The journey from SFO to Lone Pine Campground was hard on the hindquarters. All through the night we were tessellated inside Watson, Ampere's sister's vintage Ford Ranger that claims to seat five people (it fits two and a half). Watson was a spiritual fit. Riding on a holiday high, we bartered 10 suffocating hours each way on the road for the sun and snow of the eastern Sierra Nevadas. I would have bartered more. It was an adventure aching gloriously in its wake. I had planned for us to hit the road by two in the afternoon, but by the time we had purchased our last-minute gear and munch supplies and packed up our bags, the sun had set upon Sunnyvale. Amperes drove us straight down from the Bay, turning East at Bakersfield, and roaring up north along the long, barren stretch of highway through Alabama Hills. It was 4am when the engine screeched to a halt at camp. The stars were so bright I could've sworn they cast shadows. We packed up our belongings into bear cages and set up camp. The next day, we hit the road again around 11am for Whitney Portal. I've never seen anywhere so stark a contrast in geography. The Owens Valley floor was desiccated, completely flat, and barely 12 miles wide. Lone Pine was the only grey thing amidst this belt of yellow shrubs and sand, around 1100m in elevation. And yet from the edges of the belt enormous mountain ranges rose away from nothing and towered. To the east, the White Mountains loomed; to the west, Mt Whitney (4421m) was the crown jewel of the Sierra Nevadas, streaked with snow and rocky outcrops. Out in the open air on the trunk of Watson, you could almost hear millennia of Earth's slow growl, the slow rumblings as Owens Fault cracked and stretched, laid low between two powerful blocks that heaved up and tilted, conceiving Whitney's iconic and exposed eastern face whilst its western remains gentler in relief. Tracing my gaze towards the southeast horizon, Owens Lake evaporated in solitude, reflecting a lone peak before a cerulean sky. ![Scene on the Mt Whitney trail](/media/whitney-trail-scene.jpg) A moment on the Mt Whitney Trail. We hiked throughout the day. When we reached Lone Pine Lake at 3000m, the sun had already set. I set down my 27kg pack and eagerly commenced the snow compactification business. Wind had strewn aged snow across the banks and under the trees, so that although there hasn't been fresh precipitation, a thick and pristine layer of powder coated the ground. We had to act quickly and make camp. Next to the base of a thick pine, we found a bear canister and a couple of long tent stakes. I clasped my fingers in prayer. Just a few hours earlier, we had ascended the mountainous motorway winding up to Whitney Portal. Some fortnight ago a storm had billowed in, leaving much of the Portal under inches of snow. A car had made it up to the Portal campground then, before the weather set in and the road was closed. That car was still there today. We saw it. A solemn black sedan, white in the bleak snow, keeping vigil for an owner astray. An avalanche four days before had, according to hikers on their way down, covered much of the trail beyond Lone Pine Lake. The brave ones had broke waist-deep snow up to halfway towards Outpost Camp, but that was the furthest anyone seemed to have reached. From Outpost Camp it would be another 10km and 1300m of elevation before reaching the top of Mt Whitney. With three members of the expedition now on Diamox and a tight schedule to return to SF, we decided it was best not to attempt a summit. I wasn't excessively disappointed. I'd promised my friends and parents that everyone would get down safe. Given our preparation and late arrival, I had to make a call. I mean, regardless of what, some things in life are beautiful for free. I think wildlands and people. With Amperes, Crest, and Ted all in the same place again, and Jude mischievously in the mix, everything could go wrong but that's just the fun of it. Each broken moment in the mountains is a shard of perfection. By 9.30pm, most of us had retreated into the comfort of our Hillebergs.^[1] Amperes and I, yet untouched by altitude or cold, stayed out a bit longer. We had been cooking for nearly three hours. Mostly tea and hot chocolate, frolicking around a five-metre radius surrounding camp. I remembered our first Duke of Edinburgh expedition three and a half years ago. Spontaneous races on the ridge, stupid wrestling matches, and tripping each other over in our heavy packs — we still do. Some things time hasn't dared erode. In the warmth of our stoves and shared memory, the tongue of a flickering flame or a quietly quivering finger was art. Around Amperes, I'd remember how to be happy just because. ![Stars above Lone Pine Lake campsite](/media/lone-pine-lake.jpg) The sky at camp that night we stayed at Lone Pine Lake. We scrimshanked around most of next morning, digging a hole in the frozen lake and having Ted plunge in. A brief expedition to the elevated snowbanks lining the lake concluded our adventures. On the way down, I thought about how lucky I was to be right here, where I was meant to be. I think if you pried away my many layers of desire and goals and hopes, at the core of it would be this: to be lost in a land where beauty is intrinsic, to be let free to roam and discover and describe, and to protect it for future explorers. There are so many roads I have hoped to walk, and the easiest thing is to let life roll by. But I am convicted that any final source of life must come from what is felt, and that is why I am here instead of anywhere else. It is a privilege to spend Thanksgiving bearing heftier load and breaking deep snow, to feel whole again. We made a giant campfire on Friday night and feasted to moonset on Whitney. The next day was a full drive back to SF, where we stayed the night at Halo.^[2] By then the end of Thanksgiving was just around the corner. On Sunday eve, following Ted's suggestion, we ascended to the top of Twin Peaks. There the vast cityscape of San Francisco unrolled before our eyes like a macroscopic microchip. Channels of amber and neon flowed between grids of glossy facades. I looked at our shivering figures. It's not once in a while you get to talk, backpack, wrestle, and freeze some sore feet together with old friends, people you know so well that everything is at once normally stupid and stupidly normal. Amidst the gelid winds and gallons of light, effervescing into a buoyant San Francisco night, I'd wager I was happy. My flight was cancelled that night, some silly Airbus security upgrade that had to take place at the end of Thanksgiving. Ted had left that morning, and Crest's flight was the earliest. Amperes, Jude, and I waved him goodbye, then had our last dinner together this Thanksgiving. We have shed attire and gained responsibility, but I don't think that tugging and mirth which drew us to the Hill and away has mired. At the back of our minds, lingering memories of the trip nudge, throb, congeal. There is so much life in a shared hillside or tiresome night. And then Amperes was gone, and soon Jude, and Jelly I briefly saw before heading off the following day. So entropy smirked at us with glee, brief travellers of this earth, each carrying a piece of forever.
^[1] Shoutout to the Harvard Mountaineering Club, which I am a part of and proudly Gear Tsar of. We borrowed a lot of HMC gear for this trip, including some robust (but slightly torn) Hillebergs. Its dirtbag community, orderly chaos, and White Mountain shenanigans will be sorely missed when I am not around Cambridge anymore. The HMC gear cage is one of my sacred places on campus. ^[2] Shoutout to Ted and Halo for hosting us. We would not have half the memories we made in SF if we hadn't slept in its heated room on a nice wooden floor.

Yiding in the Wild

South of Lantau

Wit Lang

The Fall Presidential