We woke up early, determined to do some climbing. I was quite annoyed by my mediocre performance the previous day at Mammoth Lakes. But despite how short it was, my feet were still swollen around the ankles. I guess it could have been repercussions still since the walk we did around Saddlebag Lake. But I felt as if I was turning into an invalid ... 
We took a little drive first up towards Mount Whitney, or as far as the road takes you up Whitney Portal. There is a cozy campsite up there, alongside the canyon, with a little stream running through. The views from there were not as good as from our campsite though. As we came back down we took a tour of the alternative campground, the free one at Turtle Creek campground. It was pretty primitive, looked alternative indeed. They must get some good characters there ...The rock formations in Alabama Hills are amazing. I am sure one could climb there for months on new routes. For some reason they haven't gained the popularity of places like Joshua Tree, although Alabama Hills is at least as pretty if not more. Well, maybe it's more out of the way.
But, luckily for us, there was nobody in sight. The campsite had been quiet too. Now that we were out there, there was nobody else. A number of the rocks have bolts on them, anchors or topropes. C had kindly spotted out a place that had a couple of 5.6s and 5.7s. He fixed a toprope for me, and then, me eager to make up for the day before, I climbed the 5.6. It went quite well actually, once I got going. My ankles swelled up really bad while I climbed, especially my right foot which doubled in size, but I managed to make most of the moves relying on my left foot mostly. 
I then climbed a couple of 5.7s and found them easier than the 5.6. I really liked this rock. It was a little flaky, but real sticky and lots of dishes in it and funny little nibs coming out of it. Every now and then I completely forgot to be scared of the heights and forgot about the pain in my toes and my ankles and my feet and my arms as I was hanging on to the rock and sort of just had fun climbing that wall. Here's a photo of the face. I know, it doesn't look like much, but if you look at this from this angle (it's the face in the shadow), you see that it's actually quite vertical ... There was one more route I was tempted to try, but when I began to study it it looked a little more technical than I had hoped, well, C did it, somewhat easily, but I didn't know how to tackle it, and it was a 5.8 anyway, so we moved on to another wall. 
We went to check out The Fin, which is sort of a landmark in Alabama Hills. (It made the cover of the climbing book we had too.) It is pretty, and offers fantastic backdrops of Mount Whitney. C really wanted to try it, and there was one 5.7 route on it in case I wanted to try too, but I was too scared (it's so high and steep) and C was not comfortable doing the 5.9 bolts either, so, we want to look for yet another one. Found a neat one with several routes of increasing difficulty. I started on one, but very soon on the first crux gave up when I couldn't stand on the toes of my right foot anymore due to the inflammation in my ankle. I was sort of disappointed, because the climbing spot was very inviting, but at least I had done three routes and this is really only the second time I climb, so I was somewhat content. 
C climbed two routes on it though, and he enjoyed them a lot. So, next time we come here, I will make sure to take advantage of this perfect training place. Anyway, it was a hot sunny day. We drove down to Lone Pine again, to get provisions for the long drive we had coming up. Treated ourselves to ice-cream, since we were there. The whole trip so far, C has been leading me on on a root beer float, one of those american cultural institutions I haven't exploited yet. I had kind of been hoping that we would find one of those in Lone Pine, but alas, they didn't seem to have an A & W, so that was a no-op. I like Alabama Hills, maybe we should halt our trip right here ...
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