Swall Meadows

So now we're back on that road and we're going to Swall Meadows. Where and why because when I was looking at the map and planning our trip (I spent about 30 hours planning this trip) it was right in the middle of Yosemite and Lone Pine and in the middle of nowhere with some mountains around which is what I look for in life or at least on my adventure holidays. Anyway despite being in the middle of this green green bit on the map - Inyo National Forest - it was actually right next to Mammoth Lakes like a 40 min drive which is a big winter sports mountain resort that they're trying to get people to go to in the summer too. It was summer now, June but we were told the road to Yosemite might not be open yet because of snow and we were lucky because the snow only melted enough the week before we got there to open the road that's my lucky star again I seem to have one of those when on the road. Swall Meadows was cheaper than the bigger Mammoth Lakes and the Airbnb looked sweet when I was looking at the screen back in London all those months ago. The road started curling up towards mountains and now we're seeing snow capped mountains because despite the summer like I said there was still snow on the mountains. If you've ever driven up a long road towards snow capped mountains you know what I mean you sort of feel like the Hobbits going towards Rivendale. The sky was doing a pretty special cloud show for us the horizon stretching back and up and out with more huge white and purple clouds and I think a rainbow even and it was under 2 hours drive to Swall Meadows. There is a town called Bishop on the 395 quite a big town on the way and they happened to be having a market and it was hot now and remember we had just done a big hike up to Lone Pine Lake so we stopped in this big town to get a snack in the market in the park. 

The market was artsy craftsy with tie dyed socks and some quite good paintings from one man and a stall with musical instruments made of of tin cans and a skate park and a country band playing under some trees and all over the place the cotton was blowing and landing on the lake in the park where the ducks were using it to make water beds. There was a man and wife who looked like they had got a horse and carriage to the market bringing their oranges and carrots to make juice. I'm pretty sure the man was chewing on a reed or in my imagination he was and the lady had a smock that was covered in orange juice and their son was wearing a vest with a fuzzy moustache starting to grow on his lip and he was like an overgrown mouse that got stuck on a carriage and taken to a big town by mistake. There was a Chinese food stall and a stall selling ENORMOUS bags of popcorn you would pop if you ate all that popcorn it reminded me of those oversized bags of weird orange maize poufs you get in SA. So we did a wander and glanced in the tie dye stall and it's funny because the tie dye guys come into the story a little later. 

I noticed a very busy shop on the other side of the road and it said bakery on the sign and it was buzzing and it turned out to be Erick Schat's Bakkery which is quite famous in these parts. It was packed inside from floor to ceiling with cakes and bread and dried fruit and jams and pickles and buns and biscuits and an ice cream section and I can tell you that there was one main ingredient in this Hansel and Gretel lair and that was sugar baby. Everyone was sweating waiting in a long snaking line around all the aisles for all this sugar I think it was so busy because it was memorial weekend Friday and we stood in line too to buy some dark brown fruit cake and some fig and ginger jam which turns out to be the best damn jam. Oh and we also got ice cream because it was so hot and sticky and now it was time to really leg it out of Bishop and get to our mountain pad for the night because it was pushing 6.30pm.

The road to Swall Meadows was promising in it's winding and mountain views, we came off the 395 deeper into the valley we went and I thought this would be a teeny little town but actually it was just houses all spread out with the nearest shop a ten minute drive away back up the highway but who cares when you have a car and you're looking at this view. There was a huge fire here in Feb 2015 that covered the mountain side and you can still see some charred and scarred pine trees there seems to be a lot of those in these parts of California. There's a fire warning sign with a bear on it the signal is 'moderate' so we felt safe from fires but wondered if the bear meant something.

