White Mountain dayhike and Bighorn Sheep (CA)

“We aborted our weekend backpack half way thru because of thunder and lightning. The plan was to bag a 13er, and that just didn't seem like a good thing to do at the time.

So we drove to the White Mountain trailhead in the Inyo Mountains. I didn't know there were bighorn sheep in the area. They didn't seem to feel threatened, and were fun to photograph. We spent over an hour hanging out with the bighorn.

Between the Rubber Boa and the Bighorn, I took a lot of pix! Filled a 512 and 256 card.

PHOTOS: White Mountain 12,246' ”

“DOH! That should be 14,246'”

“Ive seen those sheep. Cool arnt they? :) How was the drive up there along that road? I had a flat from the road that I discovered when I got back to the car after hiking. >:(. I would of thought there would be still lots of snow up there.



Guess I will read your trail report now and answer my own questions LOL”

“Nice shots!!!

Lucky they let you get so close.”

“....but....you guys suck....he he

Yo Justin....couldn't you tell that some of those sheep wanted your GU? Yeah...i'd swear that one sheep was sayin' "give me all your GU man!"....But...you keep the rocks....”

“Nice pictures, do you know I have not hiked up White Mountain yet. I am going to do it this summer for sure. (But) I saw a road, I wonder if I can drive the Rubicon up there. I can bring an awesome lunch and enjoy 14k' views at the same time!!!!!”

“Free, The road was in good shape this time. A few years ago I had two flat tires on one trip, and my friend had one flat. That's three flats between two vehicles on one trip! Half of our group hiked, while the other half drove back in my truck (stopping to add fix-a-flat every few miles) to Bishop to get the tires fixed. I had to replace one tire, and the other two were repairable. The road wasn't graded, and I swear there were pyramid shaped spikes waiting to puncture the tires. After that incident, I got my Wrangler MT/Rs. Yes, big horn are very cool. My favorite animal.

WLD, there's the 4wd road (Silver something-or-other road) that drops down to Bishop. SnowDude drove it once, and got a flat. He got the MT/Rs after that. I heard you could drive down it but its pretty gnarly going up. Gonna do it???? :-)
Stratusloop, I don't know how Calhiker does it. Works til midnight Friday, drives up and hikes on 1-2 hrs of sleep. And he's still wide awake Saturday night when everyone is ready for bed. Must be something to the rocks and Gu diet. . . .”

“Actually I work til 12:45 a.m., leave San Diego at 1:30, stop to sleep on the way up for about an hour, and drive to the trailhead. I'm lucky that altitude doesn't bother since I get absolutely no acclimation time. I've been doing trips on little sleep for 14 years, but this is ridiculous!

I drove up Silver Canyon from Bishop after mountain biking down the 9 miles. The road is in good shape, just very steep with some tight turns.

Stratusloop, the sheep kept advancing towards us. It was awesome! No Gu was visible either. They were happy with their grass. Maybe I should try that too.”

“AWESOME! Bighorns... lucky you! Whew doggy!”

“FYI - White Mtn is not a wilderness area, so you can take a mtn bike up the trail. I've done it few times. Just be sure you stay on the trail - the area does have some kind of 'nature preserve' status, but they let vehicles on the dirt road to allow the Barcroft Lab researchers to drive up to the summit station. The last few miles are a little rocky, so I usually ditch the bike an hike the rest of the way. It great to brag about biking at 14,000 ft!

I've also run into mtn bikers who start in Big Pine and bike all the way up the paved and dirt roads to the summit! They use the car camp next to the Bristlecone Pine area as an overnight camp, and usually have driven up there a day earlier to stash extra water (I gotta try that sometime!).”

“My brother and I rode up to the summit of White Mtn. back in 2001. The late photographer/climber Galen Rowell was up there. I thought it was a blast, especially riding back down. When Snow Nymph and I were hiking those last 2 miles back to the truck, even she was wishing she had a bike!

Pictures of the bike ride from \'01:

http://community.webshots.com/album/20683486MDpbaGiBOR”