Synopsis

An account of the first documented walk from California’s Mt. Whitney to Death Valley, this narrative exposes many unforeseen pitfalls and offers sporadic brilliance in the planning and undertaking of a hike of over 140 miles in length. The author and three of his buddies, all workers at a paper mill in Central California, hoped to get listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the first to trek from the highest point (14, 496′) to the lowest point (-282′) in the 48 states. The four dubbed themselves the ‘Sandwalkers’, but had little to no experience in long-distance walking although all were in good physical shape and enjoyed the outdoors. That was scant preparation, as it turned out, for a seven-day hike through some of the roughest terrain imaginable while enduring three-digit temperature extremes.