Chantal's Airbnb in Swall Meadows is a pretty delightful wooden beamed house and I did wonder why they all build with wood in fire country, we were in high desert so the ground had pale rocky colours with little spiky shrubs and plants and there was one tar road but the rest was this pale blue grey brown rockiness which I loved, as soon as you open the car door that smell of mountain hits you and that's what I can't get enough of, that elation you feel in high desert mountain land. I felt the same in Lower Mustang in Nepal and in Ledakh in India. All the sighs. So we walk up to the house it seems empty besides a portly dark grey curly old doggie who makes it known that we are disturbing his tea time. Chantal finds us and shows us around the beautiful private upstairs room which is all dark soft wood, windows with a mountain or two in the distance, a big bath and the biggest and also it turned out most comfortable bed probably ever. I'm telling you beds are a thing in this country, they're just not the same at home.

We go downstairs to meet some other guests staying in the ground floor rooms and remember I said the tie dye guys would come back in the story well there they were downstairs eating dinner with a couple of beers. There were 3 guys actually, 2 were the tie dye guys from that awesome stall in the Bishop market who were actually from LA and 1 was staying for a massive donkey convention, that's right you heard me - it's called Bishop Mule Day's and it's a festival of donkeys and people come from all over the world to showcase their donkey's or mules and some even bring their prized donkey's from overseas. So these 3 guys were having dinner with Chantal having a jolly time and the fluffy but slightly hissy-if-you-touch-me kitty came to say hello and the cute gruffly dog got all nestled in. Because we didn't bring any dinner and there was nothing in the town as in walkable we got back in the car to get dinner at the only restaurant for miles Tom's Place which was proper country bumpkin style joint with booths and fireplaces and big jugs of beer and huge plates of food, and a very good place to end an extremely eventful day because remember we had climbed Mount Whitney that very morning. We spent the evening trying to guess if any of the guests were hippy types as we were keen to meet some proper California hippies but didn't think so in the end.

Oh, Chantal's place in Swall Meadows I can only recommend it to glorify in the amazing bed and views and quiet and peace and fresh so if you pass by you know where to go.

Danny snoozing in the cool breeze with a mountain in the background

My normal way of holidaying is waking up and going on a mission and on a mission we went to find some lakes in this glacier lake country, Mammoth Lakes was too far but there are plenty of others and I wish I could tell you if it was Bear Lake or Pine Lake or Long Lake or Chicken Foot Lake (did I mention we were in Lake country) but we were recommended a Lake after Chantal called her neighbour to ask which lake we should go to (it was 7:30am but everyone was up in Swall Meadows) so we went there but not before a breakfast of that delicious black fruity bread and ginger and fig jam and coffee and fruit. Us being us we needed a good picnic so on the way to the lake we picked up a turkey sandwich from that famous bakery and definitely some other sweet things that I can't remember and we also drove back to the tie dye stall because the market was still going and got some awesome bamboo tie dye socks for all our walking and also to say hello to the camp LA guys, and drove up some pretty astonishing and increasingly hairy roads to find a lake or two. The first lake we found wasn't too impressive and was more for the fishermen and after Lone Pine Lake on Mount Whitney standards were high. A little further along the way we found another big lake that was surrounded by big slopes of mountain that you could tell were usually covered in snow and now were grey with a few bits of green poking out. The lake had some big bouldery islands and also a pebbly beach and it was a little dusty and dirty and there were some families around fishing or sitting on the beach with kids and dogs and big bottles of Coca Cola. The lake was still and dark blue against the grey sides of the mountain slopes and then you wonder again about glaciers and history and what ants we all are compared to the grinding weight of time and earthly mass. It was one of those lakes where you couldn't hear any sound as if it was absorbed into the water, when someone was around the corner from you the sound just seemed to be sucked into the earth and lake so despite there being people around you didn't hear them until they were almost on top of you so that was eery, and every now again a little boat would cut silently across the lake on the way to some unknown destination and make silent ripples up to our feet as we sat on a big boulder eating our lake snacks. It was definitely also too cold to swim.

