Yesterday

 Yesterday we decided to stop at the nearby Visitor Center first, before setting off on our own.   If you know me, you'll know that I rarely do that.    I'd rather bumble about, see what we can see, and then stop to find out what it was.     For the second time in a row, I wished we'd just done that.     This time the young man on duty was admittedly a "fill in" for the regular ranger.     I asked a few questions and he shrugged his shoulders, charmingly, and said he didn't really know.    "Here, let me google it for you" was his answer.     This Visitor's Center is a very nice one with lots of displays and interpretive information.   Just not what I was looking for.

Luckily we've been here a few times before and had a pretty decent idea of what we wanted to do and see.   I hoped we'd get good directions and/or some new and interesting nuggets to explore but.....

    I'd packed a lunch so we set off into the Alabama Hills and up to Mt. Whitney's trailhead at about 8,000 ft.   It's always a beautiful ride and a good way to start off our time here in Lone Pine.

We decided to eat in the hills before heading up the Mountain in case there were no places to stop along the way or in case there was snow.  We were told that the road was "soft closed" at some point but we could go past the barricade if we were careful.    Alrighty then.

We drove around a bit looking for a good spot to stop for a while.

One tiny cactus was trying so hard to show us it's one huge pink blossom....look at me, look at me!  So I had to take it's picture....

 We always find ourselves looking for water and finally came across a very pretty, wild rose lined path down to the creek.   Lunch tasted pretty good there and the smells from the tiny pink flowers was divine.

Further along the stream was lined with huge old Cottonwood trees and rioted over rocky ledges.

After lunch was finished we drove up Whitney Portal road looking for the "soft closure" barricade, but found none. The road was closed just before the trailhead, which takes avid hikers up to the summit at over 14,000 feet, so we parked the Jeep and went the rest of the way on foot.   It was very cool, probably 60, but it felt and smelled wonderful.   Huge, butterscotchy scented Ponderosa pines and fresh mountain air were wonderfully invigorating.

don't you love this scary face in the bark?

The campgrounds were all still closed for the season and we pretty much had the entire area to ourselves.       We took our hiking poles and climbed around amongst the huge boulders looking for the water falls we knew to be there.

We came upon the rubble of a large and  probably recent landslide.   The creek was choked with fractured and splintered evergreen tree trunks and boulders.    Some of the trees look like they had virtually exploded on their way down, bark skinned off others, leaving shiny bare trunks.  

 One enormous boulder, probably 20 feet high, had obviously come barreling down the mountain side, over the creek and came to rest on end, against what was probably a very frightened  tree several hundred feet from the stream.   Luckily the campground was closed because it landed in site #8.   I wanted Dave to stand beside it, you know, for scale - but he wouldn't do it!

After marveling at the tree's strength and wondering how long it would be able to hold up that boulder, we continued along the to find the waterfall, icy at the top but free flowing at it's base.

Today we had a wonderful afternoon driving around the dry Owen's lakebed looking for birds!   But, the internet is getting very v e r y  s l o w right now so I'll tell you about that next time.