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We started at 4am.  I pulled up in my borrowed broken pickup, just as Suresh and Ben were loading up the minivan with our daypacks and their champion breakfasts (peanut butter on toast).  By 5am we were hiking through the cold morning forest on our way to summit Wind River Peak (13,000+ ft), the namesake of Lander Wyoming’s local mountain range. 

 

It all started the day before when we asked Ben what he was up to:

“Tomorrow?  Getting on top of Wind River Peak…what are you up to?”

I didn’t have a good answer, so I told him I was also summiting the peak, despite having no clue what that would entail.  Regardless, Ben thought for a minute, and then seemed happy to have a buddy in his endeavor. 

“Should be 10 miles in, climb the peak, 10 miles out.  Easy.” *paraphrase, not actual quotation*

I’m not a runner, nor am I prone to randomly hike 20 miles in a day, but again, what else could I say:

“what time are we leaving?”

 

The next morning I got up at 330am, packed a daypack, grabbed some food, debated bringing the ice axe, and drove off into the predawn to meet Ben and Suresh (Suresh had also decided on a whim that he would join).

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It’s not that we were unprepared, but we all found it funny how such an ambitious trip had so casually come together, especially since we all were fairly new friends and our team chemistry was yet untested by adversity.  The first sign that we might be able to go the distance was that when it came out the Ben had underestimated or underplayed (the world may never know which) the distance we would have to cover, everyone took the extra miles in stride without batting an eyelash. 

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I almost wish there was something dramatic that had happened…it would make telling this easier.  We summited the peak before noon and managed to glycade down the north face for a while – thinking this would surely put us on track to be back home by dinner – but even with a speedy descent, we still had 11 miles of trudging to get back to the car.

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The day grew long and the mosquitoes abated, which gave us time to thoroughly contemplate our aching hips, knees, shins, and soles, and also the fact that we still had many miles to go.  The on-trail hiking in both directions turned out to be around 11 miles and the bushwacking and route-finding up the peak seemed to amount to 2 miles up the south face and 2-3 miles down the north face: a total of 26+ miles and ~10,000ft of elevation change.  Suresh had never done any sort of alpine travel and all of us eventually agreed that this was the hardest “hike” we had ever done in a day. 

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Despite some misinformation and the resultant, unexpectedly arduous journey, the three of us kept surprisingly sane and civil.  Sure we were all talking a bit of nonsense to get through the last hill climb, and sure, we all cursed the map gods at times, but to one another there was only ever encouragement and determination. 

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In the future I will definitely be paying more attention to route details before I embark on adventures into remote areas.  And the jury is still out on whether or not there will be any 20+ mile days in my near future, but honestly, I wouldn’t go back if I could.  And maybe this is already my mind numbing the pain and manipulating the experience of hiking far past what I desired or bargained for…either way, I had a great hike today.  It didn’t kill me, so hopefully I’m stronger now? 

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I think we can always learn about ourselves from challenging experiences, but hands-down the best part about today was learning that I can trust these guys.  We bit off more than we could chew and somehow we all got it down with a smile on our faces.  Good partners – in climbing, adventure, life, etc – are priceless and today I found two more!

 

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7/24/17 – 9am

 

It’s the morning after and despite the raw patches on my feet, I am already plotting my next adventure.  Crazy how the young (relatively) body can undergo such out-of-the-ordinary stress and seem to recover in only a few hours of rest!  Even crazier how the brain highlights the scenic views and the moments of comradery, meanwhile the overwhelming multitude of moments spent suffering seem to fade into a distant memory...

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