Thursday, November 22, 2007

Final Summit Views (Mt. Langley Part 3)

(GPS: N36 31.410 W118 14.365)

Here is another shot of the north side with Mt. Whitney to the right. The clouds and shadows were all over the place that day.When I mentioned that the cloud shadows were everywhere this makes an interesting picture. Can you tell which ones are shadows and which ones are lakes?
The western divide side was not that clear on this day.
According to Wiki this peak is 14, 026 ft. My gps had 14,038 ft. The benchmark a the top says 14,042 ft.
Once I reached the top I was up there for only about forty minutes. Most of that time was taking pictures and video of the views. All the summit logs in the box were full so I left a small notebook which I signed and left for others to sign. I took in the moment one final time and realized my summer vacation was over at this point. It was all downhill from here. I went down, got back to my truck, went back to Lone Pine for gas, then headed on home. It was a great final day and conclusion to my vacation.

As a side note, I have enjoyed reading High Odyssey by Gene Rose. It is an account of Orland Bartholomew's 1928-29 winter hike up the John Muir Trail. He was the first to climb Langley and Whitney during the winter. The book has a few of the same pictures I have shown that he took of this area.