The walk on the pebble beach was fun after we picked our way over and through the families fishing strewn about the boulders and Danny taught me how to skim stones I got to four bounces but he had about ten because he's got secret sporty skills. The grey stones and dustiness and blue water and blue sky and bright sun and sound sapping made the hairs stand on my neck a little because we're just not used to silence. There were some grey bleached wooden structures that I climbed in to make yoga meditation pictures and this one structure had a pink sparkly rock in the middle of it. The bright sun and dust then got to me so it was back in the car down the in-places perilous mountain road back to Bishop to get dinner, we were going to make a barbecue on Chantal's porch. I'm pretty sure we drove over a huge snake in the road on our way home but when I turned the car around to see it had disappeared which was a little unnerving poor thing, I wondered if it had clutched underneath our car in anger and was going to strangle us later.

Back home and after a cool breezy snooze with all the windows open we went onto the porch in the Swall Meadows house amongst the grey brown rocks of high desert Sierra Nevada and lit the grill. It smoked a bit and then a crazy squeaking high pitched sound started chirriping on the porch, it sounded like tiny birds all bunched up and cross about something significant and I can't recall who spotted them first but looking up towards the sound revealed some tiny black noses and eyes and claws and the little squeaky kinda cute sound was a gazzilion little baby sized bats all disturbed by the smoke from the fire. They were cute but a little grizzly and reminded me of little fat spiders and then one then another then bunches of them like butterflies started flying out the crack and towards me and out the porch so I'm not ashamed to say I gave a very loud squeal and covered my face but was also fascinated by these little squeaking juicy kitten spider bats. Then to add to the excitement a big sound like a neighbourhood alarm went off and I thought that must be the fire alarm and did we set it off with our barbecue? So now the whole neighbourhood is flitting out from under the rafters due to the smoke and it went on and I sent Chantal a non panicked message and she said not to worry it might be a drill definitely not the barbecue on the porch so at least we didn't set off the entire mountain side fire alarm with our dinner attempt. After that excitement I managed to get the food ready oh what a feast so we had buttery corn and fire baked sweet potatoes and spicy cinnamon jerk chicken and avocado and salad leaves and tomato and red California wine and it was delicious. Chantal came home from her work as a sculpture / furniture designer I think something along those lines and told us in her cute American French way how she came to America from France when she was 18 and fell into random little jobs and met an American man and ended up staying and bringing up her children and she couldn't quite believe how long she'd been there and I felt a little like I was talking to myself in 20 years time. She lived a quiet and somewhat isolated life on this beautiful mountainside and wouldn't have it any other way and I felt a lot affection for her.

Then she could no longer ignore the funny portly pooch of the house who was politely reminding us all that it was time for his walk, despite the fact that there were no fences and he could just walk around the neighbourhood as he pleased he waited patiently every evening for his human to take him for a walk. He was quite popular as some neighbours asked to borrow him to take him on mountain walks so he had his picks of days out. The sun was starting to set and make dramatic pinks in the sky and as in all high desert country places as soon as the sun goes a nip comes in the air and we set out with a brisk pace to walk through the trees and small dry river beds and burnt pines of Swall Meadows on a summer's evening. And just everywhere you looked there was some kooky spiky plant or little pink flower and she said that all these new flowers were blooming because of the fire that happened last winter and fires are good at making way for new life. The sun set more and more but the purple snow capped mountain gave off a beautiful light and the portly pooch ran ahead and told us where to go and we pointed and pranced and breathed deep. There was a dry river bed but then surprisingly as we didn't realise there was in front of us a big deep wide rocky valley with all those millions of rocks probably from another huge volcano blast that happened millions upon millions of years ago. And you can't do anything with these volcanic rocks as they just crumble if you try build with them so you got to just live with them and let themselves drape all over and up the sides of steep valleys and make ledges and shapes and turrets and tunnels and porches all along the valley at precarious angles for you to sit on and scurry over and watch the sky darken and the pinks disappear.

