Hiking Mt. Whitney, 2008 Jul 26-29

	Medium Large	We left very early for the 10 hour drive, so I had to get up at about 5am.
	Medium Large	settling at the first campsite, at Whitney Portal
	Medium Large	beautiful mountain scenery
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	Medium Large	Getting ready to cook dinner. Because there are so many bears around Mt. Whitney, you have to seal all your smellables in bear lockers.
	Medium Large	at the trail-head
	Medium Large	Let the pain and suffering begin.
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	Medium Large	the scenery on the way up
	Medium Large	stopping for lunch
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	Medium Large	looking down into Owens Valley
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	Medium Large	Lone Pine Lake
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	Medium Large	looking down into Owens Valley from higher up
	Medium Large	nearing the campsite, above the tree line
	Medium Large	The weather started getting rough.
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	Medium Large	Just as we got near the campsite, it started hailing, yes, hailing. We hikers got totally soaked and cold. It was pretty miserable.
	Medium Large	As soon as the sun came back out, we took off our clothes and let them dry.
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	Medium Large	our campsite
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	Medium Large	Looking down into Owens Valley again. Our campsite was up at about 12000 ft, so most of us got altitude sickness.
	Medium Large	the little lake near our campsite
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	Medium Large	There were some neat little rock statues around the lake.
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	Medium Large	my own contribution
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	Medium Large	The next morning, we had a little visitor, a marmot.
	Medium Large	We started climbing up trail to the top of Mt. Whitney, another 5 miles and 2000 ft.
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	Medium Large	On the trail, we got a glimpse into the Sequioa National Park.
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	Medium Large	the summit of Mt. Whitney
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	Medium Large	getting close to the top
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	Medium Large	Catherine and Tamara made it to the top before me.
	Medium Large	...and the view from the summit.
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	Medium Large	When we got back to camp, we needed to fill our water bottles.
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	Medium Large	We got ready to hike out the net morning.
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	Medium Large	We stopped for a snack on the way back down and had a little visitor.
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	Medium Large	We made it back!
	Medium Large	the view of Mt. Whitney from Lone Pine
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	Medium Large	On the way back to Tucson, we passed a solar farm.
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