On the first of August we headed to the east fork campground half way between Bishop and Mammoth off the 395. This was a fantastic campground with tons of trees and a creek that passed the campground on the eastern edge. This is Rock Creek.
Because of the elevation its like perpetual spring up there so everywhere you turn theres wildflowers
Rock Creek Lake a little ways up the road from our campground
The next morning we woke early and went for a short hike in Little Lakes Valley a couple miles up the road from the campground. The Mosquito Flats trailhead is the highest trailhead in the Sierras at 10,000 something feet.
Little Lakes Valley is quite appropiately named
More wildflowers... this is called Indian Paintbrush... I think
Another "Little Lake"
This is Ruby Lake and our turn around point on our morning hike. All of the bodies of water up there are unbelievably crystal clear.
Nice shot of the creek on our way back down
In order to prepare for our 3am start time on the big hike morning Brent and I decided to wake very early the day before and go for an easy conditioning hike out of Horseshoe Meadow a short drive from Lone Pine where we stayed for the two nights before and one night after our Whitney trek
Brents hunting wabbits!
umm... more wildflowers. Those tall green plants in the background are called "Glacial Milk"
More pretty stuff along the horseshoe meadow hike
The next morning we started the hike up Whitney. This is Mirror Lake about 4 miles up the trail.
Keep in mind, this is August 4th. Note all the patches of snow. There are small bodies of water all over the place which make for awesome foreground
8.5 miles in and after ascending the famous 99 switchbacks, we made it to Trail crest at 13,600 ft. This is the ridgeline where the Whitney trail meets up with the John Muir Trail.
The view down into Sequoia National Park to the west at Trail Crest
Along the trail to the peak looking down at the glacial moraine infront of Whitney
We reached the top at 12:30pm, a full 9 and a half hours after we started the hike... and we still have 11 miles to go.
OKAY, this is Melvin the Marmot. He only lives at very high elevations like 14,500 ft. He is also known as a bear squirrel and is the largest rodent in North America.
On the way back down, we stopped and took some pics of the areas that we couldn't see on the way up. This area is called trail side meadow. There are no clever names up there.
This is the first and last meadow on the hike at about 3 miles up.
At this point I was so exhausted that I decided to put the camera away and just focus on getting down the hill. My feet hurt, my knees hurt, my back hurt, and the next day all I could think about was doing it again.
