Day 43 6/27 21mi.

We woke up to partially frozen water bottles!! It was a chilly night. We spent the day up high again rarely going below 10,000 feet. We walked through a couple really gorgeous meadows in the morning and made it to a lake which was all the way up at 11,200 feet. The lake was crystal clear and a great spot for a snack break.

Soon after the lake we enter Kings Canyon/Sequoia national parks. Shortly after entering the park we started seeing a ton of people, and we kept seeing more and more people throughout the day.

We had one big climb in the evening, we then dropped slighty to a meadow where we got our first good look at the Mt. Whitney area. There were about a half dozen mule deer grazing in the meadow and a bunch of marmots running around. We hiked a litrle bit farther to another small meadow closer to Mt. Whitney.

Tomorrow morning we will be climbing the 7.5 miles up to the top of Mt. Whitney, which is the highest point in the contiguous 48 states at 14,505 feet above sea level!! This is a side trip that is not part of the official PCT, but it might as well be because almost every PCT hikers takes this side trip. We both can't wait to get started in the morning!