad Dog Earle, a bank robber on the lam, in “High Sierra.” Tomorrow I’ll finally be in those mountains too, climbing the highest peak in the U.S.--or, at least, the Lower 48 states--at 14,497 feet.

“It’s crunch time,” says another voice. It’s my brother, Pete, who has come out from the East to climb with me. “We have to be up in six-point-five hours so we better rack out.” He’s a civil engineer who somehow corrects me each time I cite a mileage, find magnetic north or read a map.

Back in high school, Pete and I climbed most everything New Hampshire’s White Mountains had to offer--including Washington, Adams, Chocorua. Despite the danger of wickedly unpredictable weather conditions, those mountains now seem so tame. The trail head for Mt. Whitney, at 8,360, is more than 2,000 feet above the summit of Mt. Washington.

Our climb is a reunion of sorts. Pete stayed in the East and works on the roads and bridges of New England. I ventured west to spin yarns as a California writer. Tomorrow we’ll climb together for the first time in decades. Though we’re not young bucks anymore, we’ll need the strength and stamina of youth; it’s a 22-mile round-trip with an elevation gain of more than 6,000 feet. Most people do it in two days. We’ll gut it out in one 16-hour grind.

“I just want to be able to say that I did it,” Pete explained to me some months ago when we planned the trip.

Bragging rights. It’s what everyone wants. It’s what I’ve said all these years since the urge first hit me. But is there something else pushing me?

The alarm rings in the darkness of our room six-point-five hours later, followed by my brother’s sleepy voice: “It’s crunch time. Let’s hit the trail.” A glance at the clock: 3:30 a.m. We had set out everything the night before--water bottles, energy bars, wind breakers. We gulp coffee, gobble oatmeal and head for the car.

Outside it’s cool and absolutely still. Looking down the main street of Lone Pine, I see sputtering neon signs for cafes, bars and sporting goods stores with names that include “Bonanza” and “The Totem.” The only fast-food chain is at the north end of town. How much longer can Lone Pine escape discovery? Each time I drive back into town from my home in Southern California, I brace myself for the inevitable invasion of corporate logos. Thankfully, the ghost of the Duke still roams these streets. But once Wal-Mart arrives, he’ll get the hell out of Dodge.

We drive up a snaking road to the Whitney Portal and park across from the trail head. We don headlamps so we can see the trail. And begin hiking.

“Look up,” Pete says. Above me are the brightest stars I’ve ever seen outside of a “Star Wars” movie. Constellations leap out; every point of light belongs to a bear, a hunter or a crab. For a moment, I feel like a real mountain man, navigating by the heavens. Then I turn my headlamp back on, chomp on a high-protein bar and hit the trail.

After several hours, the sky behind us pales. Then the rising sun strikes a rock face high above us with a yellow brilliance. It’s hard to imagine that we’ll be above those peaks later today.

Soon we reach a barren, boulder-strewn landscape with scattered snowfields. Above, the east wall of Mt. Whitney looks down, challenging us. The hardest part is about to begin--96 switchbacks that will take us 2,000 feet up to Trail Crest at 13,777 feet.

Pete decides to count the switchbacks to take our minds off the ordeal. At the end of each 10, he high-fives me to boost our spirits. It’s during this section of the trail that we meet the hiker we refer to as “our man.” He’s a quiet young man, climbing alone. He passes us, asking questions about elevations and distances. Then we pass him and he fades into the distance. “I don’t think our man’s going to make it,” Pete says, regretfully.

We round yet another switchback and Pete triumphantly yells, “Ninety-six!” And, what do you know? He’s counted correctly--we’ve reached Trail Crest. We stand there panting, amazed at what we see. A huge wilderness area lies before us unscarred by a single road. The area stretches untamed from Highway 395 in Lone Pine, through Sequoia National Park and into the San Joaquin Valley near Fresno.

We’re now nearly three miles high, and each lungful of air is pathetically thin. Ten steps forward, no matter how slowly I walk, leaves me panting. In the stillness I feel my heart thudding in my chest, each beat racking my body. I don’t like being so aware of my heart. It’s like marking my remaining time on earth with solemn drumbeats.

After an hour we drop exhausted onto a rock beside the trail. A woman rounds the corner from the opposite direction and sits beside us. She’s dressed in a nylon wind breaker, wool hat and gloves. “It’s blowing pretty good on top,” she explains. Then, tugging at her clothes she announces, “Time to strip.”

“Climbed--Whitney--before?” I ask between gasps.

“Seven times since August,” she informs us, peeling off layers of clothes, revealing painted-on spandex shorts. “Once, my friend and I summitted twice in 24 hours.”

“What’s your best time up and back?” my brother demands.

“Ten hours,” she says as she stands. She’s gone before it registers: We have already been on the mountain for 10 hours--and we haven’t even been to the summit yet. Hey, it’s the journey, I remind myself, not the destination.

During the next hour we cross behind the jagged teeth of needle-sharp spires of rock. The wind roars like a jet taking off, nearly knocking us off our feet. We reach a vast, rock-strewn slope and, finally, we see our goal: a rock shelter marking the summit. But it looks impossibly distant, unreachable.

During this last section I lapse into a dreamlike state. There’s only one thought in my mind: I have to reach the top. I could, at any point, tell Pete, “I’ve hit the wall. Go to the top and I’ll wait here.” But something pushes me on. I’ve come this far and I’m going to finish it. Hikers pass us. We pass other hikers. The wind rips at our clothes and freezes our exposed hands. I remember Pete yelling over the wind, “This is definitely crunch time!”

At last, the rock shelter appears silhouetted against the achingly blue sky. Seeing it gives me a burst of energy and I arrive at a white plaque, cemented to a boulder, proof that we are standing on the highest point in the Lower 48 states.

“Could you take my picture?”

It’s our man, the soft-spoken guy whom we saw much earlier. He made it! I take his camera as he stands atop a boulder and, just before I snap the picture, he flashes the peace sign. Now it’s our turn to pose. My brother puts his arm around my shoulder. I smile broadly, hoping my expression says, “Piece of cake.” Inside, I’m thinking, how did I ever make it? What drove me despite lack of conditioning and all common sense?

The answer comes in the wind-whipped voice from my brother. “Remember that map on your bedroom wall? I’d always come into your room and you’d be staring at it.” Of course I remember it. And now I understand why I’m here. Over the years, those places became a guiding light to me, moving me west, leaving my family behind in the East, to claim the dreams of childhood.

I put my arm around my brother and pose for one more picture. It’s been a long trail to get here. But I finally made it.

*

Long Beach novelist Philip Reed last wrote for the magazine about golf’s long-drive record-holder, Mike Austin.