HST Day 7
August 21, 2019
Trail Camp to Whitney Portal: 6.6 miles (6.8 w/ Lone Pine Lake detour)
I slept so well last night, despite waking up a few times during the night. We didn’t set an alarm for this morning, opting to wake up naturally, and I still woke up for the sunrise, which I’m really happy about. I could see the pink glow from outside the tent when I opened my eyes, and I knew I needed to grab my camera and explore a bit. I threw on more layers and scrambled around on the rocks around camp, trying to capture this gorgeous sight. Seeing Mt. Whitney glowing orange was just amazing to see.
After the colors faded, I went back to the tent and changed and finished packing everything up. I enjoyed our slower morning. Once we packed up, there was nothing left to do but hit the trail! It was pretty steep and rocky for the first 2 miles downhill. I did not envy the people making their way up as we were descending. There were some really gorgeous views of Consultation and Mirror Lakes and the mountains, of course. The Whitney area is just so pretty. It’s easy to see why people love it and are drawn to it, and do it over and over again even though the trail is difficult. After about 3ish miles, we reached Outpost Camp, where we took our last Wag Bag break and filtered some more water. Outpost camp was nice, but I prefer Trail Camp even though it is more exposed.
After our break, we descended a little more until we reached the turn-off for Lone Pine Lake. Since it’s only a tenth of a mile off-trail and we didn’t know when we’d be back, and because it was so hot, we decided to make the trip to see it. I’m so glad we did! I immediately stripped down and waded in. It was so cold, but felt so good! I went swimming on this trip way more than usual and I loved it! This lake was so awesome. It feels like it’s at the end of the world, like it could just drop off the side of the mountain.
After our dip, we hit the trail for the last 3 miles of hiking to the portal! The rest of the hike was exposed, hot, and desert-like. It reminded me of the descent from Kearsarge Pass. The nice thing though was that the trail was dirt! No more hard rock and granite steps. I love soft dirt beneath my feet. Before we knew it, we could see the portal road, and soon enough, we were in the parking lot! Dad and Riley greeted us, we took our picture with the sign, and then got MASSIVE bacon cheeseburgers and fries from the portal store, which were sooooooooo good. We’d only been hyping them up in our minds for the past few days... good thing they lived up to it. We cleaned up in the van as best we could before hitting the road home, a loooong drive back to the Bay Area. Good thing we stopped at Erick Schat’s for some treats, and along Tioga Road in Yosemite for some mountain views along the way :)
Some iPhone pics:
