Wednesday, August 5-Race to Relax

We are supposed to be relaxing. It is vacation time. In Europe we were
traveling and by definition this means moving everyday, seeing the
sites. But, now we are vacationing, which to
me denotes a slower pace, time to relax, take your time doing things.
Yet, we also want to get into the backcountry as soon as possible.
This means driving to the trailhead, positioning cars, getting packed,
etc. In our case driving to the trailhead became a longer drive than
we were anticipating.
We need to enter the Sierra's from the east side of the range, south
of Bishop. To do this we were to drive over Hwy 89 from Mt Shasta to
Susanville. We were ready to turn off I-5 when a message board above
the freeway alerted use that a 40 mile stretch of Hwy 89 was closed
due to forest fire. This forced us down the west side all the way to
Yosemite and over Tioga pass, adding about 4-5 hours to our drive. I
drove until 1am, pulled into a rest stop 120 miles north of
Sacramento, slept until 6am, then climbed back into the driver's seat
and continued our southward journey. We got to Bishop about 3 instead
of 11. I was sure all the hiking permits for Kearsage Pass for the
next day would be gone, but not so. We got our permit, stopped at
Schatz Bakery for the best Cherry Turnovers on the planet, then headed
south for the hour drive to Lone Pine at the foot of Mt. Whitney. We
contacted a mountain shuttle service enroute and arranged to have them
meet us at Whitney Portal where we would leave our van, and then drive
us and our packs to Onion Valley where we would start our hike. The
arrangements were secured so we spent an hour in Lone Pine readying
our gear, buying a little more food and renting an additional bear can
to hold our 9 days of food. We did all our packing while parked in the
McDonalds parking lot. The temperature was about 96 degrees. It was
hard to pack long johns and down coats while sweating in the hot
evening, however the forcast was for snow above 11,000 ft, so we
prepared for cold temperatures.
Our shuttle service followed us to Whitney Portal, a 30 minute drive
out of town and a gain of 5000 ft. We parked the van, secured it for
it's 9 day wait, then settled into the car and were driven back to
Lone Pine, then up Hwy 395 16 miles and up 5000' vertical ft to Onion
Valley. We arrived after dark and using flashlights set up our tent,
cooked dinner and were to bed about ten. I was exhausted. But, I
hoped once we were in the backcountry we would have more time to sleep
and rest.

Chuck