"But your hair grows up, not down." - Animal Style
I can tell we are getting spoiled because the next day even GENIE slept in! I'm now losing track of how many mornings I've made myself coffee... Is this even hard anymore?
Again, Hardway and Boom decided to scramble hike a nearby mountain while Genie, Spearhead, and I slogged uphill talking family and backgrounds. Our destination was a gigantic meadow beyond one of our first big river crossings that required us to take off our shoes, hike up our pants, and wade through the fast-moving water. The meadow was the Mount Whitney base camp, complete with even a toilet that had no walls in the middle of the field, just a few pieces of sheet metal propped behind it. Weird and awesome.
There, we found a number of friends who had just come down from their climb, so we picked their brains diligently. Was it scary? Was it cold? Do you need an ice axe? What about micro spikes? What should we pack? They assured us that the climb was doable and well worth it while crazed chipmunks made repeated attempts to steal food from their open bear boxes.
Our crew hunkered down for an early dinner, as there were two tours planned. The 1am tour was attempting to summit by sunrise, and the 2:30 tour said there was no way they were waking up at 1am.
[Hardway's camping spot between two logs; Fey doing coffee and bagels; Genie sleeping in; all smiles!; Animal being inquisitive; Chilling at the top!; The view from below; more chill time at Mt. Whitney base camp]
