Attempted hike to Mitchell Peak

From the title itself, you already understand that the hike did not completely happen. Well, it did, but not to Mitchell Peak. As we were driving to the trailhead, the road was closed due to washouts.

We parked right next to the gate and were planning to at least hike a little bit, if not to Mitchell Peak. As we were hiking, there was a service truck driving on the road. The guy said that they were also going to be doing prescribed fire, so we would see some smoke shortly. Strike two! And what did we do? We proceeded! It was a nice day, and we didn't want to drive all the way out to the national park to just turn around an hour later.

We found a nice waterfall and took a short break there. If you were driving, you probably would never have stopped by that spot.

The air felt thin due to elevation, and 4 miles into the hike, we decided to turn around. In the meantime, we discovered small elevations on the ground. As I looked closer, it was dirt coming out from the ground, probably from ants or worms digging their tunnels. I have never seen such a thing! Very interesting.

It was a peaceful, and for some reason exhausting hike. I guess it was thin air, but I was really tired. We stopped by the School House restaurant on the way back to have lunch. I have heard quite a bit about it, but it was about 45 min driving from Fresno, so I never had the desire to drive that far to try it out.

Read Christy W.'s review of School House Restaurant & Tavern on Yelp