What is Mummy Kill?

Mummy Kill is about as brutal as the name suggests. It is a hiking route that is over 20 miles and has you peaking six mountains, the Mummy Range.

Those mountains include Chapin, Chiquita, and Ypsilon (CCY), Fairchild, Hagues, and last but not least, Mummy. Below, is a map of the route.

This is a point-to-point hike, meaning you start at one trailhead and end at another. (this is an important detail to remember) Which means, you have to have two cars or some way of getting back to the trailhead you started from.

Okay, let’s get into it…

The Prep Beforehand

When I say “the prep,” I really just mean the short discussions I had with a few people before deciding to fully send attempting Mummy Kill.

In summary, me, two other girls, and two guys grouped together to form our Mummy Kill squad. However, there were some slight complications. The boys wanted to trail run parts of the hike, and us girls wanted no part of that. So, me and the girls decided we were going to start a little bit earlier than the boys in hopes that by the time they caught up to us, we would end up sticking together for the rest of the hike.

Now, here’s the car situation. You have to have at least two cars in order to do this hike since it’s point-to-point. Me and the girls would all be riding in one car together and leaving our car at the starting trailhead. The boys were taking two cars, one to drop at the trailhead we would finish at, and the other to leave at the starting point. We would all be riding back to the starting trailhead together once we finished.

It seemed like a foolproof plan. It was not.

An Early Start

The morning of the hike started at 1 a.m., should I have been exhausted? Absolutely. Was I? Nope. I was pumped full of Redbull and adrenaline and was ready to slay those Mummies!

It was about an hour and a half drive to get to the trailhead, and by the time we started hiking, it was around 3 a.m.

Now, being completely honest, us girls goofed up. We were taking our sweet time once we got to the trailhead to make some sandwiches and go to the bathroom. And the boys ended up pulling up to the trailhead before we had even started.

We threw all of our stuff together and started quickly, in hopes that we would put some distance in between us, so that again, by the time they caught us, we could stay together for the rest of the day.

That didn’t end up working out how we had thought.

The First Problem

At this point, the boys were gaining ground on us and we hadn’t even peaked the first mountain, Chapin. Keep in mind, that it’s 3 a.m., which means it was pitch black outside, so we were solely navigating by headlamps.

We were walking along in a bit of an open field area, but there were some big boulders laying sporadically around, and a reflection off of my headlamp caught my eye.

There was a pair of eyes looking back at me from across the field.

I told the girls about it, and we quickly noticed that there was more than one pair of eyes out there. We had stumbled into a herd of elk lying in the field.

They were still a safe distance away, so we kept walking, but as we were passing by a boulder less than fifteen feet from the trail, a HUGE elk was lying there looking at us. Naturally, we got spooked and slowly backed up the way we had come.

And now, here enters…the boys.

They had caught up to us, and we told them about the elk right off the trail. After a very brief exchange between us, they told us, “Good luck,” and swiftly kept hiking, avoiding eye contact with the elk. We followed after them and made it around the herd without any problems. We couldn’t keep up with them, though, since they were running at this point, so we very quickly got separated.

We were on our own.

Chapin, Chiquita, and Ypsilon

Or better known as “CCY”. These are the first three mountains that you peak for Mummy Kill, and let me tell you, it was child’s play compared to what was going to come after.

Our pace was slow. Too slow.

We didn’t peak Chapin until around 4:30 a.m., and by this time, we could see the boy’s headlamps making their way to Ypsilon.

We peaked Chiquita around 6 a.m. and Ypsilon around 7 a.m.

By this point, we had been hiking for about four hours, and it became obvious to me that me and one of the other girls had a much faster pace than the other girl in our group.

And here’s where things take quite an ugly turn.

Fairchild

If I could punch a mountain in the face, I think this would be the one I choose.

The hike from Ypsilon to Fairchild is when it got real. One of our friends, who had completed Mummy Kill, had given us a route on AllTrails that we were following on my phone.

We wasted a lot of time trying to figure out where this route was telling us to go. In the midst of all of this, we had lost our friends. The sun had come up, so looking for their headlamp lights wasn’t an option. And, because we were all SO WELL prepared, none of us had a satellite phone, so we had no way of contacting each other…or so we thought.

By the grace of God, I got cell reception as we were making the climb to Fairchild, and a call from one of our guy friends came through. They had apparently gone the WRONG way while trying to summit Fairchild. One of them had gotten stuck on a cliff for about thirty minutes because he couldn’t get back the way he had gone.

It took FOREVER for us to peak Fairchild. Essentially, in between Ypsilon and Fairchild is a massive boulder field that we had to scramble through for HOURS. We didn’t peak until around 11:30 a.m.

Problem #2

As we were sitting on top of Fairchild, catching our breath and grabbing a snack, we began discussing the issues at hand.

The first issue was that we were supposed to be back at camp (we were all working at a summer camp) by 6 p.m. because we had a staff meeting.

The second issue was that there were some suspicious-looking storm clouds beginning to roll in and we were far above the treeline. AKA if we stayed where we were, the odds we would get struck by lightning were pretty high.

We knew we had to make a decision, and fast.

After it had taken us so long to peak Fairchild, when looking at Hagues and Mummy, we knew that we wouldn’t be able to finish the hike and get back to camp by six. And again, the clouds also played a big role in our decision to bail out.

