The Grueling Hike to Cooper Peak

This story was originally posted on JPGMag.com August 19, 2008.

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On the morning of August 6, 2008, three hikers set out for the grueling hike to Cooper Peak in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. They parked their Bronco at the Coyote Meadow trailhead after driving over rocks and dust on an unpaved road. Water bottles, lunches, Clif bars, and cameras jostled for space in their backpacks as they set off at a brisk pace. The entrance to the trail is framed by a cut section of a felled tree and is bordered on both sides by a lush meadow teeming with yarrow, mules ear, and bumble bees.

The youngest hiker led the way, breathing harder as the trail began its ascent. The trail twisted through the shadows of pine trees and snaked its way through grassy fields. Finally, the male hiker stopped. "Anywhere along here will be good," he said. The two female hikers encouraged him to lead, so he turned from the path and began the climb, following nothing but the memory from his previous venture to the area.

I was the youngest hiker, one of the females. My mother was the other female hiker, and my uncle Tom was the male who took the lead up the hill. At that point, the real hiking began. Switch-backing the dirt mountainside and trying to breath despite the dying feeling in your lungs, that's when the fun begins. It's the kind of hiking that makes breathing through one of those thin bar straws used for stirring sound easy. My poor mom, she was sick a week ago and it didn't aid her in the lung and breathing department. She had to stop, so my uncle and I had to stop. We'd wait until air was reaching her blood cells again, and then we'd continue the trek up the mountain.

The first cliff we came to yielded a spectacular view. Quick camera and water break and then on we went, maneuvering our oxygen-deprived selves up, up, up. As we continued the climb, a faint trail became visible. This proves that my uncle isn't just leading us to our deaths at a dead-end hike! Hurray! We soon find ourselves in a batch of trees, our ankles near snapping point from traversing sideways across dirt. Then came the rock climbing. We began traveling vertically, using all fours. Poor mom. She's afraid of heights. The tumble down the steep hillside would probably not kill you, but the trees would not be the softest of blockades.

We finally made it to the level point along that near-invisible trail. Hiking along like that, your heart racing, your foot-eye coordination in charge, your breathing ragged and quick, you find yourself thinking of nothing but the climb. And the destination, one we were guaranteed would produce breath-taking views. Not even my latest obsession (and the obsession of thousands of other teenage girls) – Edward Cullen, vampires, the product of Stephenie Meyer's imagination – could interrupt my instinctual need to focus on the prize (and where my boot-encased feet trod).

I kept up fairly well with Tom. My mom, not so much. We had to wait for her when she was out of sight, behind the trees, beyond the lip of the hill. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the moments when I could pause, breathe, and realize that I was lightheaded and probably not in the best state to be hiking along a mountainside. But soon, even I found that Tom was just a speck in the distance, one that seemed so infinitely far away. How I ever managed to catch up and not just pass out on the cold, hard earth is beyond me.

My camera (a Canon SD750) soon found itself in my pocket, rather than in the confines of my orange Kelty backpack. There were just too many photo opportunities (when I wasn't struggling for breath and clear-headedness – did I mention that the climb ended at an altitude of 9,000 feet, quite enough to drain the blood circulation from your head even if you have been in the mountains for 24 hours). At one point, we were climbing a creek bed, one filled with loose rocks. I felt myself grimacing at the strain in my lungs as I followed the heels of my uncle up the mountain.

Finally we could see the last hill, a rock-strewn climb that pinched your breathing, perhaps because you knew the peak was just over that last rock. Tom, of course, reached the peak first. I took a final lunge over the top and grinned – holy mackerel, I made it. I photographed a panoramic view with multiple shots. Wow. The view was beyond worth the climb. We came upon the two geological survey markers that pointed to the official peak. They did the survey fifty-two years ago in 1956, the year my dad was born.

We couldn't escape the wind at the summit, so we settled on the rocky expanse and commenced lunch (after photographing the entire area and each other multiple times). I had a sandwich, some carrot sticks, and a whole lot of water. Tom had apple slices and nuts. Mom had crackers and salami and carrots. We were one happy bunch of altitude-crazed hikers. Soon, however, we could see clouds and rain approaching our relaxed little perch and the wind began howling at dangerous speeds. One does not want to be stuck on a mountain peak in a lightening storm, so we bolted. I stuffed a chocolate brownie Clif bar in my mouth as we scurried down the mountainside.

My uncle used to be a ski patrolman, and he taught me to ski when I was a kid. He and I shot down the mountain – he imitated skiing over moguls as he switch-backed along. I followed close behind, leaving distance and then charging, my coordination and control in full swing. My mom isn't much of a skier, and her retreat down the mountain mirrored this. "This is just like skiing – you hauling and me still crawling down the mountain," she shouted down to us. If she hadn't been sick the week before, I'm sure her hiking would have been quicker paced and the stopping-to-breathe thing would have been less frequent.

We finally made it back to Coyote Meadow trail head, Tom's backpack holding three new additions: beer cans we'd found littered along the way. These, and some scraggly barbed wire along the trail were our only reminders of the civilization that lay behind us (besides our cameras, backpacks, and cell phones, of course). So, we made it. We didn't die along the way (although my uncle had shown me the way to get back in case he died of a heart attack on the trail), and our lungs repaired seamlessly. We passed the Coyote Meadow trail head for a final time, grabbed some sodas from the ice chest, and drove back along the bumpy road, exhaustion overtaking us, and the images of our trail saved in the memory cards of both our cameras and our minds.