** June 24, 2008 - An ambling hike to Lone Pine Creek - the Great Western Divide.

The comfy beds enveloped us and dragged us immediately down into speedy and complete sleep – Zonk! and we were gone.  

We got up about 7:30 for breakfast (scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes cooked in the shape of a bearpaw, of course) by one of the staff.  It tasted expecially absolutely delicious up in the clear, clear air of the High Sierras.  

I lounged on the porch for a while finding (I thought) I was not as stiff and sore as I thought I’d be after the 9 hour hike yesterday.  Diana took the opportunity to catch a bit more sleep. 

Diana's photo of me - relaxing on the Bearpaw porch 

Marmot in the morning

In the lazy fashion of second day hikers, we headed off on a shorter (downhill) hike towards Hamilton Lake.  We would make up our minds about an hour into the hike whether we wanted to hike to the Lake or stop at Lone Pine Creek. 

Initially we were in a wooded section of trail; however, after that, we were pretty exposed to the sun, granite.  In some places, the trail was almost carved into the granite of the mountains.  

Views

Views

Cirque - amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion

Trail and Indian paintbrush

Diana's photo - me amidst little pink gilia

As we were not carrying heavy packs, we could take more time for scenery and photos.  As Diana said: “[the photos] seem to fall into categories of views: vistas, animals, flowers, trees, mountains, mountains, mountains, streams, more flowers and more views.” 

Wild geranium and crimson columbine

Yellow meadow orchid

Scarlet penstemon

Checkerbloom

Chinese Houses

The views were just amazing – every turn of the head provided another fantastic panorama of the Great West Divide.  Unfortunately these were somewhat hazy in the distance from a forest fire burning somewhere far below us.  

Views

Diana and the Great Western Divide

Views

I found my head swiveling up, down, around, over - becoming dizzy with the movement - tried to get representative photos but so hard to take it all in while concentrating on camera settings and a shutter.  I eventually gave up and just drank in the views.

Views

Views

Views

Little Waterfall

Blue Bellied Lizard

Views

Trail and views

Views

At Lone Pine Creek we stopped for lunch (delicious tri-tip sandwiches with home made bread, and a brownie) and a bit of a rest.  The achy stiffness from yesterday was starting to make itself known, especially the knees – with an hour of downhill climbing.  

There is a bridge over the creek (fortunately) as a previous bridge wreck is in the rocky gorge just below the current bridge.  It is a long way down and gives you somewhat of a shiver thinking how fragile a piece of steel really can be.

Old Lone Pine Bridge wreck

As the creek is the end of the downhill part of the hike, we “set a spell” and simply enjoyed the rest, the views, the wildflowers and the restful sunshine.  After a couple of hours of lounging amidst the beauty, we decided not to carry on to Hamilton Lake (it was all uphill).  

Great Western Divide

How high the sky

?Canyon live forever?

Pine at Lone Pine

Great Western Divide

Little Blue Lizard

We picked up our legs and puffed and wheezed our way back to Camp, hot showers and another delicious dinner of spicy pork tenderloin, vegetables, and baked potatoes piled with sour cream and bacon, followed by blueberry cake.  (thanks to Diana for the record of this and for the memory of the absolutely obnoxious couple who took every opportunity to brag about their past travels).  

“After a while we staggered outside to the massive rock, still warm from the sun, where marmots and lizards scurry, with red penstemon flags peeking between the stone, we enjoyed the transparent red blaze” and took another early night.