Chantal showing us the hood

Lone Pine

Here are all the pics 

After feeling earthquakes in the bones from the heart stopping hot power yoga there was nothing for it but to nap I forgot the nap was after the hot yoga before we headed off on the open road, and Scott was all up for us napping in the green walled room for a little longer. The yoga teacher she had said something about if you're new to yoga and when I say new I mean 10 to 15 years... ?! That's new to yoga in this teacher's eyes but she was proud of us we got a pat on the head she said you did the right thing. It was hot and muggy after the nap mixed in with excitement about the road ahead and all the stuff had to go in the orange red car, with the red and purple fruit from the market and the cashew nut cheese we hit the road, again on the lanes and highway crevices and the barely visible white line separating the lanes from more lanes and I couldn't wait to get on that one road which I thought was going to be one little road like the ones they have between towns in countries with lots of space between towns. The cashew nut friendly girl from Silverlake told us to get an In N Out Burger which is famous in California for being made in California with fries freshly cut and made right there and the beef California beef and not much else. I don't usually eat burgers or dream about going to drive ins for greasy things but she was the cashew nut cheese lady and so I couldn't think of anything except for this In N Out Burger, I was imagining seeing cows grazing on the grass outside and leafy salads and chunky chips and the hunger was real. 

Cars started depleting as the road became a longer silver snake leading into hot sparse desert Mars-scapes, this was it the open road of California was upon us and the orange red car and it wasn't the one road that everyone drives up (Highway 1) but Highway 395 which was more intrepid and mountainy through the Sierra Nevada. It became sparser still but the road stayed in two lanes which equals easy driving and the speed limit was 65 kmph and there were radars watching your speed but I still sometimes went a touch faster because some people were and some weren't but it was cruising all the same, cruising down the sparse hot silver highway and at every turn there was a field or veld as we say in SA, a veld of longish cacti with fat fingers and spiky green hairdos on each finger. The urge to stop at every turn to take pictures was strong but knowing there was more to come and an In N Out Burger somewhere up ahead meant keeping the nose forward. Eventually a sign in the distance poking up over the road shouted something in red and white and yes the California food of the road was before us and the red orange car zipped to park in already full car park and we bulldozed inside. Inside it was the 1950's with red and white plastic seats with smooth sloping sides, a menu with 3 items and a thousand staff getting burgers and fries into the mouths of the never ending drive through snake in the parking lot. You got burger, cheese burger or fries and that was it so if that wasn't it you were going to starve so we got our burgers and fries and sat outside under a red plastic umbrella and ate looking over the full car park. I'm going to confess something right now that we are the biggest food snobs on the planet and so I can only say underwhelming things about In N Out but I was happy to be there drinking an ice cold Coke feeling revived and everyone was always so pleasant and friendly even the teenagers in hungry loud groups. 

The sky was now becoming more baby blue and the clouds like little soft baby booties and the road more silver and long and straight and the fields and veld becoming rich with orange and reds and fuzzy fat fingered cacti and me cruising somewhere around 65 kmph just drifting without hindrance and the Americana playlist I put together all got stirred into a pot on my lap and there were happy free sighs. There were big trucks but mostly SUVs and I wondered like you do where are they all going down this silver road into the distance, what's down that road there and that side road, it looks like nothing and there are no corners to look round but there is something and that something is a really cool landscape, would you just look at all this space. 

Now the sky mixed with dark purples and blues and a big duvet of dark cloud pulls over half the sky and the wind picks up, there is some green and some cows in a field and then Lone Pine. It had one road two lanes each side that ran through it and it was quaint as hell. This town is famous for the movies that were made in the rocky boulder strewn landscape of Alabama Hills like Django Unchained, The Lone Ranger and Star Trek.  Motels and a film museum and a barbecue place, now we pull into our Dow Villa Motel with a huge friendly road side sign and smack in the middle of the car park there’s a pool and a food truck with a barbecue hanging off the back and people in lawn chairs gathered round the truck in jeans and cowboy hats and pink shoulders and beers. There was no certainty that the invite extended to us maybe it would have been but probably not so we go into the polite cool tiled reception area to find our lodgings. The room happens to be up the stairs in the main building that was like a hotel, not a room in the more motel looking bit outside with rows of rooms together looking out over the pool and car park barbecue. There was a living room next to reception with a big TV showing 'the game' with everything cosy and the room was cosy too like a guest room in a grandmother’s house who knows how to entertain her guests. A sink and mirror set into the wall, there are Lone Pine pictures from ye olde times and a bed so high up with a giant mattress and pillow that I have to lift one leg over as if climbing a fence to get on it but once on it the comfort and softness is extreme and I start to think that beds are a thing here. The bathroom has an extra door locked form the inside on the opposite side but I think nothing of it strewing clothes and possessions across the room then head out to find some food. The quaint as hell street has around 10 places on each side of the road to eat and shop for snowboarding and mountain gear and some places to eat that all look like they’re closing at 7pm and all the while the purple clouds build in a menacing in an exiting way, wind whips everyone around and I realise my eyes feel like someone’s tipped some ground up razor blades in it and I think it’s just me but when I see the dedicated wall of eye drops and hayfever potions in the little supermarket I realise it’s a common thing in dusty windy cotton country. To confirm this the cashier lady confirms it saying her first year was razors all in the eyes, I hear a rumble and a huge truck lit up like a Christmas tree rolls past with a tanker of cotton spewing out over the sides and into the air. 

