Day 7 - Crabtree Ranger Station to Pac-man Lake 3 miles

Today we took our time a bit as we knew we weren't going too far. We were only going about 3 miles. We wanted to get to the closest comfortable camping spot to the base of Mount Whitney. This part of the hike was much easier than I remembered it being from the last time I did this trip. Once again I was surprised at how I remembered things.

I was also surprised at how quickly the landscape changed. We slowly climbed up and the trees began to dwindle and give way to rocks and some amazing land forms. We passed Timberline lake which is of course...where the timberline is. This is where the trees stop growing because its too high and too rocky.

Chase, Paul and Jonathan at Timberline Lake. Timberline lake in the distance


Shad and Boyce above Timberline Lake

The hiking, though hard, was much more pleasant on days like this because we knew that we didn't have far to go. Before we knew it we'd arrived at Guitar Lake which is where we'd planned on camping. On the map we had we noticed another lake a little further up.

Guitar Lake

Shad and Jonathan went on ahead to check out the situation to see if there indeed was a lake and if there were camping spots. Our biggest worry was making sure we camped in a place with water. Camping this high is never ideal because there are no trees and the weather changes rapidly.

Chase, Paul, Jonathan taking a rest. Check out those mountains behind Jerel and Jordan!

Shad and Jonathan signaled to us from the next lake up that we should come. So we did. We found a couple of good spots and were glad to have this little lake to ourselves. The lake has no name on the map but we dubbed it Pac man lake because of its shape on the map. (its not on the map above).

Pac-man lake at Sunset!

It felt like we were on top of the world here. We were next to small lake (more of a pond really) surrounded by a lovely alpine meadow and mountains towering above us. It was breathtaking and a little overwhelming as I looked at how high we going to have to climb to get out of there.

We arrived at our campsite very early because of the short hike so we had lots of time here. We set up camp and then set to exploring. We decided to see if we could find the Hitchcock Lakes (on the map above). We figured that they were just over a ridge that we could see. So all of us except Jerel went off in search of the lakes. We had to cross the meadow to get to the ridge and meadows are always tricky because they're wet and have streams going through them. We got through the meadow ok and climbed the ridge. We found the lakes but didn't hike down to them because its a little harder to hike at this altitude and we knew we'd need our energy to climb Mount Whitney.

All of us on the ridge with Hitchcock Lakes in the background.

After enjoying the view, we walked back to our campsite. Chase took off across the meadow and Jordan decided to follow him. Well Jordan didn't notice that Chase was carefully avoiding the puddles and streams in the meadow and he accidentally stepped in some water and soaked his shoes and socks. This was troubling because hiking in wet shoes is NOT good and of course he only had one pair of shoes. We also had no campfire because we were above the timber line. We had two stoves and plenty of fuel left so I suggested we use one of the stoves to help dry off his shoes. We set up a great little drying station with the stove surrounded by rocks and the shoes raised up a bit by the rocks. They started steaming and we could tell they were drying nicely. We forgot about them for a time however and our dryer turned out to be too efficient. The eyelits and laces on his shoes melted so his shoes could no longer be tied. Also something you don't want to hike in. Luckily our friends Mark and Maria were camped next to us. Mark had some parachute cord that we used for laces. Jerel used his knife to make new eyelits in Jordans shoes. They weren't exactly styling but they would get him through the final days hike.

Now...Jonathan had suggested a few days back that we get up early and hike to the top of Whitney early in the morning and arrive for the sunrise. This would mean waking up at 1:00 in the morning, breaking camp in the dark and hiking in the dark. I was not super excited about getting up early in the morning though the prospect of seeing the sun come up from the highest point in the lower 48 states was intriguing.

Again, the feelings I was having were voiced verbally by my nephew Jordan. He was not excited about waking up early in the morning and made sure we all knew he was NOT going to do it. We just laughed at him and prepared to go to bed about 7:00 PM. We needed all the sleep we could get before getting up at 1:00 to start hiking our longest day yet.

All of us at Pac-man lake at sunset.