Bishop 2 and Lone Pine

Taking the June Lake Loop is always a joy.    The clear skies at that elevation are stunning and the fall colors never disappoint.     Even the snow we encountered didn't phase us.   It actually innervated Dave....oh my.

June Lake

Oh Dave

Even when the leaves were no longer on the aspen, the effect was beautiful.

The lakes seemed to be quite full this year, always a happy discovery here in the west.  

Grant Lake

this was taken in the same spot on Grant Lake, the last time we were here

OK, no more water pictures.    I did say we drove around the June LAKE loop, right?

A drive up into the Ancient Bristlecone Forest is always something we look forward to.     One day we packed lunch and headed out, even though there was snow on the ground at the elevation in which these giants live.

lunch view

Dave always humors me and checks the road ahead...

The Inyo National Forest has lots of spots to drive off the main road and camp, or explore, or eat lunch.    We always take advantage of these dirt tracks, they're most often private and quiet and have interesting things to look at, if your driver positions the Jeep correctly.

The higher we went, the snowier (is that a word?) it got.   The visitor's center was closed and that's as far as people were driving but.....the road kept going so we kept going.

shade patterns

here he goes again.....

The snow and mud got deeper at 10,500 feet and we still had 12ish miles to go if we were to connect with Silver Canyon and the rest of the loop road I'd identified so....we turned around and went back home, the way we came.   Maybe we'll find a car wash along the route.

So, that's the end of our Bishop adventures for this visit.    Last Tuesday we packed up and drove about 60 miles south (still on 395) to another of our favorite spots....Lone Pine.

We're in a great end spot (#54) at Boulder Creek RV a few miles south of Lone Pine proper.    

We've been busy while here.    The first day we explored Owen's Lake, such as it is.     There are miles of dirt roads throughout the reclamation project, and by dirt, I mean damp, cement like dusty surfaces.    The City of LosAngeles has used up the actual lake and they have now been forced to try and mitigate the toxic dust clouds that have blown across the empty lakebed and also to bring back the important wetlands, part of the Pacific Flyway migration route for so many birds and waterfowl.   

Parts of the lakebed have been covered with some sort of cloth and then topped with gravel.    From a distance it looks like snow.    

Some areas have been planted with acres of "managed vegetation".    Shallow flooding, and other methods, have attracted numerous bird species and they were what we were looking for.  

We were happy to see lots of waterfowl in and around the water.    Unfortunately, they were very flighty. Whenever we approached, no matter how quietly or slowly, they took flight and landed further away, so no pictures for you.    We saw huge flocks of American Avocets, Widgeons, Great Blue Heron, Bufflehead, Mergansers, Ring Neck Ducks, Shovelers, etc., etc. 

 Owens Valley seems to be a racetrack for jet jockeys.      We love our end site here because we often get a free airshow at second cup or happy hour.    These thunderous "birds" playing overhead, resulted in slowing our forward progress frequently and causing Dave to jump out and search the skies.   Oh Dave...

 

Mt. Whitney is directly across from our park so, of course, we had to drive up to the portal.

    A beautiful drive takes you up from the dry desert below to the high pine forest.

I won't bore you with too many pictures of this area, we've been there before and I'm sure you've seen lots of photos then.

We had some daylight left so we drove around and through the otherworldly Alabama Hills on our way home.

I couldn't talk Dave into going up and stand below this huge boulder (probably 6-8 feet across) stuck between two others.      You know, for perspective.   Nope, wouldn't do it but he did humor me later, when I asked him to do something else - for perspective.

Death Valley is just over there.....so close that we couldn't NOT drive over for an afternoon.    

We thought we could drive up and over the mountains, into the National Park, and along the Old Toll rd (think unimproved road) to Darwin Falls trailhead.    Best laid plans.

We located the turn off, thought we saw a few road signs (maybe Road Closed?) lying face down in the wash but decided to go anyway.    We can always turn around, right?           After a few miles of picking our way back and forth across the very rocky and rough wash looking for the Old Toll rd, we came upon it.     I guess those upside-down signs really did say Road Closed.....  Ah well, back we went!

