Hugs and whoops from Cheri and Liam as Mark and I come down the trail and enter the Whitney Portal. I am totally wasted, hallucinating and just dying to get the heavy pack off my shoulders. Liam kindly takes my pack. We go for a chicken sandwich at the hut. I don’t want it but know it must be forced down to give me the strength for the 135 mile trip back across the desert that we will be starting in just a few hours.

This is a Badwater Double attempt by Mark Cockbain, a fellow Brit (a Geordie). Mark did Badwater in 2003 along with Joe P., and again in 2005 with Liam Douglass and Robert and Cathy Melendez as crew. This time Liam was crew chief, with me and Cheri Woldt making up the party. Neither Cheri nor I had done anything like this before. I am a climber and had expressed interest in the mountain section, but in the end we had the same crew for the whole gig. That is, do the official Badwater race, from Badwater in Death Valley to the Whitney trail head at Whitney Portal, summit Whitney and return to Badwater. Total round trip 292 miles; elevation difference from -282 ft to 14,505 ft.

I flew in to Vegas on the Sat before the race (race starts on a Monday). US Airways were at their best and I was delayed an hour before leaving Austin, missed my connection and got into Vegas late afternoon. Not the best start, but could have been worse. At least my bag showed up. We drove to Furnace Creek via Pahrump in order to eat. Getting out of the vehicle in the dark at Furnace Creek at about 9.00ish I was thinking in the back of my mind that I needed to move away from whatever fan they had on the building roof, or the van exhaust, that were blasting me with hot air. Then it dawned on me. This was the wind. Tales of the heat being like a hairdryer blasted in one’s face were recalled – they are not exaggerations.

We checked in to the hotel and got some fitful sleep. We rose early to pack the cargo van that was to be the main support vehicle. We wanted to be done before the sun rose. We visited a bit with Hugh, a Scot, and friend of Mark who was doing Badwater for the first time, and we compared notes about how much water we had. I think we had 120 litres, but were planning on getting more. The van packed, we went to check Mark in and get some lunch. Then it was time for the Race briefing. Long and hot, like Joe said in his 2003 report. But we got a look at the medals and belt buckles. Beautiful silver affairs.

We ate dinner. Now we were ready and just wanted to get the show on the road. A better night for me, and I think the others. Mark had an 8.00am start time, so we had breakfast before getting ready to drive the 17 miles down to the start. Then the first of several crew screw-ups occurred (CSUs, which we kept from Mark at all costs). About 15 mins before we wanted to leave we locked the keys in the van. The safety guy at the meeting had shown us his solution for such events. A rock with AAA painted on it. But as luck would have it the windows were cracked a little, and slim Cheri slathered her arm with P20 sunscreen, reached through the gap and managed to get to the lock. She had a pretty bruised up arm but we had survived the first bump in the road. Mark didn’t know a thing about it at the time.

The start was quite uneventful and we settled down for the first few miles. After a while Mark became nauseated and threw up. This was a bit soon for comfort, but he pressed on and seemed to get through it pretty well. I don’t remember much about the rest of the 42 miles through Furnace Creek and on to Stovepipe Wells, except that I was pacing him into Stovepipe and we heard that Dean Karnazes was coming up behind, having started in the 10am wave. We kicked into competition mode for 30 secs and made sure Mark arrived at the checkpoint before Dean.

At some point between Townes Pass and Panamint, after I had rested in the hotel in Stovepipe for a few hours, I caught up with the team and we sent Cheri back in the minivan to Stovepipe to rest. This was the second of the CSUs. We needed that vehicle for Liam to go on ahead to Lone Pine to pick up the permits for climbing Whitney. Frantic calls on the satellite phone, which did not always work, to Cheri and to the park ranger station ensued. Our worst-case scenario was that we’d have to stake out. Each competitor in the race gets a wooden stake, which they may place in the dirt by the roadside if they leave it for any reason, so that they can return to the appropriate spot and continue. We didn’t mention anything to Mark, but were dreading having to ask him to stake out so we could drive to get the passes. It would have cost him a couple of hours and possibly the belt buckle. Luckily we were able to arrange for late permit pick-up and never had to stake out. The second bump in the road had been negotiated.

Crossing the Owens valley is Mark’s nemesis but I’ll let him tell that tale. We concentrated on hydration, getting him and us to pee (Team Synchronized Urination or TSU) as much as possible. We got into Lone Pine before midnight and got him rested and fed and ready to carry on up the final 14 miles to the race finish. The belt buckle was in the bag by this time and we paced Mark up the hill in turns. The finish was good but we were all aware that this was only the first of the three milestones in our epic journey.

