Mount Inyo

Summer 1957

By: Bob Bear

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The dedication trip to MOUNT INYO left vivid memories with the 19 eager beavers who waited for their leader (yours truly) to show up in Lone Pine at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 19. Things started auspiciously Saturday morning - sunny, swell view of the Sierras and a semblance of a trail - including lunch with fresh flowing water. From there on things became increasingly rough. First the trail disappeared. Then, when we relocated it - it went straight up a scree slope practically at the angle of repose. As we churned up the tread mill, the weather clouded up and the winds arrived. In a pine-cone carpeted gulley at the 9500-foot site of an old mine, we made a windy camp.

Up at five Sunday morning, we were greeted by lowering clouds, which wreathed all neighboring ridges and blotted out all distant views. At five-thirty, Lilley, Ross and Sanders headed for Mt. Keynot as a warm-up for Mt. Inyo. The rest of us took off at six, with snow flurries now further limiting visibility, not too sure we would even make Mt. Inyo. By heading uphill we managed to get to the top, and so did the Keynot trio about an hour behind us. It took a compass to get us back to camp, as the snow came down increasingly heavily. To prove how scree-filled the trail was, the downhill trip to our cars took only 2 hours, versus 6 hours up to camp. We planted our register all right, but we really had a workout in the process!


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