Day 61 - Black Canyon South Rim

Black Canyon South Rim looks over the same gorge as the North Rim but has a few especially scenic viewpoints that captured my imagination, causing me to spend all afternoon and night there. The best viewpoint to me was of the Painted Wall-- the highest cliff in Colorado at 2300 feet and marked with curving horizontal lines formed by ancient lava flows. If it wasn't for the heavy poison ivy covering the canyon bottom and routes down, I would've hiked down and camped at the river tonight. The painted wall is on the right side of the pics below.

The second highlight was Warner Point. You had to hike 3/4 miles to this point, the highest cliff to river point in the park at 2775 feet down. I climbed fifty feet down an edge and then up a spire floating out in the gorge for epic views. Some Danish boys climbed out seeing me there and then an older couple adventured out with me guiding them. I was happy to have lead people out beyond their natural stopping point.

The third and final highlight was a small scramble out to private cliff edge (safer than it sounds) to watch the sunset over the canyon. My first location was back at the painted wall but this was too dark. My second location at "sunset point" seemed like a good choice and it was.

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Day 168 - JMT Pinchot Pass

The mountains appeared like sand dunes in the soft early light. We drank our coffee, packed up our gear and set off up the hill toward Pinchot Pass. Not a mile up the trail, we encountered another sensational High Sierra lake, Lake Marjorie, and the peaceful reflections off the lake's surface. Mountains of white and red and grey and black surrounded us-- all surfaces seemingly from another planet, but welcoming us this morning on Earth. Jeff and Steve and a lady named Tara joined us at the picturesque summit of Pinchot Pass. We remained there for a complete hour, enjoying stories of hiking triumph and Jeff's difficult but rewarding experiences as a search and rescue captain. Reluctant to leave the 12,000 foot pass, but begged forward by the slowly descending trail, we hiked on. The wonderful landscape in the background, with layers of blues, and browns and whites, appeared like an Ansel Adams masterpiece, and the trail a magical doorway to its frame. The sce

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 150 - Big Sur Hearst Castle

Big Sur coastline continues in its beauty. Elephant seals practice sparring. They make a snore-like belly belch sound while sparring and then after ten seconds later lie back down to snooze on the sand. The Hearst Castle is an incredibly luxurious complex on top of a high hill overlooking the ocean and coastal mountains. The feel was Mediterranean, royal and magical. The outdoor pool had a Roman feel-- on a hill, in California. Strangely awesome. But the indoor pool was the tops-- like a Turkish kings dream moment come to life. I found a beautiful campground close to the castle and stopped for the night.

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