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| DAY 2 - even more, you lucky fool! |
| After the rock face, the trail began to drop. We could hear a creek, but couldn't see far down enough to get an idea of exactly where it was. We came to a split in the trail where someone had piled wood straight ahead, so we followed some switchbacks down, and down, and down... finally the trail leveled, and that's when we saw it. A bridge. Over a gorge. With probably a 50-foot drop to the water below. What? We had 1 full bottle of water left, and miles until the next creek! ! It seemed that we would have to do some off-trail water hunting. |
| The view of Lone Pine Gorge from the bridge. Yes, it's really crooked like that. But we could see that the drop down happens quickly, so we knew we'd be able to get water upstream. (If the shadow is too dark, try brightening your monitor's display. Or don't - you aren't missing much) |
| On the right: I had to take this picture. This is a view of the prior Lone Pine bridge, from the current bridge. The wind was blowing very powerfully, and just taking this picture made me nervous. |
| Left: the hike up from Lone Pine Creek. It looks much, much worse than it really is. |
| Below: Dan brought The Fellowship of the Ring along, and as we rested alongside the creek, he became deeply engrossed in hobbit-lore. I spent most of the time sleeping on the old concrete bridge, or dipping in the icy water. |
| We held a quick map-conference, and agreed that water had to be obtained before we pressed on. It was well past lunchtime, and I was fading fast, so Dan left me to rest under a shady pine while he struck out for water. He returned victorious, so we dug out the lunches and were soon happily mixing up Tang & Gatorade, peeling the wax off of our Babybel cheeses and eating them with crackers. It was divine. While we ate, we were passed by the other couple that had camped at 9-Mile Creek. They were on a 3-day loop to Hamilton, and we wished each other good luck & "see you at Hamilton." After lunch, we were sleepy. We decided to nap during the hottest hours, so we followed the trail along the gorge until it began to turn up and out of the trees. We dropped the packs, and Dan showed me the old, overgrown trail he had taken down to the creekside. There was yet another old, abandoned bridge, this time made of concrete. We climbed across to a shady spot and lazed away for an hour or two, reading, skinny dipping, and trying to sleep. It was more perfect than any other day I can remember. |