Lessons at Lone Pine Lake

I’ve thought about them often over the past year. We huddled with them in the shade of a lonely pine tree on the Lone PIne Lake Trail with our backs against a cool boulder, sucking back some gulps of lukewarm water on that 95-degree day in July. They were older than our fifty years by about 15 and spoke of their last trip to these mountains and their last hike to Lone Pine Lake. They started a conversation, asking us how much further it was to the lake. 

We had gotten up with the sun that morning and tossed on our boots to be on the trail before it got busy and before the forecasted heat of the day hit the side of the mountain. We had been in the Eastern Sierras for a few days by then, but the altitude of the California mountains made our sea-level-loving lungs tremble with exertion. While we had no aspirations to backpack the 14,500 feet to the top of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48, our failure to secure the highly in-demand and required permit forced our stopping point to be Lone Pine Lake. Even still, the trail required 1,900 feet of elevation gain as it switchbacked up the mountain, sometimes dipping between shade-giving Ponderosas Pines and sometimes leaving us out in the unforgiving summer sun for long stretches. While our muscles were up for the challenge, our east coast lungs made the trek strenuous. It was a perfect morning hike for us, a hike to the blue lake where we bouldered, photographed, and laughed at the leftover hippies skinny-dipping in the glacier-cold lake without care. We ate peanut butter, and granola wraps stuffed with the largest, sweetest blueberries I have ever tasted. We marveled at the Bristle Cone Pines and talked about how lucky we were to be there. By lunchtime, we were ready to head down the mountain and back to our van at Whitney Portal Campground.

We met them on our descent. They were on their ascent. Disappointment was in their eyes with our answer that they were nowhere near their destination. They told stories of their last hike to the lake 20 years prior. They spoke wistfully, remembering when it was easy for them and their bodies didn’t require frequent stops and scrambling over rocks was effortless. But today, decades later, they were in no hurry. There was no place for them to be and plenty of daylight. The destination was the journey that day. They were there to see and remember a hike long past. They would keep going for as long as it took to get there. We said goodbye, and each continued in our direction.

Our descent seemed easy. Our breathing became increasingly less labored as the altitude dropped. The heat of the midday sun had left us thirsty and dreaming of lemonade and sweet tea. The last half mile breezed by from downhill propulsion and the promise of a mediocre snack store in the portal. We sat for a while, still in awe of the epicness of our surroundings and the bittersweetness of this new empty nest adventure phase of life we had recently found ourselves in. We downed two sweet drinks each and perused the small gift shop for a sticker for the Vanagon to prove that we had been there. We people-watched backpackers coming off the mountain from their night on Mount Whitney with cumbersome packs with bear bells attached, trekking poles, and sun-protecting gaiters. We stayed until it felt like time to move on, back down the one-mile drive to our campsite and the invitation of a mid-afternoon nap in a cozy van with the smell of pines, the gentle gurgle of the creek, and the shadow of the highest mountain in the lower 48.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, we saw them—the couple on the side of the mountain. Knowing not enough time had passed for them to reach the lake and then return, we knew they hadn’t been able to finish the hike. They had returned with only 20-year-old memories of that beautiful glacier lake. They had taken no new photographs that day. They had decided that those memories would have to be enough at some point, and they turned around. I often worried that I had oversold the distance they still had to travel to reach the lake. Did we make it seem like it would be too far or challenging for them to continue? Were they sad that the phase of life they were in could no longer include 2,000-foot altitude changes? Or maybe, just maybe, it was all ok for them. Perhaps they didn’t head into new phases of life kicking and streaming and mourning losses as I do. We exchanged knowing, resigned smiles as we drove out of the parking lot.

Something at that moment, in our exchanging of eye contact, changed me—my expression of sympathy and theirs of defeat. Something had been lost for them that day. And for me, I was reminded that time is a bastard for all of us and that it would be coming for me before long, too. We think we have time. Time for dreams and hopes and plans. Time for all the parts of the world we wish to see and the hikes we want to take.  But the brutal hard truth is that we don’t. We don’t know when the first time might be the last. 

A year later, I think of them often. As a reminder to do what I can while I can, because I can. That may be why our paths crossed.