IN THE BELLY OF THE WHALE

3 Dec

Few of the challenges on the trail were as difficult as the descent from Muir Pass. To me it felt like I spent most of that day waist deep in white slush trying to dig my way out only to posthole again a few minutes later.

To make matters worse, I cut my hand open while glissading down one of the steeper sections. I wasn’t the only one to bleed that day either. Dave smashed his knee on a rock and Jen got a good gash from another. Needless to say, by the time we finally had descended below the snow line just above Helen Lake we were all pretty tired.

We had planned to hike all the way down to Big Pete Meadow, but about a half-mile or so before the meadow we spied something off the trail. Grinning welcomely, or menacingly depending on how you looked at it, was a giant rock monster. Some very clever hikers before us had turned a giant boulder split horizontally into a work of art. Lining the bottom of the crack with small pointy rocks for teeth, and placing two rocks in nooks above the crack for eyes, they created a surprisingly anatomically correct monster sculpture.

Upon our first glimpse of the monster it was pretty clear that we were camping there. So that night we shared our campfire with an unexpected creature. I felt like we had hiked into the island from “Where The Wild Things Are.” The next morning, Durand and I, being the two goofiest in a troop of goofballs, had no choice other than to serve as the rock monster’s breakfast.

Later that day while poking in for a quick visit with Rick the Ranger at Le Conte Meadow, we learned that they called it “The Whale.” I can see the cetacean like features in its visage, but I think it will always be a monster to me. One that gave me a smile when I really needed it on the trail. Hats off to the fellow goofball hikers who created it wherever you are.

FOOT NOTES:

IT ALMOST ATE DURAND THAT DAY TOO…

BUT JASON SOON MADE A NEW FRIEND.