6am, on the road to Yosemite, somewhere near Oakdale.
On the Tioga Pass road...
Half Dome from a vista point on the Tioga Pass road. A bronze model of the mountains in the foreground.
A motorcycle group from IOWA riding across the US since the last 3-4 weeks.
Me and my Yamaha.
Again...
A roadside lake...
At 10000 ft, near the Tioga pass itself.
Starting the Mount Whitney trail... again. At 11:15 in the night.
Carrying a 11 pound bag (the camera is 3 more pounds)... ~7 kg in all.
5:55 am... at the summit of Mt Whitney with the sun rising over Lone Pine and Death valley.
US geological survey marker at the top of Whitney. There are many such markers at the summit, and all of them have the elevation missing from them.
Looking down 10500ft below from the summit towards Lone Pine (top right of the picture). And the photo also caught my new hiking shoes.
There is a plaque at the top...
And this is what it says... Jai Hind. :-)
There is a shelter at the top, but one is not supposed to take shelter there if there is a thunderstorm.
The summit register between the 2 doors of the shelter.
Looking towards Sequoia and Kings Canyon national park from the summit.
On the way back.... looking towards the summit from the John Muir trail.
The trail in this part was extremely steep with almost vertical drops on both sides of the pass (the bright section in the center of the photo). The trial was just 5 ft wide at the pass.
Look carefully... there is a stream of hikers climbing the mountain (bottom right).... and now follow the trail up and you see the crowd that is attracted by this mountain.
Picture taken near trail crest... the place where I turned back a month ago. Mt Muir peak in the foreground (highest in this picture), and Whitney in the center.
Whitney (right) and Mt Muir (left) from trail camp (12000 ft).
On the way back to Stanford - Convict Lake.
Convict lake again.
Hetch hetchy reservoir and Shaughnessy dam...
Water from the dam was let out of a pipe in the form of a speeding jet which flew across the stream and hit the opposite mountainside forming an awesome sight.
Wapama falls near the Hetch Hetchy reservoir.
Another RATTLESNAKE!! I saw this one before it saw me or came too close. This one was also right on the trail.
The dam again...
