The plan for this trip was to spend two nights camping in Devil's Postpile National Monument. This formation is nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains, near their eastern edge, just west of the town of Mammoth Lakes. The postpile itself (above) is around 7400 feet in elevation; the various campgrounds are between this and 8000 feet.
My favorite route to the Eastern Sierra is SR120 through Yosemite. Of course, if you go this way, you have to pay the entrance fee -- or you can buy a Golden Eagle passport, good for one whole year at any national park or monument. If you go to the parks as often as I do, it pays for itself pretty quickly. Anyway, 120 climbs up to the Yosemite high country. I always end up stopping, even if only for a few minutes to get out and marvel, or maybe eat a snack at Tenaya Lake. On this trip, I stopped several times along the road and took a good smattering of pictures. There was no snow at Tioga Pass this year. On the other hand, the weather at Mono Lake was beautiful.
All in all, I got to Devil's Postpile in the late afternoon. There were a few campsites open (the advantage of getting there on a Sunday instead of on a Friday or Saturday: you can be late and still get a site). I wanted a site as low as possible, elevation-wise (remember, three degrees Fahrenheit per thousand feet!) but ended up at Agnews Meadow, at the 8000' level. After the first rush of mosquitos and a quick DEET break, I set up camp and went back into Mammoth for food the lazy way. (I was saving the camp-cooking for the next night, actually.) I returned to camp and slept, not terribly well. I got up well before dawn having to pee -- camping is great for reminding one why we invented indoor plumbing -- and feeling generally icky, slept fitfully, and woke up again in the early dawn with a headache and other vague altitide-sickness-like symptoms. After eating a bit of breakfast and drinking lots of water, though, I felt better enough to go on down to the Postpile parking area and hike out to Rainbow Falls. I stopped for a long while at Rainbow Falls itself, taking pictures every ten minutes or so, but gave up and headed back before the sun brought out its namesake rainbow.
At the end of the hike I had consumed well over 2 liters of water and was feeling much better (not to mention hungry). I made a picnic lunch by the river. Unfortunately, immediately after eating it, I felt much worse again. Thinking it was probably altitude sickness, I decided I had better err on the side of caution. I drove back to my campsite, packed up, and headed home early. A few days later I learned that it was, in fact, another kidney stone. Fortunately, unlike the previous stone, this one was virtually painless. If I have to have kidney stones, I sure prefer these smaller ones.
