Day Fifteen: I Can't Drive...35?

We leave Josh's in the wee morning hours--around 7 or so--and make our way back up the state towards Lone Pine, CA. Lone Pine is located right in between Death Valley (the lowest point in the US) and Mt. Whitney (the highest point in the lower 48 states). We arrive in Lone Pine around 11am, with no permits to climb Mt. Whitney and no idea where to get them if there are any available. The visitor center sounded like a good plan, and we arrive just in time to enter the lottery for available permits to climb the mountain. With much undo suspense, we receive overnight permits for the next two days.

However, no one wants to hang around Lone Pine for the night, so without much hesitation, the car keeps its heading and finds our campsite for the night: Yosemite. On the way into Yosemite, we had to drive through Tioga Pass, which is at 9945 feet above sea level. Well, my car was way overloaded, way overheated, way over on an oil change, and way underpowered to make the climb needed to pass through Tioga Pass. With the gas pedal fully depressed, the car refused to go more than 30 miles an hour. Many of the cars that were passing us on the uphills, we had passed earlier doing twice their speed, now they were doing twice ours. Damn you 1.5 liter Mazda engine! Yeah, it was slow...

Once through Tioga Pass, we drove straight to the campsite and prepared for a quick little jaunt through the woods. Again, thanks to Backpacker Magazine's "Wildest Day Hikes" info, we avoid all the crowds and hike straight to North Dome--an easy 8+ mile round trip--and enjoy a full panoramic view of Half Dome, El Captain, and the rest of the valley. After a hour long, mostly quiet sit on the North Dome, we head back to our campsite at Porcupine Creek. Here was the veiw from North Dome:



Tom and Jeff cook up some Ramen and I attempt to read some before bed when suddenly: BEAR!! Tom yells and looks into the forest where a pair of eyes is watching us from the bush. We stare, it stares right back, we stare more...this goes on for a full minute before finally...the eyes bend down and pick up some grass in their mouth and start chewing it. Damn Mule deer! Anyhow, bedtime came not a minute too late.