Early breakfast at the "diner" across from the hotel, then into the car and back up to Whitney Portal. We find a decent parking spot (we hope), put on the packs, and head up to the store to meet our shuttle. He's early, so we get underway 20 minutes earlier than planned. Long drive to Onion Valley trailhead (~2'800m), goodbye to the shuttle driver, on with the packs and
off we go!
The sun is shining like hell and we start our route up, up. We encounter a ranger in the first five minutes, show our permit, and chat for a bit and then continue up, up the trail. There are loads of people coming down with big packs, so, for the hell of it, we start counting the people coming down with big packs (final tally by the end of the day's hiking: 90!).
Up we go, on a good trail, under clouds after not too long (nice to have it a bit cooler!), up, up, up towards the pass. Nice lunch spot on a big flat rock with a view of Kearsarge Pass (3'569m) and the final bit up. Nice leftover breakfast burrito in the sun as lunch. As we're finishing, the threatening cloud over the peak above us starts making thunder. grrrr. We decide that it's probably a good idea idea to make haste towards the pass.
There's no high speed going with the heavy packs and the altitude, but we make decent time and there's no weather there when we arrive. Still, there *is* thunder nearby, so we don't hang out and make haste back down the other side. The lakes (~3'320m) that are our destination are in clear view (along with a lot of other nice stuff!) and we start scouting likely tent spot locations as we descend. The thunder continues, we feel bad for the folks who are still climbing to the pass (more than a few), but we make it down to the first lake without weather-related incident.
There's a great spot at the top of the lake that even has a bear box, but there are three or four tents there already, so we move on. We continue to the bottom of the first lake, cross over to the other side, and head up to a likely looking area we had seen from above. Andrea finds a decent spot, but we keep looking even though we know full well that weather is coming. Finally we decide that's the spot and start pitching the tent as the first raindrops fall. We set a new record in getting the tent up and our stuff (and us!) inside it. And none too soon. About 30 seconds after the last backpack is in the tent, the sky breaks open and we have heavy rain and hail. Some fun times dealing with drops from the roof (the seams on the rain fly are no longer completely waterproof) and water attempting to run under the tent on greg's side.
Eventually the heavy stuff stops and it settles down to a gentle rain. This goes on, with the occasional stop, for a few hours. Luckily the drops from the ceiling stop after the heavy rain and hail (really luckily: we were considering heading back out to the trail head if the tent couldn't take rain at all). We do enjoy a nice hot beverage in the tent while waiting for things to settle down. After the rain mostly stops, we pump water and start thinking about dinner. At some point the sun even comes out for a while and we enjoy a moment sunshine and rain sprinkles.
After dinner we do a bit of reco' for the next day (the trail-less steep shoulder we were thinking of crossing doesn't look like a good idea), and then head back to the tent since it's getting dark. In the tent we plan the next day and think a bit further to be sure we're happy continuing with the unfortunate weather situation.
Dinner: Patagonia red bean chili. Pretty tasty once the beans stopped being crunchy!
Track:
Stats: 8.4km, 780m up, 260m down
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