We Beat the Storm! (Well, Sort Of)

Having spent the last six years living in California, I wouldn’t go as far to say that I take the nice weather for granted, but it has come to a point where if I have a running event, hike, camping trip, etc. coming up, the weather is generally not of grave concern for me.  I just assume the weather will be nice because after all, it is California, right?  This is not always the case.

 

This past weekend my friend Edith organized a hiking trip with a bunch of our friends to the summit of Mount Langley in the Sierra Nevada mountains to celebrate her birthday.  The original plan was to make it an overnight backpacking trip but when we were unable to secure a permit for camping in the John Muir Wilderness, Edith reserved a couple of campsites at a nearby campground just south of Lone Pine, California.  The new plan was to hike on Saturday and spend Saturday night at the campground.  I never questioned the weather until some of our friends began posting the weather forecast on the Facebook event page during the days leading up to the hike.  The forecast changed throughout the week and even improved slightly, but as of Friday we were still looking at a forty percent chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon and early evening.  Some of our friends were concerned about attempting the hike in such conditions.  When hiking in the rain it’s important to be cautious, but it is generally safe if proper gear is used and is even enjoyable for some people.  On the other hand, hiking at high altitude in thunderstorms is not safe.  Being at high elevation in the wilderness during a storm puts you at a higher risk of being injured by falling trees or rocks, or worse, being cooked by lightning.  After talking with the group, it was decided that we would still attempt the hike but if the weather got ugly, we would turn around immediately and get back to safety as quickly as we could.  So, on Friday night I walked in the door after work, ate a quick dinner, and promptly laid down for a nap.  Three hours later I woke up at 10:30 PM, gathered all my gear, and began the three-and-a-half-hour trip to the trailhead around 11:30 PM.  Nestled in the Eastern Sierras of California, Mount Langley has an elevation of 14,032 feet, one of the tallest peaks in the state.  The hike to the summit is about twenty-two miles roundtrip with breathtaking scenery, including alpine forest, blue mountain lakes, grassy meadows, and granite mountain peaks.  Due to the elevation, there are also patches of snow along the route all year around.  If you’re a nature junkie, it doesn’t get much better than here.

 

Once I was out of the late-night traffic of the Los Angeles area, I made a right turn in the town of Mojave and my route became a dark and desolate road that passed by the mountains through Owens Valley.  When I arrived in the small town of Lone Pine at 2:15 AM I stopped at Lee’s Frontier to grab some food and water for the hike.  As I waited in line at the register, the guy in front of me was eyeing the sausage snack display and asked the clerk if they had a snack called “little dudes”.  The clerk looked at him quizzically and said the store did not carry them.  “Oh man, we had those in jail, they were really good”.  You encounter some interesting characters when you inhabit convenience stores in the middle of nowhere at 2:15 in the morning.  After the food and water purchase, I hit the road once again.  From Lone Pine it’s two left hand turns and twenty-three miles to the trailhead.  An easy drive, but the only minor detail is that over those twenty-three-miles, you drive the equivalent of a vertical mile and a quarter into the sky up a twisting mountain road.  The factor that poses the greatest challenge to hiking Mount Langley is the altitude.  About ninety percent of the trail is above 10,000 feet and it tops out at the summit at 14,032 feet.  Oxygen levels are noticeably lower at this altitude and hikers often become susceptible to altitude sickness which is the result of being exposed to low oxygen levels at high altitude during strenuous activity.  As I drove up the pitch-black road, the terrain shifted from desert rocks and plants to alpine forest with tall pine trees.  The road eventually emptied into the parking lot of the Cottonwood Lakes trailhead.  Several tents were set up at the nearby campground and early morning hikers were making their preparations outside of their cars and tents.  There was no cell phone reception in this remote area of the mountain wilderness, so I drove around the parking lot in search of my friends.  I quickly spotted Edith and Christina getting ready near their SUV.  We said hello and after parking my car and making my final preparations, I walked over to the trailhead.  Our group of ten consisted of Edith, Tuyet, John, Christina, Meredith, Iris, Iris’ boyfriend Dave, myself, Alfredo, who was an old friend of ours that met up with us at the last minute, and his friend, Patenco (I’m sure I spelled that one wrong, sorry buddy).  I had hiked with Edith, Christina, Tuyet, and Alfredo before and was meeting Dave, Patenco, John, and Meredith for the first time.  I had not seen Alfredo in three or four years, so It was great to have him there.  We all greeted each other and began our trek just before 3:30 AM, making our way through the midnight wilderness over the river crossings and along the switchbacks, talking casually.  Just after the sunrise a couple of hours later, the trail gave way to a grassy meadow with granite rocks strewn about.  The summit of Mount Langley rose directly in front of us in the distance.  There are two ways to access the summit; via Old Army Pass or New Army Pass.  Old Army pass is shorter, but more technical and New Army Pass is slightly longer but less technical.  Both routes lead to the final section of the trail to the summit which is a steep two-mile climb through rocks, following a series of large cairns.  We decided to take the shorter more technical route and followed the trail to Old Army Pass.  The sun had now made its way into the sky and the sunlight sparkled off the Cottonwood lakes as we passed.  After passing through some gorgeous mountain scenery, we climbed up the switchbacks to Old Army Pass and began the two-mile push up the boulder littered winding path to the summit, using the cairns as our guides.  The weather was holding up perfectly so far and we hoped it would stay that way, although we knew it could change in an instant.  The weather at high altitude can change abruptly, and we knew that we’d better be ready to turn around and get back to the trailhead very quickly if things were to get ugly.  Along the ascent we met up with Rochelle, Delores, and Shirleen, all of whom were part of the LA hiking scene and were friends with Alfredo.  During the final climb our group had spread out considerably.  Tuyet had began to feel the effects of altitude sickness so John and Meredith stayed with her along the way.  Despite the group spreading apart, we all kept each other in sight, and we all made it to the summit within about forty-five minutes of each other.  We all displayed strength and resolve along the way; Edith was contending with sleep deprivation, Christina was hiking with a Plantar Fasciitis injury, other people were dealing with slight altitude sickness, and I myself was feeling sleep deprived as well.  Once we made it to the summit we all came back to life and when Tuyet arrived, her eyes filled with tears of joy.  As long-distance hikers, these are the kind of moments we live for; pushing our minds and bodies to the limit, contending with the pain and misery, and reveling in the accomplishment of completing the task at hand.  Like life, hiking twenty-two miles almost entirely above 10,000 feet has euphoric moments of joy and elation as well as demoralizing moments of pain and despair.  “This hike is amazing, but I wanted to quit a million times” Christina joked at the summit.  After taking some pictures, we quickly began making our way back down the trail to beat the storm.  The forecast called for a forty percent chance of storms in the afternoon and by the time we left the summit it was approaching 12:30 PM. 

