2023 Fall Trip - Day 8-of-21 - Sept 14, 2023

Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023 - OK - so after two BIG HIKES in a row, maybe I should dial it down just a little. I had originally planned to do Red Lake Trail (7.2 miles long, taking maybe 4 hours, and has a rating of 4.3 out of 5.0):

Unfortunately, the comments (from "Real Hikers") include "It’s brutal", "it’s a fairly oppressive hike", "the last about 10 miles to the trailhead is very rough and rocky - I picked up plenty of Baja pin stripes from the brush in some sections" (meaning that just driving to the trailhead the brush was so thick and gnarly that it scratched the car's paint OFTEN). Well, "scratch" that trail off my list (ha ha, see what I did there?)

So I moved on to looking at my Day 4 Hikes - White Mountain Peak Trail (15.2 miles long, taking 8 hours, and has a rating of 4.7 out of 5.0), coupled with Methuselah Trail (4.0 miles long, taking 2 hours, and has a rating of 4.7 out of 5.0). They are both in the White Mountains Wilderness (no, not those "White Mountains") just east of Bishop:

They both had nice comments, so I figured I would go for it. The comments included "I take a nap between the two trails".

After breakfast (I had blueberry pancakes - not shown) I then headed south:

Unfortunately (there's that word again)(but maybe it also means God has another plan for me today), 20 miles down the road I realized that I had left my iPhone-battery-recharger PLUGGED INTO THE WALL of my room! There was no way I was going to do any more than 7 or 8 miles today. So I figured I would just do the Methuselah Trail this morning, and then maybe Druid Stones ( a little local hike) back in Bishop this afternoon.

It is a beautiful day as I turned east off of 395:

You gain a lot of elevation - Bishop is down at 4,000 feet, and that sign says 10,000 feet:

At 11 I reached Schulman Grove (the "Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest Visitor Center"):

Maps come in all variations:

I started at 11:12

The trees are a wonderful study in color and texture (and life and death - they look dead, but green is bursting out of parts of them):

The views were pretty cool too:

It worked out great - 3.95 miles in 1 hour 52 minutes:

On the drive back down, I stopped at the "Sierra View Vista Point":

Sorry - it is a little difficult to pick out, in the distance, the line-of-mountains from the line-of-clouds.

I headed back to Bishop, and decided to just chill for the rest of the day - blog-writing, etc. I drove 82 miles today. Thank you God for this perfect gem of a Hiking Day!

Music for today - more Beach Boys:

Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), 1965 (I owned this album!):

The Beach Boys Today!, 1965 (and I owned this album!):

single track Surf's Up, 1971. this cut is one of their Best Songs:

Because Brain Wilson felt so competitive with The Beatles, it is only fair to give them a listen:

Rubber Soul [Capitol Album], 1965 - It sounded so good I listened to it twice:

Revolver [Capitol Album], 1966: