Climbing the highest mountain around is hard enough. Walking back down can be even tougher.
Mike Sanders did it in one day.
The physical demands of climbing 14,505-foot Mount Whitney – in central California, the highest peak in the U.S. Lower 48 – were significant but manageable. The real issue, he says, was pushing on when altitude sickness and the mental drain of traversing rock fields and narrow trails wore on him. He learned that others were right when they said the real challenge lay in needing “a whole lot of want-to.”
His trek of 22 miles – 15 and a half hours – in mid-July came after months of preparation.
Sanders, an Independence resident, is the Jackson County executive, an elected position that comes with a good many demands and a lot of long work days. Still, when he decided in March to go for it, he threw himself into the project. He read everything he could, got gear together – including some from his days in Infantry School – and made plans. He was going to be out West in July and wanted to try it.
“For me, with wife and kids and job, I had to do it in one day,” he said.
His training route was from his house in the Cliffs to Bass Pro Shops, then over to Adair Park on Lee’s Summit Road, then back – 4.4 miles round trip. “I would just run it,” he said.
Even the night before the trip, sitting in a California motel room, he was still making choices – the hiker’s tradeoffs of size and weight versus likely need. What if the weather goes sideways? “You have to become a not-so-good amateur meteorologist,” he says. He carried a barometer. It’s possible to get snowed in for a day or so, even in July, so he carried a small shelter and stuff to give him a couple of options to start a fire. He had 3,000 to 4,000 calories worth of food and plenty of water. He started the day carrying 22 pounds – down to 15 by the end, the difference being water.
He does concede one bad, simple mistake. Packing and re-packing the night before, he decided to leave behind a spare pair of socks. It doesn’t sound like much, but dry, reasonably comfortable feet are vital.
“It was almost a trip-ending, hike-ending mistake,” he said.
The day started early. Wanting to take full advantage of daylight once he reached the tougher portions of the trail, he set off from the Mount Whitney trailhead, 11 miles from the peak. Even on relatively the early, easy part of the trail, there was a moment of pause. Sanders and another hiker at one point looked ahead and saw two gleaming eyes in the night – a bear – 75 to 100 yards away.
“So we knew at that point we weren’t going that way,” he said.
They bypassed that trouble and pushed on, passing two lower altitude base camps where some hikers stop for a day to acclimate to the conditions. His aim was to reach the summit by 1 p.m.
But it gets tough. There’s a rocky, slow-going area where you don’t go straight up, but instead walk a switchback trail full of washouts. At times, that meant jumping from rock to rock. “Every step, you think you’re going to twist an ankle, burn out a knee,” Sanders said.
“On Earth, if there’s a Dante’s level of hell, it’s the switchbacks,” he said.
He pressed on, reaching a place called the Ridge Crest at 8:12. That’s at 13,600 feet, still 2.2 or 2.5 miles – it depends on the map – from the summit. After that, a hiker is entirely exposed to the elements, not to mention the risk of slipping and falling hundreds of feet. There’s nothing much to stop the wind.
“You go from nothing to 40 (mph) in about two steps,” he said.
But another two-plus hours of effort paid off.
He reached the summit – 14,505 feet – at 10:29 a.m., eight and a half hours after starting out. It felt great, he said, even though he and everyone else there were feeling the effects of the altitude and exertion.
“No one’s chipper. Everyone’s got a headache. Everyone’s breathing hard,” he said.
He also knew he had no time to dawdle. Altitude sickness doesn’t just get better when you get lower. It’s cumulative, and if you’re up high enough, even stopping a minute to rest just leaves you a little deeper in the oxygen hole. In other words, he knew he’d feel worse and worse for a good part of the descent. He snapped a few pictures. He signed a log book.
“So I was on top for 19 minutes,” he said.
And now the hard part. As hikers know, walking downhill at any significant grade can be a lot harder than going uphill.
“Every step is a danger. ... It wears you out to be constantly thinking and looking,” Sanders said.
The altitude sickness had taken hold, too – a piercing headache, nausea and no desire whatsoever to drink or eat, even the M&Ms with peanuts and almonds that he knew he had to choke down. He had high-energy Clif bars but couldn’t bring himself to eat one. Finally, at the bottom of the switchbacks, be made himself eat, drink and take some Advil.
He also knew that, once he got in the thicker air of the lower altitude long enough, everything would turn around, and in about 20 minutes it did. “A shot of just adrenaline,” he called it.
“It’s a euphoric feeling. It’s a natural high,” he said. Now full of energy, he covered the last four miles back to the trailhead in 75 minutes. He was done by 5:30.
Party time, right? Pizza? Rack of ribs?
Not quite. His body was still feeling the effects of the exertion, the stress and the altitude issues.
“What I really wanted was a Sprite.”
He drank two, from a frosty mug. His appetite didn’t come back for a day and a half.
He said he’s not sure about the next challenge, but this one was enough for now.
“It was,” he said, “a combination of relief and exuberance.”
