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Thursday: Drove to the Sierras! Went up with Paco and Karen. Ate dinner at some restaurant in Lone Pine. Camped at Big Pine. (Now $5). |
| Friday: Hiked up North Fork of Big Pine Creek, hitting Black Lake, Fifth Lake, Sam's Meadow (stopped short of glacier due to lack of time), and hit 3rd, 2nd and 1st Lakes on way back. Swam in 5th Lake. 1,2,3 and 5 Lakes were AWESOME! Turquoise and with great backgrounds. Sam's Meadow is the coolest alpine meadow I've ever seen, and Lon Chaney's Meadow is the best sub-alpine meadow I've ever seen. Big Pine N. Fork rates a 10! We did about 18 miles on Friday. Stumbled onto Keough Hot Springs and did the hot spring thing. It was great! We had the best pool to ourselves (except for a few good ole boys watching from their pick-ups). Ate dinner in Bishop at Sizzler. Went up toward South Lake in Mtns. above Bishop and found NO CAMPSITES ANYWHERE! All campgrounds were full. So went all the way back to Big Pine and camped there again. |
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| Saturday: went to Bishop and ate breakfast at the shi-shi restaurant there. Zipped on over to Bodie and with 10 zillion Frenchmen, did the ghost town thing. Stopped at Mono Lake to see the flies and tufa. Did the June Lake loop, and Mammoth loop. Did a 2.5 mile hike to Inyo Craters. Did the Hot Creek thing. Checked out Convict Lake(see Karyn at left)...how could I have never done this before? The most spectacular basin in the sierras! But campground again looked full. Checked out McGee Creek. Another spectacular canyon and the road looked "right". Really step, kind of narrow, and not much travelled. And the campground was only half full on a Saturday night! And what a campground! Best campground I've ever stayed at. We cooked dinner over an open file grill after we set up camp for first time before sunset! |
Sunday: we zipped on down to Bishop and ate breakfast at a hole-in-the wall on the northern outskirts of town. Turned out to be the best food of the trip. Fritotas! They're great! Then we went to Independence and up to Onion Valley. A 10 mile round trip to Slim Lake. Karen dove into Gilbert Lake, and I did Matlock Lake, and I and Paco dove into Slim Lake, a little turquoise and orange (Yosemite colors) lake at the foot of some major partially snow-capped peaks. Zipped on south and Karen diverted us to see Fossil Falls Quick-time Movie, a way-cool lava canyon with towers resemling black bones and 100 foot sheer cliffs. Both coming and going on this trip, we passed a large (currently 11,000 acre) fire engulfing our PCT backpack of the previous week, and the sun was a deep shade of red through the giant smoke cloud on each passage. Amanda passed the 100K mark on this trip. |  Jef at Thin Lake |
 Hot Creek |  Paco and Karyn above Lava Falls |  Jef in Hot Creek |
 Jef and Karyn at Hot Creek |
 Jef hiding in shadows |  Paco and Jef |
 Mono Lake photo by Karyn |  Jef's hand by brine flies photo by Karyn |
 Paco at Matlock Lake |  Jef watches as Paco braves the cold at Thin Lake |  Paco with cold feet |
 Jef at first lake |  Jef in Matlock Lake |  Karyn at Matlock Lake |
 Karyn in first lake |  Karyn at Matlock Lake |  Karyn at Matlock Lake |
 Karyn at Matlock Lake |  Jef and Karyn at first lake |  Jef at Independence courthouse |
 3rd Lake |  Jef and Paco above 3rd Lake |  Karyn and Paco at our Big Pine camp |