The long ride out of Las Vegas brought Laura, Rachel, and I to Bishop, CA where we met up with Rob and Steph in an old quarry turned campground. The next day we headed up into the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, home of the oldest known living things in the world: 5,000 year old trees growing between 9,800' and 11,000' elevation. The actual oldest tree is not marked, to protect it from vandals, so, Huffing and puffing in the thin air, we all agreed that we would just look around at all the trees and each secretly pick whichever tree we thought was the oldest.
Back down in Bishop we passed the western end of US Route 6, which proceeds from here all the way to the tip of Cape Cod and passes by the house I grew up in along the way.
Making our way down to Lone Pine, we set up camp in the Alabama Hills in the shadow of Mt Whitney. I had been through this area many times before but usually I was on my way up to the High Sierra. This time we were here to stay and play, breaking out the ropes and putting in some climbs.

Tags: Airstream, Ancient Bristlecone Pines, Mt Whitney, Climbing, Hiking