Day 3 – 7/1/17
11.5 miles
Lake below Crab Tree Pass to Wright Creek (PCT)

Having decided on our route, the morning started with an ice ax and cramponed traverse around the mostly frozen lake, then up a whole bunch of loose rock to gain the ridge just above the Mt Whitney Trail. A short ridge walk and we were at Trail Crest. 

At this point, we said goodbye to Rockin, who left to get ready for a bunch more adventures. 
This all was probably less than 2 miles but took about 4 hours. Translation: off trail nonsense takes a long time, perhaps longer than we’d budgeted for this leg. On top of this, I wasn’t feeling well, probably just altitude. Also, Dan and I both came into this bike with sinus infections. Also also, we need to meet Snorkel in a few days at Road’s End, and Dan has a plane ticket home in the 9th. So, we decided the best option was to bail down to the PCT and take this to the Bubbs Creek trail down to Road’s End. Decision made, we dropped several thousand feet and hit some snow free trail. 

About 5pm we reached Wright Creek, which was raging. Somewhat foolishly, we gave it a go anyway, only to start to lose our footing and stumble back to shore, me dropping to one knee and crawling out. A bit wet and heart racing, but otherwise fine. We didn’t have much energy left, so we half heartedly scouted up and downstream briefly, seeing no good place to cross. So we made camp early. The creek will be lower in the morning, right?