There are lots of young mountain climbing snow boarding types in beanies walking up and down the street, this is a extreme sports climbing area and I wish that’s what we were doing and so I try pretend I am. Tonight we choose to eat here it has oak wooden chairs and tables all rustic with native American curios and gifts to buy and the people running it look native American too and I can’t stop looking because they’re so cool and interesting and also beautiful. There are families and older couples so we’ve found the upper end of the 5 restaurants obviously because we love to eat the good stuff, soup and fish and salad so tasty with flavours and citrus and juicy white fish and a big heavy cold glass of ale, it’s all about the ales and I can’t remember the names of them as the big wet duvet falls to the ground in a heavy downpour and the sky starts showing who’s boss with it’s purples and blues and wind. No one has umbrellas or expects any rain in this dry spring desert that is also having a drought so outside the running from the rain is done with glee, then the smell comes up from the roads and it’s so much like I remember in South Africa the smell of rain on the hot tar. After licking the plates we look at some more native American gift shops and I think that just like everywhere else this was once a rich and thriving area for the native people and now what’s left is some shops selling wind catchers and turquoise jewellery and I think it’s a bit weird and a little sad, but there are tourists now to buy it up and it’s okay to celebrate the native culture right because there’s no chance they can get the now main Americans off the top spot. 

More massive trucks with bejewelled and bejazzled lights cruise past the one horse town on their way to LA probably and there’s just enough time to nip into a shop to buy a warm hat which I think I might need in Yosemite. The shop man was super friendly and gave all kinds of tips and maps and places to stop because he lived in Yosemite as a guide for 3 years and I can’t help thinking what a great job that was in a coveting way and all kinds of friends stepped in and talked about a get together happening down the road with climbers and cool kids and I wanted to join but we just talked about where to go in Yosemite which was actually exciting enough. I got my pink and white hat and a chocolate bar and went back to grandmother’s clean cosy guest room to put the TV on to see what American TV was all about. There was mainly politics which you could watch from the fence high cloud bed until it was late enough or probably too late to brush my teeth. There was a sink in the room but the bathroom was there so I left the door wide open and in my knickers brushed my teeth at the room sink but then heard a sound you don’t want to hear at midnight in your pants in a strange room, someone in the bathroom. That’s right someone was in our bathroom and the door closed and was locked from the inside and there was a pissing sound. We had a shared bathroom with the room next door and no one thought to tell us that’s how it works in motel hotel rooms so the whole night we were gone the bathroom door wide open and possessions strewn but they turned out to be honest bathroom squatters. 

