Above, the 14, 250' peak of White Mountain as I hiked towards it. Seriously, the region on the east side of the Sierra Nevada range was the strangest, and maybe most inhospitable place I've ever seen. Some of the tallest mountains in the continental US, with desert valleys in between. Everything was really dry and the sun was intense. Climbing a 14,000' peak was one of my silly macho goals for the summer, and I got good advice from people along the way that White mountain in midsummer would be a non-technical, uncrowded peak. I didn't have to feel the effects of the altitude too much, because I had been high up in Yosemite for several days, and the night before the climb I camped at the trailhead at 11,000' feet. There was still some snow near the peak, and the views in every direction were incredible - looking at the spine of the Sierras, with huge glaciers and other 14ers to the west, and Death Valley and Nevada deserts to the east. The drive up to the trailhead went past groves of Bristlecone pines, the oldest known trees. They are these half-dead stunted little things that grow high up on the dry exposed mountain slopes where almost nothing else can.
View to the south of White Mountain, with the access road in the distance.
Bristlecone pines - as the climate changes over the millenia they die back on certain slopes, and the wood practically never decays. The big, almost dead ones in the picture above might be 4,000 yrs. old. Hard to imagine.
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