“I need to get a peak”, Emilie Cortes declared.  After reaching our campsite at Francis Lake more quickly than we anticipated, we debated continuing our climb to the top of Mount Morgan in California’s John Muir Wilderness.

At 13,748 feet, Morgan is one of several mountains in the John Muir Wilderness that appeal to peak baggers who prefer to zip past the lowlands and head straight for more challenging and rewarding routes with a summit as the goal.  Like eating only the tops of muffins, except the payoff is the definitive sense of accomplishment when you succeed (or failure if you fall short).

Some in our party of six women were eager to push on, but Emilie wanted to be sure of making it to the top, and advocated sticking to our original plan of waiting until morning.  She was recovering from a broken collarbone that prevented her from taking a planned trip to climb Alaska’s Denali the previous month.  Normally this would be a piece of cake for Emilie, an experienced mountaineer, but this was her first backpacking trip since the injury and she would need her strength.

And honestly, I needed this trip at least as much as she did.  I’d had a rocky year of emotional ups and downs and was looking forward to the boost I knew would come from climbing a mountain.

Finally, we decided it was wiser to stick to our plan to begin in the morning rather than risk allowing insufficient time to reach the summit.  With tricky terrain and a climb from our current elevation of 10,800 feet to nearly 14,000, we didn’t want the added pressure to return to our campsite by dark.

Instead, we spent the afternoon setting up camp, skinny-dipping in frigid Francis Lake, and playing around climbing the surrounding granite faces.  Francis Lake is striking – a turquoise jewel surrounded by colorful lupine, Indian paintbrush, and wild onion – but my eyes were continually drawn toward Mount Morgan beckoning in the background.

We purified our drinking water and were preparing the standard array of boilable backpacker meals when Monique Messié, over from France doing post-doc work in oceanography, surprised us by pulling a bottle of red wine and a wheel of brie out of her pack.  Our concerns about cutting back on alcohol to avoid dehydration were promptly forgotten as we eagerly stretched our mugs toward her for some wine, praising French priorities.

We set off early the next morning, choosing a route near the ridgeline that provided some fun scrambling over big boulders.  I laughed to see Emilie hugging a boulder as she scrunched to make her way between the rocks, and had to catch myself to avoid losing my own footing and going tumbling head-first into the valley below.  The landscape changed from lush to rugged, but continued to hold a striking array of wildflowers – alpine gold, columbine, sky pilot – tucked into unlikely crannies among the jagged rocks.  We looked down over the greens and blues of Little Lakes Valley, enjoying the picturesque vista but glad to be far above the popular area full of day-hikers and fishermen.  Up there it was just us and a bemused flock of bighorn sheep.

Eventually I wasn’t laughing anymore.  Emilie tripped and banged her head hard on the rocks, and we hoped she hadn’t jarred her healing collarbone.  I hung back from the others to stick close to Emilie, ostensibly in case she had any problems after her head injury.  I was feeling the altitude though and had a headache (perhaps in sympathy for Emilie), and I doubt I would’ve kept up with young, spry Monique in any case.

Finally, we reached the summit.  Although the views were spectacular the entire way up, we could finally stop and revel in the dramatic panorama of mountains rising in all directions like waves above valleys dotted with icy blue alpine lakes.  Exhilaration overwhelmed fatigue as Monique found the summit register so we could record our feat.  Breathing the clear, thin air far above strands of rivers and roads and all of civilization, life’s problems seemed insignificant.

We started to identify other nearby mountains – Dade, Abbot, Bear Creek Spire – but the thunder clouds rolling in to cover the previously clear azure sky reminded us not to linger too long.  As we descended, packed up camp, and headed home over the Tioga Pass, the afterglow stayed with us.  We began dreaming of future peaks.

- Guest Post by Sonja Velez