There was only one day in Lone Pine next day so out come the maps a route is set. We're heading to the Alabama Hills to check out those famous old movie spots then to the top of Mount Whitney but of course first breakfast and it being 7am (jet-lag is still our early friend) on a Sunday there was only one place to go and it's the Alabama Hills Cafe and Bakery which is all about home cooking and there's a queue outside already. I want to sniff the air and look around so after putting our name in the queue pile I go sniffing up the road looking at mountains and teeny wooden houses and I wonder why the houses look like little dolls houses when there is so much space and on my return I see Danny speaking to a man of an elderly gentlemen persuasion with silver hair and bushy silver moustache and a cowboy hat and he's asking where we're from and telling us he owns the breakfast joint but his wife does the kitchen stuff and he makes sure to give us an 'obviously' look. We shoot the breeze about this and that and tells us how he and his sons know all about the mountains and hunting they've lived here all their lives and they think guns are the bees knees and having guns is imperative so that 'they' don't take over. I change the subject and tell him we're going to Inyo National Forest today and he looks at us strangely, days later we figure out Inyo National Forest covers practically most of California. The place was so popular due to his kitchen stuff wife and breakfast was a HUGE plate of steaming eggs and tomato and avocado and tacos and spicy green sauce again and I can't recall but I'm going to hazard a guess that Danny had pancakes with bacon and syrup, all washed down with filter coffee we are total coffee drinkers again at this point after a hiatus, hey but it's holidays and we have lots of walking to do although everyone seems to be drinking huge jugs of iced tea instead. There is a hodgepodge of clientele some climbers some country flowery blouse big haired types and then two skinny wide eyed English types checking out the cake selection (that's us). Breakfast is so huge I wrap my eggs in a corn taco cake and tin foil and tuck it away for a mountain walk snack. 

It was going to first be a drive to the sets of those movies in the boulders and then a climb up Mount Whitney. You've never seen so many boulders of all shapes and sizes and so round and smooth and heavy and I think again and again of the volcano or earthquake, what kind of force threw these boulders out the earth and spread them across such an area and now I'm feeling like an ant predominantly. Just a little drive out of Lone Pine you could drive your car or camper van or silver caravan and park off and sleep out, people camping with their little stoves and garden chairs. It was desert in the spring hot with red and yellow soil and blue sky like thick blue acrylic paint and dainty white clouds, boulders of all the browns and even purples with little bundles of fresh green desert plants with thick fingers and spikes and a touch of pink like the nose on a cat. I tried to imagine the volcano earthquake again that shot the rocks out the ground across this expanse of land and how long ago it was and it feels old, so old. It was the kind of rock that you stick to like a spider so can run up and down with no ropes or proper shoes free like a pin ball machine bouncing from one boulder to the next, under boulders over boulders and on top all the while looking into the distance and trying to get my head around the perspective of the huge mountain spewing these boulders, the rock biter from The Never Ending Story would be at a Roman banquet. There was a map that pin pointed where all the movies were but there was no way of telling each mound apart they all looked awesome and Jurassic, there were rocks with wind tunnels and turrets and towers and some that looked like babies asleep on the backs of mothers wrapped in blankets like in Africa, some paths were marked with little stones and others not but you could only pour yourself one way down the stone ice-cream cones like chocolate sauce, going through the cracks. There were German and American and Spanish accents chirping away as explorers peaked and scrambled like lizards. 

That's a silver caravan amongst a billion rocks

Pink nosed cactus cat

The baby on the mother's back

The baby on the mother's back

Lizard

Heat becomes extreme in the spring time desert but there was another silvery snakey road to climb up this time a real country road with no shoulders or second lanes just one thin snake up into the mountain which was Mount Whitney the highest mountain in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Winding snaking up through the boulder valley up and up until in the rearview window the valley appears behind I want to twist my neck to look round but the road is winding too and that would be deathly driving. Cars are coming down the mountain side where have they been and it's deduced there is a camp site or places in the pine forest to go with your car so we go. There's signs to go to this camp site or that area there but the road continues to snake up so up it is, there is no way you could go all this way and not go all the way up. At the top there's a car park and that's the end and then signs I've never seen before or didn't know existed... 'DO NOT LEAVE FOOD IN YOUR CAR, BEARS WILL RIP YOUR CAR UP LIKE A KNIFE THROUGH HOT BUTTER AND THEN EAT YOUR TIRES FOR DESERT' or something like that. We want to climb the mountain and there are snacks on our person but now we definitely don't want to take snacks up the mountain but also don't want to leave them in the car so we think taking it into the mountain should be okay because we Google how to respond to a bear and you can just scare away a black bear by looking big, you should always make as much noise as you can and look big. 

