Up

Never mind that temperatures have dropped. We had to get closer to Mt. Whitney. Drought conditions meant the road and trails were open already. It was a sign we should go. Now.

So Jo, Lou and I dragged out our fleece and down, packed our lunches and headed up to the end of the road. We were going to do some hiking. Not all the way to the summit. We're old. And we're not properly equipped (mentally or physically). But we weren't going to just snap pictures from the parking lot.

To my friends back East, these are mountains

Some young pup hikers just slightly ahead of us on the trail (never mind that they passed us)

Surprisingly, the weather was quite nice rather than bone-chillingly icy, like I'd feared. Even more surprisingly, I didn't start sucking wind until the end of our post-lunch hike. It was because of the, um, altitude. Yeah, that's it. Thin air and all that.