"Done. That's all I can say. Just done."

This is the fourth installment in a five-part series on my experience hiking Mt. Whitney this summer. The first three can be seen here, here, and here.

The title of this post were all the words I could get out when we reached the end of the Whitney trail at 6:30 p.m., the summit receding with every step. Later, I'd be able to memorialize the finish with pictures like this:

At the time, I couldn't even form a complete thought.

Beyond the simple joy of being able to sit down after 15 hours of hiking, the end of the Whitney hike felt eerily familiar. There was a sense of let down in the exhaustion that ran with almost equal strength as the current of satisfaction I experienced. If I had to put it into words, it was almost the physical sensation of “What next?”

A side note: nothing murders the legitimate accomplishment of successfully completing the one-day summit run like walking out at the portal to the cheers for the elite competitors in the Badwater Ultramarathon crossing the finish line. If you're not familiar with the Badwater, see this and read this book. In short form, these people start running at the lowest point in America in the middle of Death Valley in the middle of the day, and more than a day later stop running 135 miles away at the foot of the highest point, the Whitney Portal.

Oh, you hiked 22 miles today? That must have been really hard!   

It took me a few days to figure out what felt so familiar, and only after the pain and fatigue had passed. Finishing Whitney felt almost exactly like typing “The End” on the two book-length manuscripts I've completed.

Sure, there is a sense of triumph. A sense of having done something substantial and kept a record to show for all the work. A sense of a goal being met.

But just as much, there is exhaustion. And pain (some of it physical). And more than anything, there is the question of whether or not the effort and achievement will amount to anything more than those two words. The end.

In her book Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott likens reaching the end of a book to the last of the steam escaping a pressure cooker. You know you're done because there's nothing left in the tank.

Or no more trail left to follow.