A couple of hours rest back down in Lone Pine and a sandwich at the hut and Mark was ready to start back up the mountain. Weather conditions looked good early on and I thought we might get away with it. On each preceding day I had watched the afternoon thunderheads build and do their thing. Being up on the summit crest in lightening was my biggest worry for the mountain, and certainly, starting at noon was not ideal. But as it turned out the late start worked to our advantage. The trail winds its way up through pines and alpine meadows. All the while huge slabs and buttresses of granite towered above us. Birds sang and the cool mountain air scented with pine provided a welcome contrast to the blasting heat of the desert. My heart was singing – I am most at home in the mountains. But at 3pm we dived for cover under a rock overhang to get out of the rain, which was coming down steadily. We later learnt that it was hailing on the summit crest at this time, and that two other Double Attempt parties were having to retreat. One of these parties was Anita Fromm and crew, and as we crossed paths further up after the rain had gone off a bit she stopped to chat and gave Mark her Gore-Tex jacket. She said she had found it during Leadville and was passing along the good karma. Thanks Anita!! This made the difference for me in deciding to go with Mark to the summit. I had been worried about how adequate his clothing would be in the event of a storm. He was also considering going alone, which I could not let him do in good conscience. At this point, Mark saw a mountain lion, which freaked him out a bit. I said that was one more good reason not to go alone. Liam and Cheri decided to head down, not wanting to chance it with the weather. Mark and I would continue and either bivvy or come down if the rain returned. But it didn’t. We cooked macaroni cheese at the Trail Camp and now it was about 8.30pm and dark. There was to be a waxing gibbous moon that night but for now it was obscured behind Whitney’s great mass and the clouds. So we put on our headlamps and headed off up the 97 switchbacks.

Some time later I was aware of a rising feeling of nausea. Here we go I thought, typical altitude effects, as we were now above 12,000 ft. So I asked Mark how he was doing. He had a slight headache. Luckily his symptoms never got any worse so at least we only had exhaustion and the terrible state of his feet to worry about. I continued to struggle all the way up the switchbacks. I had all the gear and clothing in my rucksack and the weight of it was beginning to tell. High heart rate, labored breathing and nausea. I had to lean on my trekking poles every few minutes to keep it under control. I was also extremely sleep deprived and struggling to stay awake. Mark was very kind and nudged me along. At this point the runner was most definitely looking after the pacer! I had a caffeine hammer gel and that helped get me through the worst part. After a while I stashed some gear to lighten the pack and we continued up. We eventually popped out onto the ridge at somewhere between 10 and 11 pm. I called the others on the sat phone to let them know of our progress, but was only able to leave a message on Liam’s voicemail.

We then ran into some navigation problems. When our party of four split I had remembered to get the sat phone off Liam and an extra jacket for Mark, but I forgot that Liam had the map. I realized this after a while but was not unduly worried as I had had a good look at it earlier on and thought I knew the route. I did remember it correctly but we second-guessed ourselves when the path went down rather too steeply on the other side of the ridge. I was concerned that we not head off down the John Muir trail by mistake. Luckily, I had printed out a route description and once we consulted this we were able to proceed correctly. But the bumbling about had cost us at least half and hour, if not more.

The next hour went along pretty well. We saw the sign at the junction with the John Muir trail. 1.9 miles to the summit it said. OK, shouldn’t be too bad I thought. I was wrong. In the dark, the distance was deceptive, and we had no way to see where we were heading. In the light the sight of where you have to go is rather depressing. Whitney still looks a very long way off at this point. But in our sleep-deprived stupor in the darkness we kept thinking it had to be close. Pinnacles loomed up above us to our right, partly lit by the rising yellow moon, and a black void was our company to the left; the light from our torches insufficient to penetrate to the ground. Mark was a little worried about the drop-off and said he was glad not to be doing it in the light. But in fact, on the descent, he could see that the drops are mostly not too scary. In this case the unknown black void was surely worse than reality. As you all will know, there is nothing worse than incorrectly anticipating the finish of something arduous. The crest trail became a nightmare. We even thought we had gone right around one of the pinnacles and arrived back where we started at one point. But we soldiered on, fortified by the words in the route description. It said, “…this is where persistence pays off”.

At long last we arrived at Whitney summit at about 4.00am. Mark signed the book at the hut and we had a short break inside. He lit a candle and I dug out a freeze-dried packet. I had only intended this to be an optional extra tasty treat to the bars and trail mix we were carrying, but we were sick of those so we tried it anyway. Blueberry cheesecake. It was disgusting – way too sweet and cold. Oh, how we wished for Ramen noodles at that point. It is perhaps a testament to how out of it I was that it didn’t occur to me that I should sign the book too. Mark had to tell me to do it.

