At this juncture, WE RULED THE WORLD! This was our "Look Mom, Two Passes In One Day" situation thing. Earlier that day we cranked over Mather Pass from Lower Palisade Lake, and here we are on top of Pinchot Pass, laaaate in the day as the last rays of golden sunshine splashed our stinky bodies. It was a good feeling. It's much better to be on top of a pass than grunting up the endlessly steep switchbacks in desperately thin air to get there. Honest. We had about an 18 mile day this day and more thousands of feet of elevation gain than I could calculate with the world's largest computer. In this photo, that's Surfer Dave, Buck Forester.com, and Jim S., Inc.®

Meteorite Man® on the top of Pinchot Pass, looking a little smug with his two-pass-one-day accomplishment. Looking good, smelling bad. He got more comments on that Krispy Kreme hat... man, that thing is a chick magnet. It certainly impresses the JMT Girlz more than than my, "Hey, I'm carrying 90 rolls of film, baaaaby, can I pitch my tarp over your tent?" Yep, the "hat-with-a-delicious-fatty-food-reference" is definitely the way to go in the backcountry.

Here's one of the guys we hooked up with early on and finished the trail with. His buddy bolted. His buddy meticulously planned the whole trip, secured their permits, their food, their rides, etc. He was an ex-REI employee and backpacks frequently. Surfer Dave, on the otherhand, is a S. California surfer bum who is also a part-time Bellboy® at one of the brand new Disneyland Hotels as well as doing something to do with documenting snakes in the desert. This was his first real backpacking trip. What an introduction! It's ironic that his wilderness-wise buddy who planned the whole thing and convinced Dave to tagalong ended up bolting, but Dave continued on and was exhuberantly and triumphantly smiling on the summit of Mt. Whitney a couple weeks later! YAAA!!! He's a great guy and a lot of fun. And, when I told him I'd post photos of our trip on the internet, he wanted me to make sure if I posted any photos of him, that I mentioned HE'S SINGLE! Yep, you women of the internet, Dave is 26 and single and a very nice guy. And he rarely farts, and when he does, they don't stink. He's THAT cool.