Finished at Whitney Portal

Pretty Wildflowers Trailside

 It's a quick packup and outa Dodge, we aim to get to the Whitney Portal for late lunch if possible, only 6.2 miles but 3300' downhill, nice little warmup hike for those going up to the peak. As always we're following a very pretty stream down and there are wild flowers trailside, a nice way to finish.

I waited till we got outa the no poop zone before heading off into the woods, that opportunity comes at Mirror Lake, a small and pretty body just off the trail, looks like a popular spot to take a dip and Elena avails, I'm washed up a bit and feeling much better now, a group of hikers stops by and the guys plunge in the water, one naked and without a care.

Quick Stop by a Waterfall

We're flying down the trail but keep stopping when hikers ask us questions or just stop to chat so we're losing a lotta time, the plan was not to eat anything else till we got down to Whitney Portal where there are rumors of a cafe and cold beer, hope we can squeeze that in before our pick up team arrives.

We're absolutely flying now, packs are light and we're conditioned, there are day hikers in our way but we charge on by them, one group hogs the path but I do a big rotation on my pole around a switchback and cut on the inside, the guy never saw me coming.

The trail seems to go on and on, Guthook said only 5.6 but don't believe this, we pass a beautiful waterfall just off the trail and make it down around 1:30pm, about 4 hours to do 6.2 miles, maybe we lost more time than we thought.

End of the Trail for Us

It's a beeline to the cafe but it looks more like a camp store, they have cold beer and drinks but no hot food, t
he manager tells us the close after Labor Day, bummer, it's gonna be chips and beer, we got the most important part anyway.

Outside in the sun and we see two of the women we'd seen before so we sit together to have a snack and a cold beer, another couple come over to join the impromptu party and swap stories of the trail before Igor and Leah arrive, it doesn't take long and I wish we had a bit more time to sit and absorb what we'd just experienced by leaving, bit sad.

One more thing to do before leaving is to drop off the nasty Wag Bags in a special container, then it's down the mountain the Lone Pine township. On the way Igor shows us a section of road where the movie "Tremors" was filmed, apparently here is where the giant worm came outa the ground.

2 Fellow Travelers 

In Lone Pine and Igor and Leah wanna go to a local museum while we get some real food, our first choice is a BBQ place but it's closed, so we find a cafe that looks half way decent and get wings and snacks and draft beer, mmmmmm, while phones sit on the chargers, still not much of a signal.

Then onto another cafe that has ice cream, the walls are decorated with movie posters, this was at one time a prime location for westerns, including Maverick and "How the West was Won".

The main drag through this area in US 395, it runs through all these small towns and there's always are fair amount of traffic, Igor heads North towards Independence and Bishop, there's not much in Independence at all, looks like it's dying, Bishop is larger and has a supermarket and we decide we might need a few things for dinner, including salad leaves and wine.

Old Western Saloon in Lone Pine

We get an architecture tour from Igor along the way, the area has a long volcanic history and Igor knows it well, we drive across a crater and can just see the outlines of the very old rim and some lava flows, the whole place is gonna erupt again at some point in the not too distant geologic future, no one knows exactly how long that will be though, some folks have apparently already sold their houses and left.
Back in June Lake and we have a nice home cooked dinner, Salmon and wet cold green salad with lotsa wine of course, all goes down very well as we while away the evening with a discussion on how to use and pack a dishwasher, the 2 Russians have the approach of throwing everything in, while Leah and I like to wash some things outside the machine.