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In our backpacks we had rain gear, hats, gloves, spare batteries, matches, power bars, water, peanut-butter sandwiches, and other essentials. I also had brought along a gallon-size plastic bag with my mother’s ashes. She had died the January before, and I thought the mountain might be an appropriate place to spread her ashes.

My dad had passed away four years earlier, and after living a pretty traditional life with him, my mom had really come into her own in her final years. My father had been more of a homebody, and my mom had loyally stayed on the home front with him. But once he was gone, she did a great deal of traveling with friends. It was as if she was making up for lost time. She embraced every part of living she could, and it was wonderful to see that. Lorrie and I thought it would be fitting to bring her ashes to this tallest peak so we could set her free in the wind, to continue her travels.

We started our hike well before sunrise, but the moon was half full, and straight up in the sky. There was so much light from the moon that our bobbing headlamps were almost unnecessary.

The predawn darkness was magnificent. Astronomers would say “the seeing was good.” The air was stable, and so the stars were bright and clear, without much twinkling. It was almost as if we could reach out and touch them.

At first, we were walking in the shadows of tall trees, wearing just light jackets. Once the sun started rising and warmed the mountain, we were able to put the jackets into our backpacks.

The sunrise was spectacular. We were hiking on the eastern side of the mountain, facing west, and one peak behind us was perfectly aligned with the sun, forming a triangularly shaped shadow on the expanse of Whitney ahead of us. As the sun got higher, the black triangle moved down the face of the mountain. It was an amazing sight.

We were also fascinated by how the mountain changed as we climbed. With each change in elevation, we traversed different zones with varying terrain and plants. We encountered marshy areas and some lakes and streams, but as we got higher, the vegetation became more sparse. Portions of the trail were rugged and rocky, and at one point we had to scramble over large boulders. Then the altitude began taking its toll on us. We knew this would happen—we had read the books—but that made it only a little easier to handle. Lorrie had a raging headache, and both of us got sluggish and very tired.

We kept reassuring each other with an old line that marathon runners use: “It’s not twenty-six miles. It’s one mile, twenty-six times.”

We had another mantra: “Anyone can hike Mount Whitney. You just point your feet in an uphill direction, and put one foot in front of the other.” We kept repeating that.

We lost our appetite, which is also common. We knew we had to force ourselves to eat, because we’d need our energy. The guidebooks had told us to bring our favorite foods, even junk food, because we’d be more apt to eat something we liked. It was remarkable to see what happened every time we pulled something to eat from our backpacks. Blue jays would try to land on our shoulders or backpacks to take the food away. Large ground squirrels called marmots would come out of the rocks, almost out of nowhere, and would also try to grab their share. They were all obviously very used to humans and knew that where there were people, there was food.

At thirteen thousand feet, the narrow trail crossed over the top of the mountain and there was a sheer drop-off. We were well above the tree line at this point, and it looked as barren as the surface of the moon. Lorrie got teary, in part from exhaustion and also, she admitted, out of fear. It was pretty intimidating looking down. She wondered if we really needed to reach the exact summit to release my mother’s ashes.

“Why don’t we just let your mother out here?” she asked. “Your mom would understand. I know she would.”

I wanted to keep going. “We can do it,” I told her. She smiled weakly at me, and we pressed on.

By one-fifteen, we were within