Day 18 - July 29

About 11 miles.  From Tyndall Creek to Guitar Lake.

I didn't get much sleep last night.  I think something I had for dinner didn't agree with me.  Felt yucky all night and just couldn't get comfortable.  Then I couldn't turn my mind off - starting to think about all the things I have to do when I get home.  I hate when that happens!  Slept for about 2 hours I think - from 3 until 5.  Up at 5 and hot drinks @ 5:30.  Didn't eat much for breakfast - cream of wheat just wasn't appetizing.  Oh well - suck it up, princess.............

Another really stark but beautiful day.  We started climbing right away - up and over the Bighorn Plateau.  We got out of the trees of the Tyndall Creek area pretty quickly and into wide open spaces.  The trees that we did see today have a pretty tough life.

The two young Alexes took the opportunity to hike up this little knoll to gain an even better view of the surrounding area.  It didn't take them long to hike up & back and then catch up to us down the trail.
  

The trail then had some ups and downs toward the crossing of Wallace Creek and the junction with the High Sierra Trail.  The HST joins the JMT to the summit of Mount Whitney.  Then it was up about 600 feet followed by a bit of down and then some flattish terrain.  It truly is amazing landscape - no underbrush whatsoever - just stony desert and some pretty big trees, including lots of dead trees both still standing in place and fallen.  There are some pretty artistic-looking dead trees.  A great coffee table book would be "Dead Trees of the JMT" - if only I were a decent photographer......

Here are a few of Smokey's pictures, which give a better idea of the artistic merit of some of these dead trees.

The ups and downs continued until we came to a significant trail junction.  The PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) continues south towards Mexico, and the JMT turns east toward Mount Whitney.  We had lunch at the junction and noted the large number of hikers headed in the direction of Mount Whitney.  This is definitely a point of congestion as everyone heads for Mount Whitney.  There are a limited number of campsites within striking distance of Whitney, so pretty much everyone is headed to the same place (Guitar Lake) on this pre-summit day.  In order to secure our desired campsite for our relatively large group we sent the greyhounds ahead with a few extra tents - Alex, Alex & Mike T.  Thank you, gentlemen!  We got a primo campsite!  Meanwhile the rest of the group followed along at a leisurely pace and arrived probably an hour later.  We had two more big climbs - the first one up to Timberline Lake (with a good view of Mount Whitney)......

  And the second climb up to Guitar Lake

We encountered a lot of people on the trail today.  While most of them were headed to camp at Guitar Lake, some were pushing right through to Whitney today because the forecast for tomorrow was still for a big storm.  We stuck with our plan, though, and hoped for the best tomorrow.  An early dinner and to bed by about 7:30.  We had a bit of rain shortly after we hit the sack, but mostly a clear night.  When I got up during the night, I could see many headlamps on the route up to the summit.

Stats for the day:  About 11 miles, 2400 feet up, 1780 feet down.  Elevation at camp is about 11,500'.