Taking time off in Bishop

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings


(cotinued from previous post)

How long we sat outside the Whitney Portal I don't know. Other hikers were coming down the trail and getting rides to elsewhere right away. Perhaps they were day hikers. The Maryland boys had come and gone before we were done with our meal. My cheeseburger wasn't as delicious as I thought it would be and took longer to broil for some reason. As hungry as I was, the food was barely edible.

Behind us sat another woman, about my age, who I had seen earlier come outside carrying a cheeseburger plate and a bottle of Heineken. I thought at first she was a server bringing me my food, but noticed that she was carrying a Heineken instead of a Corona which is what I told Abid to get me. Naturally Abid took to talking her and started out with the "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" pick-up line. Abid, as I had noticed, is good at starting conversations with complete strangers.

It turns out that perhaps they had met before. Both Abid and the woman, now identified as Mary, live in the Bay area in neighboring towns. They started talking to each other from across the two tables and within another 20 minutes she came over and invited to drive us not just into Lone Pine, but into Bishop where she had planned to visit the photography gallery the next morning before heading back home to the Bay area.

The photography gallery! The same one Darlene had recommended I see before starting my JMT.

Suddenly my spirits brightened. Full of food and now sporting my sandals, we agreed to drive with Mary into town. I tipped another man $10 for waiting on us for an hour and slid into Mary's Subaru. (I originally wrote "hopped into" here but remembered that my feet were hurting so badly and my thighs were so tight that "hopping" would have been an exaggeration.) She and I were able to talk right away, and even I began chatting again.

"You are finally talking!" noted Abid from the back seat. Perhaps he was right, perhaps I had been rather quiet along the trail, but being next to Abid it's not easy getting a word in anyway.

The rest of the day turned out to be much better than even I had expected. It turned out downright enjoyable.

Mary gave us an interesting historical narrative as we drove the 12 miles into Lone Pine. She knows this area well. The mountains give way to dry foothills here, and the knolls around Lone Pine seem a totally different geologic formation completely. These hills are the dry Alabama hills which resemble the geology around Tombstone, AZ. The mountain range east of Highway 395 are the White Mountains, a dry and seemingly treeless formation undeserving of such a name.

Even Mary now was in full gear, stopping here and there to let me take a photograph while she talked about the local history. The Alabama hills are an example of desert terrain huddling the craggy peaks of the Sierras, extinct volcanoes a reminder of violent times millions of years earlier. They seem so oddly placed next to the verdant mountains around Mount Whitney.

I felt at ease around Mary and she around us. It's always a risk to take in "hitch-hikers" one doesn't know, but she spoke with great zeal about the same things in life that I do. She had summited Mount Whitney a day before I did and spoke at great length about her godson with whom she hiked, and her friend Mary-Beth, who suffered from acrophobia when she got to Mount Whitney.

Our destination tonight was Bishop. We would find a hotel room, share the expenses, and have dinner together in town. I wasn't expecting us to find a room, but we did, in the spacious Best Western motel off Main Street. Mary and I took a bed, Abid got the floor. While we took turns taking a shower, I tried to find a decent news channel, but apparently nothing of great importance happened in my absence. Iran is still ruled by a megalomaniac, Iraqis still hate one another, and the oil well leak in the Gulf of Mexico was still leaking (!).

Refreshed and now wearing some of Mary's clothes, we all went to town later that evening to try out the Whiskey Creek brew pub. We got there ten minutes to closing, though, so we just had a sample taster and I had a pint of their lager, which was a mediocre brew at best. We sat outside and chatted and told each other our stories. For a small town there were many police cars and ambulances rushing by in either direction.

It was nice to sleep in a decent bed again. It was almost too nice.
TBC