Saturday, June 13—Day 52

Didn’t sleep so well last night, despite camping early. The wind picked up at night and made the walls of my tent flap back and forth. This is not unusual, but the sound was similar to that of footsteps crunching on the pinecones and needles around my tent. I kept expecting to see lumbering shadows cast on my rain fly, or a large, furry head pop up under my vestibule to grab my pack in its teeth. I call this “Bearanoia.”

We made it through the night un-beared and left camp at 6:30 am to put in some tough miles. I’m not great at climbing, to be honest, and climbing past 10,000 feet seems much harder. It’s worth noting that Jerry, who hikes normally at a slower pace, is way better at uphill stuff than me. To this end, on bigger climbs I usually fall back and shuffle uphill like an old man, meeting Tom and Jerry at the top. When it comes to downhill or level ground, or even slightly uphill hiking, I am like lightning, though. Rest assured.

We made it to Crabtree Meadow, a gorgeous field of grass with a river flowing through and snow-capped mountains in the distance. One of those mountains is Mt. Whitney, which I’m told is the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States. We’re going to climb it tomorrow. It’s not part of the trail, but we’re here, and close as we’ll ever be.

We parted ways with Steve, who is not climbing Whitney, and set off on the trail to Guitar Lake, which lies at the base of the mountain. We set up camp 2 miles short in a rocky field, made dinner down by the river that runs alongside the trail (I can hear the water pounding) and set our bear canisters some distance away from our tents. Tomorrow is going to be a big day. Goodnight.