Hiking the High Sierra
The High Sierra wasted very little time in convincing me that I had really left the desert behind.
I left Kennedy Meadows on Day 63 of my hike -- the morning of June 28 -- along with a short, laid-back fellow named Kuhrt (who had been kind enough to wait for me during my extra day of trying to deal with the foot swelling). At 10 AM, we were hiking through the morning heat in Kennedy Meadows' broad fields of sagebrush and other chaparral scrub, and watching a rattlesnake slither across the road in front of us. Four hours and 2,000 feet of climbing later, we were being pelted with hail in a pine forest, listening to thunderstorms roll across the western sky and halting for an early dinner rather than braving the lightning risk of the lush, grassy alpine meadows ahead of us.
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As an addendum, I've uploaded two new photo galleries with images and further trail details from this section. Go check out Mount Whitney for my July 1 side trip, and Miles 767-790 for the trip over Forrester Pass and beyond. There's also a new film in the Movies gallery, although I make no promises about its effects on your sanity.
I left Kennedy Meadows on Day 63 of my hike -- the morning of June 28 -- along with a short, laid-back fellow named Kuhrt (who had been kind enough to wait for me during my extra day of trying to deal with the foot swelling). At 10 AM, we were hiking through the morning heat in Kennedy Meadows' broad fields of sagebrush and other chaparral scrub, and watching a rattlesnake slither across the road in front of us. Four hours and 2,000 feet of climbing later, we were being pelted with hail in a pine forest, listening to thunderstorms roll across the western sky and halting for an early dinner rather than braving the lightning risk of the lush, grassy alpine meadows ahead of us.
( Collapse )
As an addendum, I've uploaded two new photo galleries with images and further trail details from this section. Go check out Mount Whitney for my July 1 side trip, and Miles 767-790 for the trip over Forrester Pass and beyond. There's also a new film in the Movies gallery, although I make no promises about its effects on your sanity.
;-)