The summer of 2021 was in full swing and Shannon and I had arranged a four week workation in Mammoth Lakes. We booked an AirBnb and planned to set up there for the month of July, working during the day and sneaking out for morning and evening hikes, and enjoying much easier access to the high mountains on the weekend. To kick this exciting trip off, we picked up a backpacking permit for the North Fork of Big Pine Creek over the Fourth of July, no small feat! We had visited this area a few years before and had attempted a climb of Cloudripper, but failed to reach the summit. We picked out a few peaks in the area for this trip that we hoped to climb, namely Mount Winchell, and Mount Gayley if the conditions appeared good, and Cloudripper. That seemed like plenty, but we knew we could always pick out some others from the map if we had more time and energy than anticipated.

The Friday before, we packed up our car with everything we needed for our multidisciplinary work trip/vacation and drove over Sonora Pass to the AirBnB we had rented in Mammoth. There, we unloaded and crashed for the night, in no hurry to wake up early the next morning for more driving.