Position: 37' 44" N, 119' 12" W -- near Thousand Island lake, overlooking Mt. Ritter and the Minarets
Altitude: 14,000' to clear terrain, about to start descent.
Mean snow-line: 10,500'
This crossing of the Sierra is the most beautiful I can remember. Skies are clear -- the crest was visible over a hundred miles to the west as I climbed over Gilroy. The northern fringes of smoke from a fire in Sequoia National Park are still 20 miles to the south. The wet winter meant a heavy snow pack that still has Yosemite Falls running strong, and partial snow coverage at 10,000'. Some of the alpine lakes have taken on the lightest sky-blue hue you can imagine -- almost unreal -- due to the surrounding snow and ice...and of course I forgot to bring the camera.
...ten minutes later... I'm on final approach to land at Lee Vining. My wife has kindly taken a the morning to drive our aging Isuzu Trooper over to position it in the region for the next few months. I catch a glimpse of her driving onto the airport as I start the round-out for landing. What timing!
One of my favorite regions in the U.S. is the crest and eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains. My first introduction was, as I suspect for many others, a first-time multi-day backpacking trip organized by a college friend that traversed some of the highest, and most fascinating terrain in the area from Kearsarge Pass, along the southern portion of the John Muir Trail, culminating with an ascent of Mt. Whitney.
Since then I've taken a number of hiking trips from single overnights to others of 4-5 day duration exploring other areas of the range, but the most interesting country for me remains the Alpine region where the valleys are near timberline (~10,000'+) and the peaks tower above.
In order to explore the area more easily, the idea came up to position our "beater" Isuzu somewhere east of the sierra. Bishop, CA made the most sense and I arranged to rent a tie down at the airport for a couple of months to come and go, and leave the Trooper there. How this would all work out would be an interesting experiment: attempting to trade a 6-7 hour (each way) drive for a 90-minute flight.
