About 3:30 AM the wind whipped the tent until it sounded like something might snap. Then the rain came followed by a large crack of lightning a short two-counts later a deep boom of thunder rolling through Le Conte Canyon. Head lamps came on as other hikers scurried to get their tent flies up. The storm continued for twenty minutes. Luckily the intervals between lightning and thunder grew until we lost sight of the lightning and only heard faint echoes of thunder. Canyons are dramatic stages with crazy quick storms pushing through. And then the quiet dominated.
Our morning revealed no damage not even a branch down. But there was water to sop up and to wring out. At its worst, it was annoying. At 9:30 am we pack out, this would be our latest start. Eight AM is usual.
We continued downhill on moderate terrain. At a small creek a guy was squeezing water through his Sawyer. I ask how far we were from the hordes of mosquitoes we had been hearing about. He said the distance was zero. I stood unfazed by bites and truly amazed because mosquitoes always love me. We, too, needed to filter water, but decided to get closer to our turn-off on the Bishop Pass trail which came up a little quicker than we expected. We had questions about a good place to camp. We were heading from a low spot of 8,750 feet out of the canyon, into two major squiggles on the map indicating switchbacks and major uphill.
We had heard that Dusy Valley was good for camping but was over-taken by mosquitoes. We believed that perhaps our mosquito luck was running out, so we should camp before the valley. There was a ranger station a few feet across the trail from the turn off. The ranger appeared to be absent. Then I saw a guy sitting on one of the chairsin front of the cabin. I walked up and took the other chair hoping to ingratiate myself to gain some information about Bishop Pass and water. The only information I gained was how comfortable and utilitarian a chair is. I longed to sit for an hour.
I took a guess that there was water just down the road. I gathered our bottles and filter. And there it was a large campsite with a stream. Robin came down and helped. And then we stepped on to our last section heading onto Bishop Pass Trail and up the first of two switchbacks. It seemed endless, but at the plateau we had nice level granite. It was a bit early to stop, but we weren’t sure we’d find something this flat and then would end up climbing for another couple hours. We set up camp. I walked ahead and right away found a creek. Beautiful. There was a mix of trees and granite with enough open views to watch the skies.
Mountain Peace 