To make things more perfect, Claire spotted a tiny fawn and its momma deer walking through the grass and nibbling on some brush. This was the cutest, smallest deer I've ever seen! It had little white spots on its bum just like Bambi! I didn't get any pictures as they were far away and my phone still in the tent. They ended up walking by us a little closer later in the morning.
I went to go retrieve our bear canisters which I placed a ways away from the tent last night. I thought I found a pretty neat hiding place. A bear might have just a little trouble getting to these..
It was such a nice peaceful morning with such a lack of mosquitos that we didn't end up leaving until 10:15am. We were ok with that because we knew we were only going 7.5 miles today to the base of Mt. Whitney.
After our tummies were full of oatmeal and fruit, we started out. Soon, we came across a horse train that we had seen from Chicken Spring Lake yesterday. And, just like Claire had said, she asked if she could pet one of them.
Immediately after the horses we came to the Rock Creek crossing and got to get our feet a little wet! In the Sierra, especially during a hot day, it's not worth it to take your shoes off while fording a small creek or stream. You'll most likely have to cross another in a few miles, and our mesh trail-runners dry out a lot faster than boots.
We have yet to come across a huge swollen river with no bridge, but there are several of those in this section. This year the rivers are particularly swollen because of the recent heatwave in Central and Southern California.
With soggy shoes we quickly dried off by, yup, you guessed it again, a huge climb. It's alright, by this point we're getting used to them. :) This is the first day that I've felt 100% for the last 5 days since Kennedy Meadows thanks to the food poisoning or stomach flu or whatever it was!
We went steeply up through Guyot Pass through some BEAUTIFUL trees. They were stained and twisted and knotted and gigantic and just all around awesome!
When we finally got up and over the pass we stopped at Guyot Flat for a little food break on a nice log and got to see the horse train pass us!
After that the trail weaved up and down while climbing steadily. Soon, we popped up onto a ridge and it felt like we had been transported to another place altogether!
I still don't know how it was geographically possible, but within 2 miles of taking that picture, we ended up here:
Deja vu! We saw the horses once more and then immediately forded another pleasant little stream. This one completely sand bottom except where hikers had laid rocks to cross dryly at a low tide.
We reached the spur trail to the Upper Crabtree Meadow where we will approach Mt. Whitney from tomorrow. The short 1.2 mile spit trail was absolutely stunning! Two more river crossings, but we didn't mind at all with views like this!
We set up camp near the Meadow, and spent the rest of the day catching up with a few other hikers, eating, filtering water, and preparing our backpacks for our 4:00am departure tomorrow!
Mt. Whitney summit is 7.5 miles from here off the PCT. That means we have to come back down the way we come. We're stoked about this because it means we get to "slack-pack" up to the top. Basically we are leaving our tent and sleeping bags and stove and heavy bear cans at camp and are finally getting to do some day-hiking!
After a small day today at 7.5 miles, we're felling well rested and are excited for our 15 mile day hike up Whitney tomorrow. Depending on how we feel we may pack up camp and hike 8 or so more miles to the base of the next high pass tomorrow. We'll see!
-Thanks for reading!
Must be nice to keep running into water... Beautiful and helpful!
ReplyDeleteHow was it geographically possible? A landslide is my guess.
ReplyDelete