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Tag: california

Mount Whitney: Top of the Contiguous USA

Friday – Tuesday, August 22-26, 2014

Mount Whitney- at 14,508 feet it is the highest mountain peak in the contiguous United States. While I have always thought about climbing to the summit of Mount Whitney at some point in my life, I really had never seriously planned a trip or time frame to do it. About two months ago my friend Geoff sent me a message and asked if I wanted to join him on a day hike of Mount Whitney. He had received a few permits in the lottery earlier in the year, but all of his hiking companions had cancelled on him. I checked my calendar and had no trips planned for that time yet, so I said yes. I figured since I had the opportunity come up that I might as well do it now, especially since I had already hiked six Colorado 14ers this year and was in pretty good shape. I was a little worried about doing the full 22 mile hike in a single day since I had never done a hike that long in one shot, especially with over 6,000 feet of elevation gain. I decided to keep an eye on the Mount Whitney permit website to see if any overnight permits opened up, and luckily a few weeks before the trip I was able to get two of them for the same time. I no longer had to worry about completing the hike in a single day and would be able to enjoy the trail more. Our plan was to backpack up to Trail Camp around 12,000 feet on Sunday and then finish the hike to the summit on Monday morning.

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All Around Death Valley

Death Valley Trip 2013 | Day 8
Saturday, February 16, 2013

Today would be my last full day in Death Valley National Park. I spent the day visiting a few popular areas of the park I had skipped over earlier in the week so I could at least check them out. While I would spend much of the day visiting new locations I did decide to return to Zabriskie Point again to catch another sunrise this morning. As usual, I arrived at Zabriskie Point well before the sunrise and before anyone else was there. Instead of going up by the main overlook, this time I went to a different location a little further to the south. I was expecting other people to show up and setup next to me, but luckily that never happened and I had this area to myself.

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Eureka Dunes to the Mesquite Dunes

Death Valley Trip 2013 | Day 7
Friday, February 15, 2013

After spending much of the week exploring Death Valley and not running into many people, things would finally change today. I would start seeing quite a few more people and even getting stuck behind slow drivers and traffic on the park roads. At first I wasn’t sure why all of a sudden there were more people in the park, but later I remembered that Monday was President’s Day and that this would be a long weekend for a lot of people wanting to get out. I guess my time exploring the park without crowds was coming to an end.

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