White Mountain Peak

 Garrett, Talmage, and Peter took a hike to White Mountain Peak in preparation for their Young Men's camp hike. It is in the White Mountains near bishop California and it is 14,246 feet. We drove up on Friday with our group and made it to our intended campsite at 8500 feet. Because we had the afternoon to Kill. Larry Griffiths and Peter drove up further to see if camping was allowed while the rest of the group stayed and explored. The exploration revealed an old mine, a hobbit house, and a geocache. The search for another camp lead us over a dirt road to the gate that blocks any vehicle traffic up the White Mountain Road. So we all ended up there to sleep. We ate one of the meals we would have for our camp. It was pretty good food. We all then bunked up for the night. Talmage and Peter shared a tent and an air mattress. Garret "slept" under the stars.

In the morning we ate some oatmeal and got our daypacks ready for the hike. About two miles up there is a research station run by Cal Berkley. It reminded us a lot of the Dharma Initiative from Lost. As we passed we saw a pen with sheep in it.
The long 7.5 miles were tiring, but we all reached the top in around 4 hours. There was resting and photo opportunities at the top. On the way back, it took about three hours. The altitude was quite difficult to hike in as we got higher and higher.
We got in our cars and headed back on the dirt road. Carl Reed, the truck we were in, got a flat tire, so we radioed the others and we all worked to replace the spare. A mile further on the dirt road we came across a family from Belgium and they had a flat tire too. It was a Chevy just like our truck, so we got out and replaced the thing super quick. The family was happy. We had burgers at a little diner in Big Pine and headed home, arriving around 11:00 at night. All in all it was a great adventure.