High Sierra Topix

We dayhiked to Mount Inyo yesterday. There's no snow along the route to Mount Inyo. We started out from the 4WD parking lot a little after 7 am and headed up Union Wash. We picked up the ridge on the south side of the wash pretty quick (about .20 of a mile from the parking spot) and followed it up and up - loose steep crap - it's a miserable hike. After 9,000 feet the hike is gentler with some rolling terrain. There were nice views from the summit. On the way down I left the ridge around 8000 feet and was able to do a scree ski all the way down to Union Wash, which made for a faster retreat. Even with the scree ski it took me until 5:30 pm to get back to the car, so I was out there 10.5 hours. I'm in no hurry to go back to give Keynot a try. Inyo was the hardest day hike I've done in a while.

The hike to inyo is about 8 miles round-trip and the topo software tells me it was a total of 6,073 feet gain. The hard part of the hike is that 3500 feet of the gain come in the about the first 1.75 miles.

For some reason I never got a good shot of Mount Inyo. I'll have to get one next time I'm up in the Lone Pine area to add to my album.

Here are some of the pictures I took:

http://kathywing.smugmug.com/gallery/1477867/2/70736333

Great pictures, Kathy. I enjoyed looking at them. Thanks.

That was a tough trip. Our gps recorded 11.3 miles when we did it.

Trailtrekker's photos:
http://community.webshots.com/album/550646294UYWOKE

We didn't take those switchbacks up or down from Union Wash - we picked up the ridge early and stayed on it instead on the way up and on the way down we went straight down in the scree from about 8000 feet. I think those switchbacks would add a mile each way.

Kathy....One day I would like to do this hike...very curious about the beekeeper..Marion Howard.
Beautiful pictures..Are those the Claret Cups? SN saw them on her Wildrose Peak hike.
I love the picture with the Sierra in the background...such an interesting picture I think.
Thank you for sharing