Jean Muenchrath - If I Live Until Morning: A True Story of Adventure, Tragedy and Transformation

IF I LIVE UNTIL MORNING

A True Story of Adventure,

Tragedy and Transformation

C opyright 2018 Jean Muenchrath

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewers who may quote a brief passages in a review.

Copyright registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.

This work is non-fiction. The names of a few individuals have been changed.

Front cover and Mount Whitney in late afternoon clouds

Photo credit: istock.com/pleum

Photos of Orland Bartholomew

with permission from Phil Bartholomew

Photo of the north face of Mount Whitney

with permission from Dirk Summers

Cover Design: VajraSky Books

Printed and bound in the United States of America

ISBN-13: 978-0-578-49255-1 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018902467

Published by VajraSky Books

P.O. Box 3136, Estes Park, CO.

Contents

DEDICATION

To those who seek wild open spaces

To those who turn dreams into action

To those who heal dark inner places

To those who spread love and compassion

May this book inspire others to heal

through sharing their most difficult untold stories

PART 1

A GRAND

AND

REGRETTABLE ADVENTURE

.I was coming down from the hard, bitter region of whiteness, where gusts of sleet were swirling and storms were building up. I knew that all too soon various things would keep me from returning to that celestial country of jagged ridges dancing in the open sky.

- Ren Daumal, Mount Analogue -

MERGING DREAMS

A uthor skiing into the sunset

More morphine! More morphine! I screamed at the top of my lungs. My cries pierced the silence every four hours. Someone help me, please! I need morphine now !

The painkiller subdued all physical sensations. My body responded to the medication like a volcano on the verge of an eruption. Whenever the drug faded from my bloodstream, I shrieked in agony as pain surged up from my broken spine and spread like molten lava through my muscles and damaged nerves. The physical torment and helpless desperation was unbearable; waiting for the next injection felt like an eternity.

Eventually a nurse would rush into my hospital room clenching a needle and a small glass bottle filled with the pain-numbing opiate. I didnt know if her hasty arrival was out of obligation or a desire to silence my wails. It didnt matter. Once the morphine was delivered, I relaxed again into a hazy oblivion.

Earlier in the week I had a different mantra: I am going to live, I am going to live, I am going to live. I repeated this over and over, day after day, hoping to convince myself that it might be true. But now, I yelled for medication to end my misery.

My inner world had turned into an immense black hole. Where had meaning and purpose, the light of life, gone? I often gazed out the window near my bed for inspiration. The purple mountains on the horizon evoked a pendulum of emotions. A regretful sadness pervaded my heart like a shadow dwelling deep inside of me. Still, my mood wasnt

entirely dark. Occasionally joyful memories bubbled up from my soul like the fleeting light of fireflies. It had been a grand adventure, but now I worried about the future.

The High Sierras had just become my personal symbol for calamity and conquest. They deserved respect. These mountains had given me an appreciation for the human spirits capacity for enduring hardship. I had just survived five days of hell. After lying helplessly in a tent, I dragged my severely injured and nearly dead body out of the mountains. My companion and I descended over 4,700 vertical feet through rugged terrain. With my broken spine and pelvis, we crawled over jumbles of rocks, crossed a high mountain pass and sank into thigh-deep snow. Then we negotiated a narrow canyon with cliffs, rocky ledges and a snow-clogged stream. By the time we reached the road my strength and vitality were depleted.

Still in the shadows of Mount Whitney, I welcomed the stark contrast of being in a tiny hospital in the small town of Lone Pine, California. My once-fit body was now frail and full of shattered bones. I rested in a warm bed while blood transfusions and IVs dripped into my thirsty veins. I was safe now. Hunkering down in my bloodied sleeping bag with a winter storm raging outside the tent was just a memory.

I quickly discovered that getting out of the mountains alive wasnt the end of the journey. Instead, it was the beginning of a long and formidable path to finding my own guiding light.

The day after I checked into the emergency room at the Southern Inyo Hospital, Dr. Donald Christenson, a silver-haired man wearing a white lab coat, entered my room and slowly approached my bedside. His eyes expressed the soft gaze of compassion and indicated that he had something important to say. Before speaking he placed his hand gently on my shoulder.

Tomorrow you will have surgery. We need to remove the blood clots, necrotic tissue and bone fragments in your left buttock. Afterwards, it will take several weeks to drain the fluids from your wound, he informed me in a calm voice.

I was stunned. It didnt seem possible to have gangrene in 1982. Wasnt that something that killed soldiers back in the Civil War? In my opiate-induced confusion I nodded with acceptance. My mind was too numb to contemplate any future implications; at twenty-two years of age, I was just grateful to be alive.

An innocent conversation a few years earlier had brought me to this critical moment. I was with a handful of students on a warm autumn day in 1979. We traveled in the back of a white pickup truck piled high with overnight camping gear. Our group was on a weekend rock climbing outing with San Diego State Universitys Recreation Club. Classmates eagerly exchanged their summer memories as we drove towards Jacumba in the desert. A quiet young man with brown eyes and curly dark hair sat across from me. He introduced himself and started up a conversation.

What did you do this past summer? Ken asked.

I worked at a lodge in Yellowstone National Park. I did quite a bit of hiking and fishing on my time off too.

That sounds like fun, he responded.

Yeah, it was. I especially enjoyed sleeping out under the stars every night in the sage brush. How did you spend your summer?

I backpacked the John Muir Trail.

My eyes lit up. My interest was piqued.

Thats awesome! My boyfriend and I had talked about hiking the JMT this past summer. He wasnt able to go, so I went to work in Yellowstone instead.

Kens shyness disappeared momentarily. My genuine interest in his trek filled him with excitement. He quickly became animated. He lifted his chest, his eyes grew wide and he raised his voice. He then provided an enthralling account of his solo 211-mile hike. His path traversed the Sierras through some of the most rugged and spectacular scenery in North America. I was captivated. I listened intently as the wind blew through my long brown hair and the truck drove east on Interstate 8. After Ken finished recounting his memories, he paused and then divulged his real aspiration.

My dream though, is to ski the entire John Muir Trail during the winter. But I need someone to do it with, he added while looking at me with an intense and direct gaze.

Kens remark surprised me; it gave me the impression that I had just been invited on his expedition. In that moment our two dreams had just merged. In time, the two of us would embark on an epic winter journey on skinny cross-country skis with three-pin bindings.