For What It’s Worth - 95 Days and counting
It began to rain shortly after our lunch stop, pretty heavy at first, then it tapered off to a nice steady drizzle, just enough to keep our gloves, helmet visors and ourselves wet. At first we dreaded it, but after we were both in our rain gear, it need up being a nice ride. It cooled off a lot which was nice, except that our helmet visors kept fogging up from the heat off of our heads interacting with the cool raindrops. We both enjoyed the next few hours just riding south slowly through the mountains once again, taking it easy.
We decided to camp near Lake Tahoe at another lake to avoid the crowds, which I believe was called Fallen Leaf Lake. It was over 6000 feet in elevation near the south end of Lake Tahoe near the Cal-Nevada border. We thought mate we could have some luck fishing there, but did not experience nary a nibble for the two days we stayed there. We were very close to Lake Tahoe and we had some spectacular views while we were there. It was quite nice to be in the great outdoors once again and away from people pretty much. It was nice except it was raining for some of the time there.
It was an enjoyable two days and we knew only had two remaining days left on this road trip when we departed there. We had some serious miles to travel before getting home. We both wanted to go to Mt Whitney, so we pointed our bikes in that direction and headed south once again in the rain. After a couple of hours riding in the rain, it cleared up and ended up being a really nice day to be on the road. A couple of hours away, we spotted Mt Whitney on the horizon, still blanketed in snow for most of the summit. Remembering that we were seeing just the north side of the mountain, which get little sun, we knew that was the reason the winter snow was still present so late in the summer season. It was a beautiful sight knowing we could see our destination as it creeped up slowly, getting closer and closer as we rode on.
Arriving at the small community of Lone Pine, we were basically at the base of My Whitney. I believe we refueled then knowing that we would need to hit the road early to get back to the Inland Empire by the close of the next day. Filling our bikes to the brim with gasoline, we headed up the road not realizing that it would take some time to get up the mountain to our destination. As we started hitting the switchbacks with full fuel tanks, I was thinking maybe it was a mistake to fill our bikes up with all that additional weight as we threw our bikes back and forth as we slowly and steadily climbed skyward towards the white summit ahead of us. At 8000 feet we reached the Whitney Portals, just 4000 or so feet below the actual summit. We stopped to take in the sights and realized it had gotten quite cool already. We decided this was close enough to the summit for us so we looked for a spot to make camp for our final night in the wild.
It was so cold, Billy said he would sleep near the campfire to keep it going and to also take advantage of the heat coming off from it. I figured I had a tent and I was going to use it, especially if it snowed overnight. It had been another long day of being in the saddle and on the road, and the sun was dropping quickly on the east side of the mountain, so we hit the sack quite early and I fell asleep immediately. I did some commotion a few hours later when Billy apparently got too close to the fire and his sleeping bag caught fire just a little. I couldn’t help but have a good chuckle over it all knowing I was happily sleeping like a baby, warm and cozy in my tent.
Continued…
Simple Joys of Life & Words of Wisdom
“Count you age by friends, not years.
Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
- John Lennon
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Snoopy asks that you please… “Bark Less and Wag More!”
Until next time… Be Good!
- cb
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