Day -1 (8/29): We met at the Las Vegas airport. I was flying in from Chicago and my friend from Minneapolis. Both of us were quite delayed, but my friend much more so; thankfully his originally scheduled arrival was nearly 2 hours ahead of mine, so we both ended up arriving around 11pm.
Day 0: (8/30): We drove from Las Vegas to Bishop via Death Valley, a great start to the trip in its own right. We lucked into the last available campsite at the Willow campground, the last campground on the South Lake road at 9,074'.
From Badwater Basin, sea level is a fair ways up this cliff.
Day 1 (8/31): This being the busiest weekend of the year, it wasn't terribly surprising that we could not park at the trailhead and had to make the "walk of shame" from the parking just below the Parchers turnoff. That took about half an hour and we left the trailhead around 9:15. The hike to Bishop Pass was uneventful but slow: my friend was feeling the altitude and it took us about five hours to reach the pass.
Looking back over the Bishop Creek drainage
At this point it was clear that my original plan to traverse Knapsack, Potluck, and Cirque Passes and return via the JMT was too ambitious. But those details were left for later and we enjoyed the gentle descent into Dusy Basin, camping near the first lake by the trail in upper Dusy. Shortly after we made camp, the long-threatened rain appeared, so we hunkered down in the tent for a while. Luckily the rain passed around 6pm and we were treated to a spectacular sunset.
Evening alpenglow on the crest
Day 2 (9/1): Our tentative plan leaving camp this morning was to cross Knapsack Pass, camp in Palisade Basin, and return via Thunderbolt Col and Bishop Pass to camp close to the car Monday evening. However, a couple hours navigating relatively tame terrain to get to the base of Knapsack put paid to that idea, as my friend was still not feeling great and wasn't comfortable doing much more cross-country ascent. I scouted a route which turned out to be just as easy as I hoped; the final 400 feet of gain from where my friend kindly waited to the crest of the pass took me only 20 minutes.
North Pal towering over the Palisade Basin from Knapsack Pass
After I returned, we executed Plan C, which was to descent to the chain of lakes in lower Dusy Basin and camp near the trail. This was the easiest part of the day, as a small talus field at the base of Knapsack Pass gave way to straightforward slab and meadow walking. We found a nice campsite near the last lake; my friend relaxed there while I made a short additional hike to get a better view down into LeConte Canyon.
Until I got to this vista I didn't really grasp how deep LeConte is: this photo was taken some 1200 vertical feet below Bishop Pass, but Palisade Creek flows unseen 2000 feet further down.
The rain stayed to the west of us, so we ditched the rain fly and slept under the stars. We were lucky to avoid the worst of the smoke from the Coffee Pot Fire too. After a relaxed dinner, we turned in with the Summer Triangle and the band of the Milky Way high above.
Day 3 (9/2): We woke around 6am to a partly cloudy sky. The shade of gray looked a bit threatening, so we packed up quickly and got on the trail, but in the event it was just the early-morning light and no rain fell. We were treated to a radiant alpenglow on the peaks to the west, though.
There was a stiff wind all morning, so we stopped near our first night's camp to eat breakfast in the lee of some rocks. We realized that our pace would have us in our expected camp near Long Lake by early afternoon, so we decided to just leave a day early instead and spare ourselves the predawn start that would have been necessary to get back to Vegas in time for our flights. Our pace was decent and we got back to the trailhead around 1pm. On the way out, we continued my custom of post-trail Mexican food with an excellent lunch at El Ranchito in Bishop then headed back south on the 395. We stopped at the Manzanar historic site, a solemn monument to a dark era in US history and stark contrast to the backdrops of the previous days. The visitor center had just closed when we arrived, but we were still able to do the driving tour.
This monument stands at the center of the small cemetery at Manzanar.
The haze in Owens Valley, presumably smoke from the Coffee Pot Fire, was much worse than on Friday. From Manzanar we could see Mt. Williamson well directly behind but the peaks rapidly became hard to make out to the north and south.
Day 4 (9/3): We stayed at the Trails Motel in Lone Pine, which was quite comfortable, and got on the road around 8am to get back to Vegas. We stopped at Dante's View in Death Valley since we had skipped it on Friday: the contrast in the scenery is quite impressive.
We made a few minor stops in Vegas and both of us had uneventful return flights.
More photos: https://imgur.com/a/death-valley-dusy-basin-ITKn1xg