On the way up the snaky silver mountain road two cyclists appeared and you always think wow imagine doing that and they stop next to us now outside the mountain toilet and start to chat, again the friendliness of strangers is slightly shocking but in that nice way that makes a balloon stick to your hair. We see some very prepared climber types and assess our walking gear which consists of some good shoes, sunglasses and an all purpose blanket towel scarf that I carry always, oh and the mountain snacks and I'm convinced that's all we need but there are people with all kinds of walking apparatuses in big groups looking like they're set for Armageddon and inevitably a little doubt sets in but only on the inside. The whole surrounding is a beautiful pine forest now at the top of the mountain with red pines with dark green pines and everywhere you can smell the real fresh pine and hear the trickling of streams. There is some snow up on the very top and in patches on the sides of the mountain higher up and then sheer grey rock that encloses you, you go up into all this and after 3-4 hours walking there's the a lake and that's where we're heading.   

The walk is like a stroll that you put your knees into a bit, a winding path that goes back and forth as you climb and there are others doing it too like groups of friends or families, some grannies and little kids so we really feel capable and speed past them all on the winding path until we hear an animal sound with no one else around it sounds like the wind going through a bottle loudly and we stop in our tracks and immediately think bear! Remember to make a noise and make yourself big I had the thought of flushing the food down the toilet as if we had been busted with drugs but there was nothing to do but carry on so we did. Every now and again looking through the now steep high valley through the red old pines down down into the boulder strewn plateau we sighed about how beautiful and epic in scale and just piney fresh this all was.

The higher you get the more tired everyone is but there are still fathers with babies in baby backpacks and mothers encouraging little ones up and up until even we were tired but then spurred on by the thought of the lake. Patches of snow started to appear and the jumper came off and it felt hot, a man with all the gear asked us sternly do we have a rain jacket don't we know it could rain or even snow up on the mountain and were we prepared?? Did we have a rain jacket I said no and Danny said yes and we both looked at the blue sky and then decided he was only being concerned and he stormed off. At each bend there was a new part of the valley to see and breathe in and some pines trees were crumbling and but even that was beautiful as the new pines made their way through the earth in the new space. The sheer grey cliff walls became shorter as we neared the top 2 then 3 hours of climbing and we had left most of the people behind in our haste to reach the lake.

The magic magnified when stepping into a now level pine forest, tall strong pines surrounding in a completely silent blanket of crisp air so clean and pure it was like water that was pouring over a face turning the dust into soothing cool fresh custard that's how strong the light fresh cold clear air was pressed against the skin. There were deeper rifts of spring snow and pine bridges through some water and smooth cold grey boulders the size of the houses in Lone Pine, still winding up and up and around the pine forest then we see people with excited faces coming up at us through the trees, they had just been to the lake and were on their way back and rushing now through the trees and the pines and the boulders onto a thick coating of snow and there was the lake. 

Lone Pine Lake, and lo there was actually a lone pine on the lake. A shock of mirrored dark blue against the grey rock and baby blue sky, like when you see yourself in a mirror but don't recognise it's you straight away, with the burnt oranges of the lone pines and white snow all the colours were like a camera set to high saturation heightened by the high joy of the hot tramping up the mountain to get to this shiny dragon's jewel. There was a little girl studiously making a snowball to throw at her brother and people coming out the pine forest behind us to exclaim what we felt looking at the lake. We climbed all the way round to see the valley and the lake and sit amongst the strong wind swept yellow orange pines that had been sculpted by the elements as if they had been cut in half but they still bore strong green blue pine needles and were solid and silent giving us shade while we ate the egg taco sandwiches from breakfast and the strawberries and blueberries I had been carrying since Silverlake market and these are the best meals that I think I could ever have sitting on the edge of Lone Pine lake after that walk and that forest looking down into the valley. 

Studious snowball making 

Oh the animal sound was a marmot not a bear it's like a guinea pig just in case you were worrying.