Eric Baecht is a fantastic hike leader who kindly offered to drive us to Yosemite, so we rendezvoused with him at 7am and set off in two cars for Lone Pine, CA. LP will be our finishing point of the hike, the closest town to Whitney Portal, and where Misty will leave her car so that we'll have transportation for our ride home. I had contacted the local Chamber of Commerce, and with a small donation we could park her car in their back lot for the duration of our hike. From there it was a short drive to Independence, where I dropped off my last (3rd) resupply (where I'm hiking out to stay at a hotel for a night and Misty & Jo are having horse packers bring their resupply in to them on the trail.
A quick lunch at the famous Schat's Bakery in Bishop, a mail drop for our 1st resupply at the Mammoth Lakes Post Office, then on to Yosemite!!
The road kept rising higher and the mountains got closer and closer and finally we arrived at
It was magical, our arrival. Sharp peaks still dotted with snow seemed within arm's reach as we drove along the main road, high mountain tarns hosted hopeful fisherman at their shore's edge, and a couple of deer grazed unconcernedly as we drove past them on the road.
The first office we passed was the permitting Wilderness Office so on a wing and a prayer we stopped by to see if perchance we could change our July 3rd start to a tomorrow start. The ranger took our info, asked some questions, then just kept staring at her computer monitor, not ever really letting on that it was possible until her printer spat out a new permit! With our stomachs in our mouths we took our new permit, and walked out saying: "Damn! Now it's really really happening!"
We stumbled to our campsite, set up our tents in a daze, saying "tomorrow we start!"
I feel like I'm there with you but clean, in my living room with wine :-)
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