The New Plan

I pulled out my map, and we formulated our plan as to how we were going to get the heck out of there. Now, we all agreed that the thought of turning around and going through that same boulder field and back the way we had come was A) going to take too long and B) seemed like a miserable option.

We decided to become trailblazers and scramble our way down the side of Fairchild and down to Crystal Lake. From there, there was an established trail that would take us to the trailhead we were supposed to end at.

Houston, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

We were all content, or as content as we could be given the situation, with our plan. As we began our descent down Fairchild, one of the girls started feeling nauseous. Not a good sign.

We figured it was altitude sickness and knew that if we kept descending, it should get better and eventually go away. Except it didn’t. She kept getting worse.

On top of that, we had gotten to a pretty sketchy part that we were going to have to descend. I’m talking we were butt-scooting down the side of this mountain on a scree field. What is scree? It’s loose rock. Which means if you make the wrong step, you can easily set off a rockslide.

Me and one of the other girls made it down first. We had been keeping an eye on our other friend, and she was close to making it down, so we decided to take a quick dip in the lake while we waited.

As our friend got to us, we noticed exactly how out of it she seemed, and as soon as we left the lake and began hiking on the trail, she told me that she was having hallucinations and had seen one of her other friends with us. Not good. Very not good.

She kept saying how she thought she needed to be evacuated and that she didn’t think she could hike the rest of the way back, which was eight miles. Now, because we were so well prepared and didn’t have a satellite phone or cell service at this point, there was quite literally nothing that we could do except to keep hiking.

On a Serious Note

If you are ever hiking with someone who has similar symptoms to this, you need to take IMMEDIATE action.

There are 3 types of altitude sickness, they include:

1. Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) – This is the mildest and most common form of altitude sickness.
2. High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE) – This is altitude sickness that affects your lungs, causing them to fill with fluid. It requires immediate medical attention. It’s not the most severe form of altitude sickness, however, it can cause death quicker than the other forms.
3. High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) – The most severe form of altitude sickness. It causes your brain to swell. It’s an extremely dangerous condition and needs emergency care.

Here are the symptoms for each type:

Acute Mountain Sickness

• Headache (most common symptom)
• Nausea and vomiting
• Loss of appetite
• Fatigue
• Malaise (a noticeable “unwell” feeling)
• Trouble sleeping
• Dizziness or lightheadedness
• Vision changes

High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE)

• Cough
• Shortness of breath
• High heart rate
• Fast breathing
• Low fever
• Blue skin, lips or nails

High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE)

• Severe headache
• Loss of coordination
• Weakness
• Slurred speech
• Disorientation, memory loss, hallucinations
• Loss of consciousness
• Seizures

Please don’t be stupid like us and carry a satellite phone with you.

The Trek Back

The eight miles to the trailhead possibly might have been the worst part of the day.

Our pace was snail-like since our friend was having difficulty walking any faster. We had put her in between us, so I was bringing up the rear and could keep an eye on her.

Was this trek back easy? Of course not. Did we encounter any further issues? Yes, of course we did.

Not even halfway into our eight-mile hike, my friend in the front, who had walked a good ways further ahead of us, came briskly walking back in our direction after turning a corner.

There was a bull moose.

Of course, there was. We just couldn’t catch a break.

We waited for roughly ten minutes or so to let the moose wander farther from the trail, which wasn’t by much. But by this point, it was around 5 p.m., and we didn’t have any spare time to waste. The sun would be setting soon and we didn’t want to get stuck out there in the dark. So, we did what any normal person would have done, and full sent it.

The moose was roughly 30 feet or so from the trail, and we decided to just put our heads down, not make eye contact, and quickly walk past it. Which is a lot easier said than done when you have a friend who is hallucinating. But, we made it.

Our Final Problem

The last time that we had been in contact with our guy friends was about three hours prior. At that time, we were making our way down to Crystal Lake, and they were in between Hagues and Mummy.

Remember that car situation? Our plan of all riding back to the starting trailhead together? Well, seeing as the guys had abandoned us early on in the hike, we were hoping that they were still at the trailhead waiting for us, but in our minds, we were bracing for the possibility that they had left us there.

Again, by God’s grace, during that hike back, I got cell service and was able to make a couple of phone calls, one of which was to one of our guy friends.

They had left the trailhead.

But he was coming back to pick us up.

Safe and Sound…and Dirty, Smelly, In Pain, and Exhausted

At around 7:30 p.m., we finally made it to the trailhead, and our friend was waiting there for us.

The girl who had been hallucinating had called her dad, a doctor, and described her symptoms and what she should do. She ended up going to buy oxygen and drinking plenty of electrolytes, and within a few days, she was back to normal.

Want to Attempt Mummy Kill? Here’s some Advice…

My first piece of advice is to hike, at least once, with whoever you are planning on doing this with so you can see if you are compatible when it comes to your pace. Personally, this is something I wish I would have done. I love the girls that I did this with, and we are now trauma-bonded for life, but, my hiking pace was significantly faster than theirs, and I wish that had been different.

Double and triple-check to make sure that the people you are hiking with are acclimated to the altitude! I found out, after the fact, that the girl who got altitude sickness had not been hiking really at all, so the altitude change affected her a lot.

Get an early start! The earlier, the better. No matter your experience level, Mummy Kill is a BRUTAL hike and is going to take all day, so start early.

Have any other questions? Feel free to ask!

As always, Happy Trails!