| We did not get an early start over Bishop pass
today. Most likely this was due to our lack
of sleep on Friday night. We finally hit the
trail about 10 am.
We were only a few hundred feet below Bishop Pass at 11972’ so
it did not take long to reach the pass. I had
a good view down into the Owens Valley so I turned on my cell phone to see if I could get
a signal. The signal was strong so I made a
couple of calls. This would be the last time
I could get a cell signal until we crested Piute pass on our way back to Bishop.
The view from the pass down into the Dusy basin was incredible. I wish we could have made it over the pass the day
before, as this would be a very scenic place to camp.
We started down the trail toward the lakes and stopped for lunch along the
trail at a spot that had an exceptionally nice view.
We took our time hiking past the lakes and even dropped our packs a few
times to hike around and take photos. Dusy
Branch, which drains the lakes, was very pretty with some trees and meadows along the way. We were in no hurry and stopped to talk with
passing hikers along the way.
The descent from the lower section of Dusy basin provided numerous
opportunities for Brian to stop and take photos which was just fine with me as it gave us
time to enjoy the day. We needed to descend
down to Le Conte Canyon at 8750’ so there were quite a lot of switchbacks and it took
us much longer than either of us would have guessed.
It was getting very late in the afternoon by the time we reached the
junction with the JMT/PCT at the bottom of the Canyon.
Our legs were tired from the constant pounding of the descent but both of us
wanted to push on to at least Little Pete Meadows to make camp. We stopped at Little Pete Meadow to take some
photographs and refill our water bottles. We
both decided that even though we were tired we would make camp a little further at Big
Pete Meadows.
It was nearly 6 pm by the time we arrived at Big Pete Meadows. An outfitter that we ran into there pointed out an
excellent campsite near the water. We quickly
set up camp, started a fire, and cooked our dinner. This
was a good evening for relaxing around the campfire and it turned out to be a nice place
to sleep with no wind shaking the tent. The
next day promised to be one of our longest days as we intended on crossing Muir Pass and
camping at Evolution Lake. A quick check of
the map showed that this would be around 12 miles so we decided to get and early start in
the morning.
We
had hiked only about 8 miles from Bishop Lake to Big Pete Meadow but it had taken us the
better part of the day since we had stopped so much.
This was just fine with me as it really gave us the time to enjoy our hike
with lots of time for photos and visiting other hikers |