We did a bit more exploring on our way back to Beluga that day.   Pam has talked about an interesting ghost town called Cerro Gordo.    We've passed the road that leads up into the mountains before but this time we turned.   It was a well-maintained and graded dirt road through the most fantastic rock formations we've seen in a long time.   

back down

 The sun angle wasn't good for pictures, but it was so interesting at every turn.    We followed the road for 3 or 4 miles but when it made a sharp upward turn onto what looked like a shelf road, I chickened out and Dave graciously turned around.     The enticing history of this ghost town and the lure of a refurbished and newly opened hotel way up there will make this a definite trip for another time.

That wraps it up our 395 travels.     Today we're staying in, doing some needed housekeeping, cooking, blogging and NASCAR watching.      Beluga pulls out in the morning, and after two more quick stops, we'll be home next weekend.   It's been a wonderful 6-month trip.

Here's Annie!

   

Bishop, California

Fall weather is changeable.    We know that and we watch the forecast carefully when our path will take us up into the mountains.     McCloud was to be a few days stop for us but, when we saw that a nasty sounding winter storm was approaching the Sierras and would hit just as we were trying to drive through the area, we changed our plans.   Driving Beluga in 40+ mph winds and through accumulations of up to a foot of snow isn't ever going to happen.    We stopped for one night in Susanville and then moved on through the high elevations of Lee Vining and June Lake while the sun was still shining.     The happy result of that pivot was that we'd have a few more days in Bishop!  

 

 

Our Plan B worked beautifully.   We arrived in sunny cool weather, and it will be that way for our whole visit, we leave here on Tuesday. 

Here comes the weather, sneaking over the mountains.....

 When we woke the next morning, the mountains we had driven through just the day before were beautiful and snow covered.     We made the right choice.

 

Bishop and its surrounding areas are one of our favorite places.    Craggy mountains, lakes, streams, shimmering Aspen trees, the Owens River, plenty of off roading adventures, spectacular scenery and lots of rose bushes to accommodate the Rose Robbers favorite pastime.    And....Erick Schat's Bakkery is in Bishop.

Dave preparing to eat Santa

oh Dave....

Schat's Bakery serves fresh roast turkey sandwiches on an array of freshly baked breads.   It also offers a large number of German style cookies (think...the sorts of cookies Foof baked for us growing up) pastries, coffee cakes, candies, etc.   Dave's sandwich choice is always the "Santa".   It's basically a huge turkey club sandwich with cranberry sauce on sourdough bread.  The fact that the bakery building is surrounded by rose bushes seals the deal for Dave.

So, I mentioned off road explorations.   One day we took lunch, pointed Rocky east and headed up Silver Canyon, just to see what we could see.   It was a scenic, fairly easy, but rocky road with 10 water crossings (as far as we went at least....) that would eventually take us up to 10,500 feet and into the Ancient Bristlecone Forest.

We turned around well before that, however.     The Bristlecones would wait for another day, another and easier route. 

Silver Canyon

very bad picture of a flock of Chukar trying to lead us somewhere

back down to the valley floor

Another day we decided to explore the nearby Volcanic Tablelands.   They rise abruptly about 300 feet from the valley floor and were formed by a cataclysmic volcanic eruption 750,000 years ago.   I've borrowed a photo to show you since we were ON them instead of looking at them from a distance.

 There are interesting petroglyph panels scattered around this area and we were on a mission to find some.       

Not another soul around, absolute silence.....just us and the drawings made by Piute Shoshone hands, some as long ago as 3000 years ago....

Private pilots beware says Dave....wave clouds

I won't bore you with the rest of the pictures, needless to say we were on overload.

Ok, just one more.

 On our way back, we took a few sidetracks and found ourselves in a beautiful, narrow red rock canyon.   We didn't follow it all the way through, it was obvious that there had been a decent flood of water there recently.   Better safe than sorry, especially near the end of the day.

  I think I'll end this post right here.    I'll show you our drive around the June Lake Loop and another day's exploration in the snow at over 10,000 feet in the next post. 

Here's Annie!