Chicken Spring Lake to Bushcamp
15.5 miles
Mile 766.3
Absolutely no sleep last night. I’m guessing it was the altitude…camping at 11,500 ft was a silly idea, but it was neat being on the lake.
Swift had started a small fire by the time I crawled from my tent. It was freezing out, so I was glad for it. Diva never made it to camp last night, so I’m a bit worried. Best bet is that he threw in the towel early rather than put in another 20 mile day.
We set out around 8. I was the last to leave camp, but passed Spikes before long. The day started with a climb to a ridge that offered a great view of the alpine lake we’d camped at. I imagine in July it would have been a great swimming hole, but we’re too early for that.
Pushing on, I ran into Swift chilling on a log shortly after entering Sequoia National Park.
We set off together down into a valley. Around lunch time our progress was halted by a river, which we had to ford.
Safely on the other side, we took a break to dry out our feet while munching on some snacks.
From there we had a short climb followed by a descent that ended with a crazy steep snow covered cliff we had to navigate down. It was a butt clincher for sure!
Finally we made it to Whitney Creek. We planned on camping there due to it’s close proximity to the Mt Whitney trail junction. Tomorrow we’d wake up super early to summit the mountain before the sun softens the snow.
We spent the rest of the afternoon laying around in an awesome meadow near the creek.
Around 6 Mike showed up! We were stoked to see him, as he had to put in some big miles to catchup.
We all hung out for a bit before crashing early. I set my alarm for 1:30…it would be a cold sleepy sleepy start to our Mt Whitney summit.
Cheers!