We woke up pretty early for the second day of our hike: around 6:45 AM and cooked up a quick hot breakfast of oatmeal. Soon, we were on our way.
Although we had fewer miles to cover than the day before, the first mile was potentially one of our steepest. In .8 miles, we would ascend 700 feet. So, we started slowly. My breathing was heavy, but by the time we took our first break, we had already ascended around 150 feet! Soon enough, we made it to the top, but more importantly, we made it to our first snow pile! I dropped my pack at the top of the summit, ran down to the snow pile, and made a snowman! Caltech has a lot of cool things at it (pun intended), but unfortunately snow is not one of them (although there is Caltech/JPL research done in Antarctica), so the experience was a treat for everyone.
My snowman! His eyes are a little lopsided, but I tried my best!
Next, we made our way slowly along a ridge, surrounded by alpine snow banks, sand, and marmots! Then, we descended into the basin where we would camp. We thought we had aways to go, but we took a quick snack break, someone looked around, and saw a lake! Sure enough, we were at our campsite. Luckily, we didn't miss it, as there was no real water beyond where we planned to sleep.
Since we got to the campsite so early (it was before 1 pm), we decided to take a quick day hike around the nearby lakes. While some of our group decided to swim in the icy waters, I was content with just putting my feet in.
On our way back, we saw a parade of horses across from the little stream near our campsite; a great throwback to the Caltech Y horseback riding trip in Griffith Park, a great experience I had third term!
That day, we enjoyed two hot meals, one for lunch and one for dinner. Afterwards, we went right to sleep, as we were planning to get up at 4:30 AM.
The view of Death Valley below us after we climbed up 700 ft in .8 miles.
Just last week, on an unassuming Thursday, the astro(physics) community got served two humongous cakes at once. Both the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) and the IceCube Neutrino Observatory (IceCube) have ground-breaking scientific findings to share with the class!
A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the mountains are beautiful, and mysterious sounds echo between our walls while we don’t even pretend to sleep.
This summer I had the incredible opportunity to do a 10-week internship at Gilead Sciences in Foster City, CA. For those unfamiliar, Gilead Sciences, Inc. is a research-based biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative medicines.
