We aren't perfectly situated for morning sun (another way of looking at this is that our planning was perfect but the sun just rose in the wrong place), but we still get sun while getting everything packed up. We're underway by 8:15. Today is almost entirely down, down, down. We start in light forest on a nice clear path with good views back; easy going. As we get lower the trees get denser until we're clearly in a pine forest. We pass a few lakes and, at Lower Pine Lake, see the first people we've seen since day one (not counting that guy we barely noticed on day two). At Lower Pine Lake we also get close to the crazy striped mountain we've been watching the whole way down, play a bit in the striped boulders, and collect a small souvenir rock.
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| Honeymoon Lake with the Striped Mountain in the background |
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| striped boulders in front of Striped Mountain |
After a bit more through the forest we hit the main descent. The day you hike out is never particularly great, but this last descent on an old mining road, switchbacking slowly down the mountain in the sun, is really not something to think more about. We do see some cool flowers and a great tree stump along the way. The last bit to the trailhead is through a nice mixed forest. We find that our car is still there, nothing inopportune has happened to it and it starts; yay! We change clothes, load everything in the car, and drive off.
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| looking down onto the end of the road and Pine Creek trailhead |
We stop in Bishop for lunch at the same place we had dinner the night before we left (greg has been thinking about the pie that he didn't eat at that dinner), do some shopping and then drive to Mammoth Lakes where we check into our hotel and take long, much appreciated showers. At both lunch and dinner we end up eating way more than usual... what a huge surprise! :-)
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