Personal Narrative

Journey to the Top of Mt. Whitney with a Hogi

I was feeling so proud of myself. I had been training for months and had now made it through three days of my scout troop's 50-mile hike from the base to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the United States. This was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Each day started fresh, turned into defeat, and ended with triumph. Although exhaustion overtook me, I have never felt so alive. I owe my positive attitude to my leader and great friend, Dave Hogan, or "Hogi", as we like to call him.

It had been three days filled with fatigue and adventure. We were hiking about ten miles a day and it was so exciting not knowing how the trail would change, or if there would even be a trail where we were going next. We covered all sorts of terrain: flat and sandy ground, steep inclined boulders, you name it. I was mesmerized at the surrounding peaks, huge boulders, trees like skyscrapers, and flowing rivers and waterfalls. The night prior a small black bear invaded our camp about eight times between eleven o'clock and four o'clock in the morning. On the third day what we thought had been a rigorous hike so far was nothing in comparison to the cliffs we faced . . . in the pouring rain. It was becoming more and more clear that this hike was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime expedition.

There were eight of us, six scouts and two leaders. From the level of exertion necessary to continue with each step we barely had enough energy to speak. Yet, a warm camaraderie grew between us. We were so tired that we only had enough energy to talk about how tired we were, tell jokes, or say a few words every once in a while about the beautiful scenery. None of us had any reason, or strength, to argue with one another; it was great. And at least once a day we could look forward to listening to the stories of the younger of our two leaders, Hogi. He loved to tell the same story over and over again, but put different twists on it each time. Though, it always started the same.

"Have I ever told you about my Great Grandma Josephine? We had a love/hate relationship; she loved to hate me and I hated to love her."

He would then go on telling about what their relationship was like and what kinds of ridiculous things she would do to him. I wish I could remember exactly what he said! Every day the story became more and more funny. I mean the first day it was pretty funny, but by the last day of the trek we would have to stop walking, because we were laughing so hard. Some of the stuff he was making up was absolutely hysterical.

I loved Hogi so much. I always felt like I was a much better person around him and that I could accomplish anything. I find that the best relationships are between people who have shared a lot of experiences together and have grown to love every part of each other's personalities, but Hogi had never done anything except make me smile and laugh prior to this hike and that has been the case ever since. Well, on this day, day four, that changed a little bit.

See, each of us was carrying back packs that weighed no less than 40 lbs. and half of our group was in much better shape than the rest of us. Seriously, I thought I was constantly chasing a couple Energizer Bunnies. After we had gone about six or seven miles on that fourth day I suddenly became extremely tired, a form of tired that I have only reached a handful of times in my life. I had really pushed myself to the limit and I couldn't feel my legs, I could hardly breathe, and my chest was about to explode; yeah, that feeling.

So, without a second thought I looked up and asked Hogi, "How much longer to we have to go?" I'm normally not a whiny person, but I must have sounded it, because he turned and snapped, "Nathan, I have no idea!"

That is all he had to say. I had never seen him look that irritated. I could almost see it in his eyes that he wanted to push me off of the waterfalls we had passed that morning. I didn't want to say anything for the rest of the day; the way he responded came out of nowhere. In as much of a voice as I could muster the word "Sorry" crept out of my lips and we continued climbing the steep switch-backs.

Later, when we were only a mile, or so, from our second-to-last camp ground the incline leveled off and we were just enjoying the surrounding peaks that seemed to be growing as we looked at them. Unexpectedly, a woman came running past us. . . running! I was doing all I could just to put one foot in front of the other. She stopped about 100 yards in front of us and sat on a rock to rest. When I reached her I was astonished to see that she was only wearing normal running shoes and carrying a small Jan Sport back pack. We all started whispering to one another about how maybe she just had really cool, high-tech camp gear that she could cram into that little bag. We were flabbergasted to see that the only contents of the pack were a couple energy bars, a water bottle and filter, and extra sweatshirt, and a jar of peanut butter.

I was so blown away that it took me a few minutes to come to my senses and realize that Hogi was really struggling as he was trying to communicate with the woman. Did I mention that this woman was deaf? So, she was trying to describe to us that she was jogging the same trail we had been on

for four days.

The guilt began to weigh more than my pack. My younger brother is deaf and I had studied American Sign Language for a year in school. I knew that I should jump in and help, but I got so scared and nervous. I figured I didn't know ASL well enough to be of any real help and I didn't want to frustrate this incredible lady. I also feared getting in over my head by getting into a situation where she might need my help and I wouldn't be able to know exactly what to do. Basically, I just froze and stared a forced conversation between her and a very stressed Hogi.

A few hours had passed and the clouds were rolling in over our camp site. The woman ended up camping a few hundred feet away from us. Camp was set up and we were just relaxing and staring at the beautifully calm Guitar Lake to our east. Then I heard, from one of my friends, what I had hoped wouldn't come out, but knew it probably would, "Hey, Nate why didn't you talk to the woman earlier instead of making Hogi look like an idiot?"

"I don't know" I replied, "I didn't know if I could have understood her I guess."

I couldn't bare the look of embarrassment and disappointment on Hogi's face. I don't remember exactly what he said to me, but it was along the lines of how he couldn't believe I didn't help him out and how I could not have possibly looked more ridiculous than he did. The rest of the night was very cold and very quiet.

The next afternoon we had made it to the summit and almost reached our last camp site. We stopped to rest when who should come up behind us, but the deaf woman. No time was wasted on my part! A conversation started between us so fast that nobody had even noticed that she was there. We continued to run into each other along the trail the rest of the day and each time we would have a short conversation. And each time my eyes would wander to see what kind of expression was on Hogi's face.

Right before we arrived at the last place we would camp Hogi called out, "Hey Nathan, have I ever told you about my Great Grandma Josephine?" I was so relieved to turn and see a huge smile on his face!