Day 15 - Joshua Tree part 3

Waking at 6:30 in the morning to get a jump on the day before the crowds arrive has its benefits, but it also has its costs in that you lose that needed hour of sleep that gets you to your fullest.

The benefit of getting up early was nearly spoiled as 10 cars pulled into the parking lot of the Barker damn trail just as I was preparing to leave. 30 Koreans young and old ran quickly to the Barker dam trail but luckily the Wall Street Mill trail, a second trail to a gold mine was also leaving from this parking lot so I took the alternate path.

After completing both trails in this area I decided to drive north on some dirt roads up to the wilderness of Joshua tree. There was an unofficial trail/path leading up to Queen mountain, a tall rocky peak in the north part of the park, so I set out to find the path of the mountain. The trail became rocky and steep but I made it up the mountain, and as I was going up I looked down to see two people behind me pointing at me and following me up the trail. I continued on the trail on the mountain top but it didn't get to the summit of the mountain instead the trail followed around a bend. I followed the trail for 20 minutes to a wild place of rocky peaks all around me-- true wilderness. I turned back, took a photo and then ran into the couple that had followed me up. They commented on the perfect hiking day. It was.

I was tired of hiking at this point and it was only 2 o'clock and there were some basketball games on that I wanted to watch so I drove to the Joshua tree saloon and had a Baja chicken special with broccoli and a salad and a couple Lagunitas beers while I watched Duke win. Then halfway through the Wisconsin Kentucky game I decided to leave. The sun was about to set and tonight was my last night in Joshua Tree for this magic time of day.

I drove into the park and stopped at a large field of Joshua trees. I put on my headphones, turned on Led Zepplin IV and as Stairway to Heaven began to play, walked towards the sun.

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Day 171 - JMT Guitar Lake

Wow, was it cold this morning. After waking up and eating breakfast, we packed up quickly and found this scenic sunspot to warm our bones. We had a short eight mile hike to Guitar Lake today, the last viable campsite before the five mile hike to the 14,505 foot-high Mount Whitney summit. We stopped at this lovely meadow and looked for bears. We only saw deer but were able to enjoy the incredible peace of the far mountain range. Steady hiker traffic, the most of the entire trip, including one group of twelve elder hikers, passed us as we rested, and jumped! Views of Mount Whitney finally came into view at Timberline Lake, a quaint lake where camping was unfortunately forbidden. We passed a group of twenty Taiwanese hikers. The summit of Mount Whitney looked heavily defended when viewed from below. We were going to wake up tomorrow at 230am and hike up to the summit for sunrise-on-the-top-of-the-world*. The thought of this dark task was a bit foreboding. We made it to Guitar Lake by

Day 172 - JMT Mount Whitney

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Day 170 - JMT Forrester Pass

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