TR: Dusy Basin and Palisade Basin, August 2021

[RichardK]

Your comment

Still, it is sad to realize that some of the most wonderful places, long dreamed of, are now out of reach.

hit me right between the eyes. I am a 73 year old cancer survivor. I know exactly how you feel. Getting old is hell.

[LMBSGV]

Bill and Richard, thanks for your supportive, kind words. Yes, it is sad when aging and illness make experiencing wilderness more difficult. I first really noticed my having difficulty in 2016, which I first thought was only due to aging until the cancer diagnosis after a trip that year. My hiking speed and especially my steep climbing stamina were so much slower and worse than the previous year. I think there's something that happens to the body after cancer so that the issues due to aging are magnified and we're stuck dealing with those limitations as best as we can.

[rlown]

Pretty sure we are all predisposed to cancer. Not to belittle the approach to it, but if we all have to get it at some point, or a stroke or a massive MI, do what you love until the end. Might be a horse/mule trip just to get up there, but it's only money and you can't take it with you. Stamina be damned. It just means you slow down a bit and see more of the area around you on the approach.
As my foot starts to come back, I still have some destinations in mind, but it might be on top of a mule.

[kpeter]

A beautiful trip report.

As a fellow cancer survivor (with a remarkably good outcome), and as a fellow aging person (aren't we all!), I think we become increasingly more aware of our mortality--in an emotional sense. (We always know we will die in an intellectual sense.) But backpacking when we feel our remaining time is limited heightens the impact of the sublime and makes us appreciate the experience even more deeply than before.

When I was young, each place I visited I could say to myself "I will come back to see you again."

Now, each place I visit I say to myself "Thank you for sharing your beauty with me. Good bye, for I will not be able to return."

[giantbrookie]

This is a long delayed reply to this wonderful post (too many pressing professional deadlines). Terrific read and story. As someone a smidge younger I can certainly relate to some of the thoughts on aging and backpacking. This has no doubt been behind my strategy of scheduling off trail backpacking trips while I can still do them, although I temporarily dialed back the degree of difficulty in 2021 to visit an area I haven't been to. I was really inspired when one of my old geology friends (my host when I was a guest speaker at BYU a couple of weeks ago), related to me that he had returned to playing basketball 8 months after having his knees replaced (and this followed a broken neck, 3 ACL reconstructions, destroyed shoulders and other issues over the past 20 some odd years); and he still can hike like a young person. I've long thought I was doing pretty well to stay mobile through injury but that is at another level, so I am encouraged (ie I don't plan on giving up the off trail stuff all that soon).

Anyhow thanks for your post which was really a terrific thing to read when my 'offseason' began earlier than anticipated when the big fall storm dumped enough snow for me to call off my planned fall trips (which would have only been dayhikes, though).

[LMBSGV]

Thanks for all the kind comments. Russ, I hope your foot heals and you can reach the destinations you have in mind. I have noticed due to walking so much slower, I better notice all the details. kpeter, I love your observation “we feel our remaining time is limited heightens the impact of the sublime and makes us appreciate the experience even more deeply than before.” And I’ve also been saying a final farewell to certain places. giantbrookie, I really appreciate your comments since I vicariously enjoy your creative, off-trail adventures and marvel at Dawn’s pluck (I think that’s the right word). Plus, my geologic knowledge is basic guidebook stuff so I always appreciate your observations.

[gtw_smooth_ambler]

Great report, I was wondering if I might come across it. I was one of the guys you kept crossing paths with on the way up Bishop Pass. We should have followed you after we reached Dusy. We ended up getting cliffed out between the lakes and I was in recovery from an injury myself, so we just scampered down back to Lake 1 and called it a day.

Nice fishing for us when we finally got to the upper lake. Glad you got some beautiful photos.

[LMBSGV]

It's wonderful you saw the report. I was hoping you might see it and let me know you also had a good trip. I'm sorry about the cliffing out; cross-country in Dusy can do that. I'm glad the fishing was good.

[rormisto]

Laurence, I wanted to give a genuine thanks for your incredible write-up. I'm appreciate your eloquence and the time spent getting it all down. And the pictures you took are extremely special. It's not easy to turn something as magical as being in the Sierra into something that I can viscerally feel while sitting in my living room-- I'm grateful for your ability to do so!

I'm also trying to soak up as much as the wisdom in this thread as I can, from you and from others. It's a difficult realization that something is now out of reach. I'm not there with hiking, but I had an accident that meant I won't be able to put on a rock climbing shoe again. It's not the same, not even close, but I get enough of an inkling of that feeling to empathize a bit. I'm glad that you're making it up there, and the the experience proves so meaningful time and time again! Also, sorry about the trail runners-- I've had my fair share of stern words re: trail etiquette with runners or (god forbid) bikers.

[LMBSGV]

rormisto, your post was especially heartening since I had what my wife and I call an "Alexander" day for the Judith Viorst children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which was a favorite of our son's at the proper age. My "Alexander" day concluded with a power outage and then the power came back on and I read your post and felt a whole lot better. Thanks.