Jammin' with Jameson

22.6 miles. Much to my surprise, we slept in until 6:30. My prayers to Grogu cane true! We only had the essentials in our packs and started up the mountain at 7:30. After 3 miles we got to guitar lake and counted at least 7 marmots running around in the meadow. After a long break, we started the serious climbing. I could not have been happier the entire time. I was so excited to be back in the type of terrain that I loved and felt like home to met. My legs couldn’t have agreed more. The hiking was tough and the breathing was difficult but I felt like I was going at full speed and felt great. Weatherman was also playing some bomb music to get us going. We took breaks often to stick together and eventually got to the trail junction that meets with the trail to Whitney portal and indicated we had 1.9 miles. I thought this part of the trail was extremely cool with a windy, exposed path around jagged cliffs and rock. I was so happy to have great weather with tolerable wind and knew my decision to take two zeros was rewarded. We heard that the weather was so bad the day before that some people were showing signs of hypothermia on top and could barely take in the views. We eventually got to the last 0.2 miles and waited to do it all together. We signed the log book, checked out the shelter, and ATE! The view on top was beautiful and we had entirely to ourselves for a while (due to starting so late). We took portraits with the guys peeing off cliffs in the background and had a dance party so epic that one hiker walked up and said “I wish my friends were as fun as this”. We eventually headed down for the long descent. I felt good at first but eventually crashed on the many many many many many rocky switchbacks down. I couldn’t talk anymore and just had to hike. Near the lake, we ran into some JMT hikers who needed water and gave us food in return – successful yogi’ing! I started collecting skipping rocks on the rest of the way to the lake and went off for my first alpine skipping. I did the final 3 miles as fast as I could to catch up with everyone else and just enjoyed the beauty. We got down way later than we expected and were not excited for the remaining 7 miles we planned to do that night but headed out to do it anyways. The only thing I remember after that was a beautiful sunset view and lots of night hiking on a meadow and then down into a forest. We realized that I forgot to sleep with my water filter and that several water filters froze while hiking so we ended up down 4 filters. We decided to camp early and not barge in with headlamps blazing at 9:45 and got to have a nice private campsite for just us.