Not weather at all....
Got to Outpost Camp and set up camp in the last campsite before the switchers going up to mirror lake. As it was my first night at altitude, I wasn't expecting to sleep much. But I put on Pink Floyd, Meddle and started to drift off during Echoes. Then I heard some yelling from up the hill. I was thinking "c'mon ya bastiges, we're trying to sleep down here". Then I listened, it was a man and a boy screaming "help us! Help us!". It was about midnight.
I quickly got dressed and started heading up the trail. Another man from outpost joined me and we started up the switchbacks. We could see that there were four headlamps and I yelled "is anyone injured?". The reply was "No, but my son is very sick". Then I said "well come on down"....the man said "we can't, there's a mountain lion who's stalking us". So the other man and I start heading up the switchbacks to the boy and the man. In the back of my mind I was thinking "aren't you supposed to go the other direction than where the mountain lion is?". The mountain lion went into the bushes for a little bit and the two other men who were heading up to trail camp and were at the approximate same location as the man and the boy, decided to continue up.
I'll go out of sequence here: The two men had to turn around as the mountain lion would not let them go by. They set up camp next to my tent. Anyway, once we got past the stream I focused on the boy. His name is Maxwell and he is 12 years old. He's been puking for the past 12 hours or so and is severely dehydrated and he's pretty much bonking on top of the AMS and dehydration. I brought him to my campsite and tried to get him to drink some water...he puked it up within 3 minutes. He was really hungry and had only been eating protein bars, which of course, he was puking right up. So I made him my chicken soup that was slated for Saturday morning's breakfast. He ate a fair bit of it.....and then puked it up.
I was worried that dropping altitude wasn't helping him. With his current state, his Dad wanted to set up camp and let him rest so that he could get some energy back. I suggested to put him in my tent and sleeping bag while we figured things out. I knew that the right answer was to get him down the hill, but I didn't think that the two of us (Dad and I) could carry him out and I was worried that he wouldn't be able to go out under his own power. Meanwhile, Maxwell fell asleep in my tent. So I said, we need some professional advice, there's a spot on the switcbacks right below bighorn park where I can get cell reception.
I went there and called 911. Talked to the Inyo country sheriff's office. Told her the situation and she said "doesn't matter, get him down here". So I went back and we roused a very unhappy Maxwell from his sleep. I carried Maxwell's pack and we headed down the hill. Maxwell puked literally every 10 minutes. But I'm telling you, this kid was tough. He'd puke and rest for 5 minutes and then he would say "ok, I'm ready". He was also the most polite kid I have ever met. Whenever I did anything for him or gave him anything he would say "thank you very much, Tom".
We continued down and I decided that the old Whitney Trail would be the best path as it would get us down quickest. Corey (Dad) called his wife and told her where to meet us. Because of all of the puking, my time estimates were at least an hour off. The old whitney trail was definitely the right choice except that I tweaked my right knee. Now whenever I stepped down with my left leg first, my right leg from the knee and above had a shot of extreme pain. I tried not to show Maxwell as I didn't want him to worry. BTW: going downhill was ok, it was just when I stepped down. We got to the portal at 5am. I was starving and since Maxwell and Corey had eaten my breakfast, I figured that I needed to head to town and get a bite. After a couple of Egg McMuffins I went to the hospital to check on Maxwell. They were having trouble getting a line in to give him fluids. His veins kept on collapsing. While I was there they got a line in and started fluids immediately. He was asleep within 5 minutes. They ended up giving him 5 liters of fluids. They were worried about a pulmonary edema as they heard wheezing, but they got there in time....no pulmonary edema. He was released this evening and was eating dinner at 8pm.
I was worried about my trip up the hill. My leg still hurt and the anticipation of coming back down the hill wasn't making me happy. I started up the hill and for some reason, the egg mcmuffins weren't kicking in. As I got to about 2/3rds of the way to LPL, I was really starving again. I ran into three women who I had talked to down at the portal and they gave me a bunch of snacks since they were headed down the hill (thanks Tracy, Stacy and Donna!!!! It really helped). Continued up the hill, ran into Ranger Michael by the Rockwell spring and talked about the events of last night. I was shocked to hear how many people knew about it. I had several people tell me about the sick kid and the mountain lion. Ranger Michael said that there hadn't been any signs of a mountain lion in the area. I ran into somebody else who went up shortly after we left for the portal and said that they saw that the mountain lion had a fresh kill. So it probably wasn't stalking Maxwell or Corey, s/he was just protecting her meal.
With my leg acting up, I decided it was time to pack it in and go home. I made myself a PB&J on Pita and then broke camp. The pain on the downsteps was worse with a 30lb pack, but as long as I stepped right foot first I could control it. It just took longer (My turtle pace went down to a snail's pace).
Other interesting things: I saw a weasel or something from the weasel family near LPL. I didn't see the mountain lion, but I did hear it. And at least 6 other people in three different groups saw it. There's no doubt in my mind that there is a mountain lion hanging out above outpost camp. But it appears that he isn't really interested in us after all. I saw two deer on the way down.
Most amusing thing: Corey said "the mountain lion didn't seem to care about the bear bell". I said "bears don't care about bear bells". I gave him the rundown on black bear behavior. Not sure if he believed me.
I'm sure that I left out a couple of details. I'll fill them in as I remember them.
Edit: Corey sent me a text saying that Maxwell has already done a drawing of me and apparently he's a pretty good artist. I'm not sure that I want a good artist to capture my likeness though!!!
