We all woke up today to quite a bit of ice on our tents! It turns out if you sleep at 11,000 ft it’s cold! Hahaha. We knew we only had an “easy” 15 to do today, so I’m pretty sure we all slept in. In the morning as we were waiting for our sleeping bags and tents and rainflys to dry out, we saw some familiar faces come by who had gotten an early start!
Spooked and Mrs. Frizz, a cool couple from Portland who live about 4 minutes from where Claire and I and Dona live! (I met them a while back at that fire on the very cold day)
Nemo, who’s TINY pack I posted about in the blog yesterday. (He’s wearing it in this picture and you can’t even see it!! And he’s a small guy!!) Definitely the sharpest dressed on trail, while somehow doing 30+ mile days regularly and already 3 50+ mile days..
I was being extra lazy and hungry in the morning, so the others left while I finished cooking up some food and slowly put my things away. I left camp only minutes before 9am! I’m getting too comfy with these short days!! It was absolutely gorgeous out. It’s already about 8pm as I write this, so this entry will TRY and be short and sweet with lots o pics :)
Caught up with the youngins!!
First real creek crossing over Rock Creek. Julian nailed this one
It turns out that a buuuuuuunch of other hikers had left Lone Pine within a few hours of when we did on Monday; we were all playing the package pickup game. There definitely seems to be a lot more hikers around us than there typically would be in this part of trail. At times it’s a little overwhelming, but at the end of the day, we’re all out here enjoying this amazing landscape and wonderful trail, and we can all find solitude within when we just slow it down a bit :)
I don’t know about 95% of the people I’ve been meeting, which is kind of cool! Since the upcoming high passes basically dictate your mileage out here, I feel like I’ll be seeing a lot of the similarly paced people for the next few days. One of the newer people I’ve met is named Gnarwhal, I love his name! We hiked for about half an hour together today and had some good conversation.
Gnarwhal
The weight of my super heavy pack compared to the weight in the desert definitely made for slower miles and more/longer breaks. But as you can see from the pictures (which don’t even do these scenes justice), this is the PERFECT place to slow down and just enjoy the views! I can’t even start to describe the beauty out here. Magnificent trees left and right, beautiful white granite boulders all over, and tall, towering majestic mountains in the distance (and not so distance.)
Julian taking some steep switchbacks
Julian rock-hopping like a boss
Approaching Crabtree ranger station
Since it was so early in the day, we decided to start the Mt. Whitney Trail, an 8 mile trail that goes East from the PCT up and out to Whitney summit. Most people stay at Crabtree Meadows and leave their tents their and slackpack to the summit (leaving your tent, sleeping bag, and other non-smelly items in your tent and just take some snacks and water and warm layers in your backpack.
We decided to do a similar plan. We would leave bags with most of our food in the bear box at the Crabtree ranger station. Then, we’d take just the food we needed for dinner, breakfast tomorrow, and snacks for the Whitney Summit side trip in our bear canisters. We’d hike up another three miles with considerably lighter packs, to a high alpine lake above timberline called Guitar Lake. We’d camp there, and in the morning, leave our tents and bear cans there and hike a less than 5 miles to the summit!
And that’s exactly what we did :)
Almost 10 lbs of food left at the ranger station!
So BEAUTIFUL!!
A panorama of Timberline Lake
I did a nice scramble to get this shot.. Looking back down at Timberline Lake
After some amazing views, Julian and I arrived at Guitar Lake. There were a lot of people camping down on the grassy area near the lake, but to avoid mosquitos and lots of bugs, we opted to stay a bit higher and camp on the sandy patches around the granite boulders. We plopped down and ate some well deserved dinner. We both made HUGE burritos! Keglegs rolled up about a half our later. Since we’re right on the lake, it’s a little hard to take great pictures of it, but rest assured there’ll be a few tomorrow, and you’ll get to see how Guitar Lake got its name!
A pain of Guitar Lake, you can see other hikers way down below to left left on the grassy area
After we set up our tents and were just standing around admiring the dimming light and setting sun, we saw an all too familiar face roll up!!
It’s HAPPY!!
It’s such a good feeling when you see someone you haven’t seen for a long time on trail! I last saw Happy in Lake Isabella. He had stopped in Kennedy Meadows but not in Lone Pine, and it just so happens that our timing lined up with leaving Lone Pine to catch him, or rather for him to catch us! He IS getting off at Kearsarge Pass (after Forrester Pass), and we’re pushing all the way to Vermilion Valley Resort, but at least we’ll get to hike with him for a few days! It was a grand reunion :)
My tent looking good in the evening
A little Alpenglow
Well, it’s been SUCH a beautiful day! The heavy packs are evened out by the slower days and beautiful scenery. We’re camped waaaaaaay up at 11,500 feet, and I’m banking it’s going to be really cold tonight! It’s about 8:45pm and we’re planning on waking up at 4am, and leaving around 5am to summit Whitney, come back down, get back to our food at Crabtree and the PCT, and then continue on into the next climb to start our Forrester Pass approach. A MUCH harder and longer day than today, but we’re super stoked :) Tomorrow, we summit the tallest point in the mainland USA!
Thanks for reading!!
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