The weather remained nice throughout most of the descent, however with two miles left, it began to rain hard and we heard the crackling of thunder.  We put our rain jackets on and hustled down the last two miles of the trail in an effort to stay safe from the storm.  By the time we arrived back at the trailhead at 5:30 PM the thunder had stopped but the rain was still coming down.  Our group embraced in a hug and congratulated each other on our successful summit.  Despite the heavy rain during the last two miles, we were very fortunate that the weather had played out the way it did.  We expected at any moment that we would need to turn back, but we beat the storm and were able to summit and make it back safely.  We were proud of our accomplishment and decided to go celebrate with some hot pizzas and beer at the Lone Pine Pizza Factory before heading to the campground.  My plan was to hang out at the campground for a while then drive home.  As we drove down the winding mountain road from the trailhead into Lone Pine all seemed right with the world.  Until we came around a bend in the road and saw a line of about six cars stopped.  In front of the first car in the line was a massive slew of mud and water on the road with two cars stuck side by side in the mud and unable to move.  Shortly after stopping I saw Iris walking up the road.  I rolled down my window as she approached.  “Hey Iris, what happened?” I asked.  The heavy rainfall had created a mudslide on the mountain road and two cars had gotten stuck, blocking the road, and making it impossible to continue down to the base of the mountain.  We decided to turn around and head back up to the trailhead, get some sleep, and try again in an hour.  An hour later, we approached the site again.  The two cars were still stuck but this time a police car was there.  We learned that they needed to pull the cars out of the mud and then clear the road, which would take at least a few hours.  It was becoming increasing apparent that we would not be able to get down from the mountain anytime soon, maybe not even until the next morning.  Back at the trailhead we shared food with each other and Alfredo made sure that I was okay since I wasn’t prepared to stay overnight.  We mostly stayed in our cars to keep warm.  Even though it was the middle of July, the temperature dropped into the low fifties as the sun began to set.  All I had left to eat was a half a bag of trial mix, so Meredith, Tuyet, and John gave me some potato chips and Iris, Edith, and Christina each had an extra blanket that they lent me.  I felt foolish that I hadn’t been more prepared but none of us were expecting a mudslide to keep us from leaving the trailhead.  As I sat in my car, I wondered how long we were going to be stranded here.  I had almost no food and water and I was already hungry.  Besides, how would we know when the road was clear?  There were no rangers in this area so who would notify us?  I decided that we’d better take matters into our own hands.  I got out of my car and told the group that I was going to drive down and check on the road.  If it was still being cleared, I would wait on the roadside and when it was clear, I would drive back up to the trailhead and let everyone know.  There was no cell phone reception, so we would have to settle for this method of communication.  The others were hunkering down in their cars to sleep for the night as I left and drove down the road.  As I approached the site of the mudslide, I could see in the darkness up ahead that the cars were still stuck, but there was a bulldozer in front of them clearing mud off the road and a tow truck had just arrived.  The road was still impassable, but progress was being made.  I turned my car around and parked on the shoulder, about a tenth of a mile up the road from the chaos.  For the next hour I sat in my car on the roadside listening to music, flipping through pictures on my phone, and staring into my rearview mirror.  All I could see were flashing white and yellow lights from utility vehicles in the darkness.  I was unable to tell if the cars had been removed from the mud.  I sat there hoping that it wouldn’t be too long before the lights disappeared, the road was clear, and I could go deliver the good news to my friends that we could be on our way.  Two cars came driving down the road past me, towards the carnage.  “Yeah, good luck guys” I said to myself, fully expecting that they would turn right around.  But strangely, after pausing for about thirty seconds, the cars passed through the mudslide.  “No way” I said.  Was the road clear?  