Lone Pine, CA

From Eastern Oregon we headed South to Pyramid Lake, a large terminal lake outside Reno, Nevada. We spent our time there focusing on water issues including rights, diversion issues and development in and around rivers. The Nevada landscape is unlike anything I've ever seen before, where the tallest vegetation are the three foot tall juniper and sage brush bushes. Finally, after a couple weeks of cold we've reached a place where we can comfortably sleep outside and don't need our down coats as soon as the sun sets. Here we're learning to change our perceptions of beautiful to include brown, grey and beige in addition to green. On our last day in the basin we spent the afternoon swimming in the lake, clambering around the tufa rock formations and generally enjoying being clean (though the water is significantly more alkaline than what we're used to in the PNW).

After spending a few nights at Pyramid Lake, we've headed further South. Lone Pine, California is the starting point for ascending Mount Whitney and our camp is situated in the foothills below Langley Peak. Here again we're looking at terminal lakes, specifically dry Owen's Lake that is in the midst of a rehabilitation. Today we visited Manzanar, a Japanese internment camp in the valley that serves as another scar our nation has in its history. Being here in this place, surrounded by the first person accounts of the Manzanar experience was a sobering reality check in our present day political state. Later this afternoon we hiked up to an ashram about a quarter of the way up Langley Peak where we were encouraged by our writing professor to find inspiration and let it run with us. Today was the first time we've really had for introspection and absorption of all the material and experience we've had over the last three weeks, and for that I was grateful. The landscape here is breathtaking, as everywhere we've been so far. Nestled up against the Sierra Nevadas, the Alabama Hills (filming site of many Westerns) directly below.