Little Rain to Whitney via Bishop

Mary Austin wrote The Land of Little Rain more than an hundred years ago while living in Independence in the eastern Sierra. It’s long been one of my favorite books:

“In that country which begins at the foot of the east slope of the Sierras and spreads out by less and less lofty hill ranges toward the Great Basin, it is possible to live with great zest, to have red blood and delicate joys, to pass and repass about one’s daily performance an area that would make an Atlantic seaboard State, and that with no peril, and, according to our way of thought, no particular difficulty.” –Mary Austin, The Land of Little Rain We headed on up the road to see Galen and Barbara Rowell’s gallery–Mountain Light Photography–and to have some lunch at Schat’s. Later on, we went back down 395 to Lone Pine for the evening. We decided to hike up to the first lake at Mt. Whitney the next morning.