Mark had 5 minutes sleep in the hut and then we set off down. After about an hour he got to a very low point. Mark is polite and good-natured 99% of the time; even when he’s hurting and crew are asking damn fool questions or nagging him to drink. But this section got to him. It was uneven loose rocks and his feet, which had been badly blistered on the crossing, were causing him severe pain. He was frustrated by the slow progress and took his anger out by shouting at Whitney. “I hate this ******* mountain”. I thought, “This is bad, we still have a long way to get down”. The mother in me took over and I offered him a hug, like I would my 3-year-old when she is tired and cranky. “NO”! he said emphatically, “I’m not that bad”. (No self-respecting Geordie man would be hugged like this). We both saw the funny side and laughed. He was still at a low spot but the exchange had somewhat lightened the mood. After this rocky section the trail improved a little and we made better time to the col. I called Liam from there and was able to get through to tell him we had summited and were on our way down the switchbacks.

The switchbacks went along pretty well, with Mark moving more comfortably and quickly. We did, however, take a couple of breaks. We chatted and lazed in the early morning sun. After a bit I remembered what we were supposed to be doing and that we weren’t on some kind of picnic, so we snapped ourselves out of it and carried on. The remainder of the descent was miserable. The sun got ever hotter, we stripped off our layers, I retrieved the stashed gear, and my pack got heavier and heavier. On the way down the final part of the trail above the Portal we kept seeing the hut and parked cars. They turned out to be giant boulders. Mark assured me he could see a yellow VW Beetle, but it too morphed into a boulder once we got closer. Mark was also seeing a lot of lions and tigers, and I saw several antelope perched high on the mountain.

So now we’re at the point where this story began. Liam took me down to Lone Pine to sleep in the hotel while Cheri took care of Mark. He slept just half an hour and then, get this…. he ran all the way (14 miles) down the mountain road back to the hotel. He had told me he’d walk some of it slowly. I was blown away by this effort. After a further four hours rest at the hotel, during which he only slept for about an hour we had to wake him up to start the return trip. He was so sleepy when we woke him and it seemed so cruel. He had only just gone to sleep, being too pumped up on adrenaline from the run down from the Portal to sleep earlier. But he pulled himself up and forced himself out the door. And did he walk slowly and painfully? To use a British expression: “Not on your Nellie”! He started running across the Owens valley to make the most of the darkness before he would have to head up the hill to the Darwin turnoff. Such courage and fortitude.

 He made excellent progress all that night and into the next morning. I left them after we had iced his feet at the pass, and headed off down into Panamint for a sandwich and coke. I took some pictures of the geology – it is a classic area of extension tectonics. I then headed to Stovepipe Wells for a shower and a sleep. But I was too stoked by Mark’s effort that morning to sleep well. I got back to them as Mark was going up the long hill of Townes Pass. Panamint had beaten him up – the heat was fierce that day. But he kept at it and after several long hours we got over the pass and began the 17-mile hill down into Stovepipe Wells. I paced him over the last 7 miles or so. We walked mostly in silence in the darkness, the sky crossed every now and then by a shooting star. He was running on empty and I didn’t know what to say to him.

Once into Stovepipe we took care of his feet and he had a Ramen noodle and a sleep. Muesli for breakfast about 4 hours later and a cup of coffee got him out on the road again for the section through Death Valley to Furnace Creek. We knew it was going to be just that – a furnace. So we persuaded him to borrow some long white pants. These helped enormously and prevented his legs from being cooked by the sun and the reflection off the blacktop, which gets up to about 200° F. Cheri paced him for a very long way while I crewed for them both and Liam took his rest turn. Seeing them happy and chatting and laughing was a great encouragement. They really ate up the miles. Just before Liam returned Mark seemed to take a nose-dive in spirits. But it was short lived and when Liam returned a few minutes later I took to pacing Mark. He was again chatty and moving along well. Slowly but surely though, the exhaustion got to him and he slipped into a quiet state. We walked silently into Furnace Creek. I left them once more, when Cheri returned, to head back to Stovepipe for two hours sleep, before getting up one final time to join them on the final stretch to Badwater.

I left three tired but relatively normal human beings. When I rejoined them about 10 miles out from Badwater they had turned into lunatics. The moon was indeed full. They were blathering on about giant hedgehogs and other such nonsensical things. They were laughing hysterically at the smallest thing and we had a riddle-solving competition between Cheri and I, and Liam and Mark. At long last there was just half a mile to go. Cheri and I drove the van to the finish and walked back so we could all cross the line together. The final approach was quiet, each person spilling over with tears as the enormity of the accomplishment sank in. We crossed and hugged each other in a group and then each in turn. We then walked across to a bench where Mark lay down on his back to look up at the moon and stars. We sat down next to him on the sidewalk and Liam produced two shots of Chivas Royal, which we split between us, and four cigars. Somehow, in the strangest way, this seemed the perfect way to end our adventure.

 

The End