I immediately started my car and headed down towards the mudslide to see if I could pass.  As I approached, I realized that there was much more mud on the road than I initially thought.  The pavement disappeared and was covered in mud as far as the beams of my headlights could reach.  I was immediately waived down by two guys in reflective vests, signaling for me to stop.  When I rolled down my window, they greeted me, and the first guy said “so, you want to make an attempt at passing through this?”  I thought he was being sarcastic but wasn’t entirely sure.  “Eh, probably not a great idea, right?” I replied.  He explained that the two cars I had seen minutes earlier barely made it through the mud and if I was going to try to pass, I would be doing it at my own risk.  I don’t even have a four-wheel drive vehicle and if I got my car stuck in this mess, I’d be screwed.  I turned around and parked my car in the same spot up the road to continue waiting…and promptly nodded off.  I awoke thirty minutes later, confused of my whereabouts for a moment.  When I gathered my senses, I saw in my rearview mirror that not only were the lights from the tow truck and bulldozer still flashing, but I saw three lights approaching my car from about a hundred feet behind.  They looked like headlamps and were getting closer by the second.  Who were these guys?  Were they the tow truck guys walking up to tell me to beat it?  As they approached, they walked along the driver’s side of my car.  I prepared to roll down my window, but they turned out to be hikers and kept walking up the road.  It was now 11:30 PM.  Even if the road were to be cleared tonight, none of us were going to make the three-and-a-half-hour drive back to Los Angeles at this hour of the night.  There was nothing else to do but drive back to the trailhead.  When I arrived I parked my car, adjusted my seat into a lying down position, covered myself with the blankets that were lent to me, and rolled up my sleeveless vest to use as a pillow.  Everyone else had gone to sleep long ago and the parking lot was quiet and still.  It took me a little while to fall asleep as I turned over in the front seat trying to get comfortable.  I ran the heater during the drive back to the trailhead but the heat was slowly escaping through the car and the temperature outside had dropped into the high forties.  I was tired, hungry, and cold, and I still wasn’t exactly sure when we were going to be able to get down from the mountain.  How much worse could it get?  The answer was “much”.  Despite the grim situation, I was thankful that our group was safe, and everyone kept a positive attitude.  It could have easily been one of us stuck in that mudslide.  It had turned into a beautiful night.  The sky had cleared, and the moon shined brightly above the pine trees.  As I finally fell asleep, I took a moment to think about where I was; up on a mountain in a parking lot in the wilderness at 10,000 feet above sea level after hiking twenty-two miles through the Sierra Nevada mountains.  Not too shabby.  In fact, it was pretty cool.   

When I awoke the next morning at 5:45 AM, I felt rested, despite only getting about five hours of sleep.  A few minutes later I saw Christina approaching my car.  We greeted each other when I rolled the window down and I told her I was going to check the road again.  When I arrived at the mudslide area, the vehicles were gone, and the road had been cleared.  Thank goodness!  We were finally able to pass and head back home.  I told everyone the good news when I arrived back at the parking lot.  It turned out Tuyet, Meredith, and John had left at 2:00 in the morning and were probably already home by now.  The rest of us packed our stuff up and laughed and joked with each other about how crazy this trip had become.  Who would have thought that we would be able to beat the rough weather during our hike, but a mudslide would keep us trapped in the parking lot over night?  A few minutes later we were all on the road heading home.  It was an unforgettable experience and another great trip with great company.  Not only was it a lot of fun, but some very important lessons were learned; It probably wouldn’t hurt to have some extra food and water when going on adventures like this.  You never know what could happen.  A mudslide in one of the driest states in the country could trap you at a trailhead.  Never take a successful summit for granted, it’s all about the team work, and even if the weather forecast looks rough for a planned hike, go for it anyway.  But if you hear thunder or see lightning, you’d better be ready to turn around and get your ass back to the trailhead quickly!