Base camp - The locked gate

July 9th, 2011 - 01:30

Continue on White Mountain road for what appears to be forever, keep going straight and don't panic when the road seems to be descending again. Your destination is the ominously named, "Locked Gate", but this only turned up on one sign at the very beginning. It all looks very bleak at 1am when all you can see is what your headlights illuminate, basically a narrow road with a steep drop off on one side.

Eventually we got to the gate, and saw several other cars, but of course nobody. One advantage of arriving so late, was that the moon had set again. This gave us a spectacular view of the milky way, and several shooting stars. Unfortunately, didn't bring my telescope. We laid a ground sheet and just slept in our bags on the ground. It was about 34F.

My first indication this was high altitude, came when I stepped out of the car, instant light-headiness, which pretty much continued until I slept.