Mt. Whitney
8th
Our theme was:
"If you don't know where you are going,
you'll end up somewhere else." - Yogi BerraI didn't bring my good detailed map of the area,
so it made things very exciting and unpredictable ....
and it went with our theme.We wandered up the east side of the Sierras (Rt. 395)
put over 1,600 miles on my car.
Places I remember include:
Lone Pine, Big Pine, Mammoth, Lee Vining, Saddle Bag ...
Hit many streams and lakes that gave us lots of trout action.
Camped each night on top of a different mountain, over 10,000 ft,
and had all the beautiful places to ourselves ... amazing.
(it's the end of the season so no one was there!!)
No artificial lights, no unnatural sounds, fantastic views.Tons of wildlife spottings, vivid and numerous shooting stars,
beautiful sunsets and sunrises and very little sleep.
(we averaged about 3 hours of sleep per day.)
We agreed that it was one of the best excursions we ever had,
although we both realized we were really tired near the end.
("We would be really having fun, if we weren't so tired")We caught lots of fish everywhere we went,
but even if we didn't catch a thing it would have been great.A moment:
sitting along the Owens River ...
a glorious fast dark green Sierra river, difficult access,
very steep cliffs dropping down to small beaches.
Crawled down to a fine spot.
Basking in the warm of the sun ... lazily casting my line.
("We would be really cold, if we weren't so tired")
Started singing a song out loud, (I rarely do that)
cast my line again, it straightens out ... then wham!!
Caught a beautiful huge fat brown trout ... what a fight!
It was exciting, inspirational ... and funny.
She was beautiful ... and I let her go ...Another one of the many highlights:
At night on top of a mountain near Mammoth
(that my car somehow found by driving down a very
rugged road/trail.) We make it for sunset ...
Night slowly and majestically creeps in ...
deep reds and purples silhouette the mountain ranges before us.
As the night takes over,
the stars never looked closer or brighter.
I wandered the mountain forest aimlessly for hours
alone without a flashlight using starlight to guide me.
Very cool ... at times spooky and exciting.
Much later, Nitz (my climbing buddy) and I crawled into our bags
and watched the universe give us its show.
awesome.
("We would be really inspired, if we weren't so tired")
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