Cats and dogs, nothing. It must be raining lions and bears this afternoon. The thundershower that moved in brings to mind animals of much greater size than the average cat or dog. Small animals don't boom like that. The forecast is for more of the same for the next few days. It doesn't exactly bode well for our plans to drive over to the east side of the Sierra's for some mountaineering.
A woman that we know had wilderness permits for the Mt. Whitney region for this weekend. Unfortunately for her, she sprained her ankle and had to get rid of them. So Tom and I have vague plans to drive to Lone Pine, meet the other two people who are splitting the permit with us, and do some climbing. I'd like to tag the summit of Mt. Whitney, and we've been making plans to do a superb-looking route on near-by Mt. Russell called the Mithral Dihedral. Our permit is for Sat-Mon nights (8/2-8/4) so that should give us time to hike in (Sat), do some climbing and hike out Tuesday. That's all if the weather holds. It sounds like we may get disturbingly wet.