Category Archives: Sierras

An east side of the Sierra Nevada detour

California, Photography, Sierras, Travel

On Tuesday morning, Aston and Eileen got up early and drove to San Francisco to go to work and we started a little later to drive to Lee Vining to meet Karen Amy and her friend Chris. The first stint took us along the east shore of Lake Tahoe so we could marvel at its blue gem-likeness set in a granite ring. From there, we picked up Highway 50 to crest the Carson Range at Spooner Summit and drop down into the Great Basin of  Nevada just south of the state capitol, Carson City.

From there, it is Highway 395 all the way south to the backdoor to Yosemite at Lee Vining. We cross back into California at Topaz Lake about 60 – some odd – miles south of coming into Nevada . I was born in San Francisco and have lived in California all my non-Army life. I was brought up to think of myself as a Californian more than as an American. As much as I love Nevada, I think of California as my home and even though we have only been in Nevada for a little over an hour, I get a little coming home tingle as we look down the valley with California in the hazy distance. This border crossing, back into California at Topaz Lake seems so archetypical: we drive through high Nevada – it may be dry enough to be called – desert, cross a long flat pass at about 6,000 feet, and then head down into the Topaz Lake Basin with green fields on the California side.

The Walker River flows into Topaz Lake and we go up river as we head south up a long canyon. About 15 years ago, the Walker River overflowed taking out the road and we had to detour about 50 miles out of our way to get to Death Valley. A year or two later, we drove through the denuded canyon on a new road and marveled at the devastation. Now, going up canyon, I am not sure, even, where the river took out the road.

Our plan is to meet Karen at noon at the Mobil Station cafe but we start to run late because we keep running into unexpected traffic controls. It turns out that we are caught up in construction of Digital 395, a 583-mile fiber network whose motto is Connect on the Wild Side. The project seems to be a public/private partnership with lots of semi-official – but unidentifiable –  sounding names like the Eastern Sierra Connect Regional Broadband Consortium and the California Advanced Services Fund. Among others, it is funded by the California Public Utilities Commission and the Department of Commerce under the Recovery Act. I couldn’t help thinking that alot of the people who moved here to get away from civilization and are now getting broadband would use it to badmouth big government. Our trip through Bridgeport is the worst with twenty minutes waits for a slow, controlled, crawl through town which is having all its roads repaved;

iPhone photo by Michele Stern

meanwhile, Karen has shown up an hour and an half early. We finally show up about 30 minutes late and the four of us have a quick lunch so we can scurry twelve miles back to Conway Summit at 8,138 feet where the Aspens are starting to turn.

Portrait by Michele Stern 

After we wandered around the Conway Summit area, going to Virginia Lake and then back down to the view overlooking Mono Lake and, way in the distance, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, south of Mammoth.

By now, Michele and I were in full tour guide mode, wanting to go down to the edge of Mono Lake to better show it off.

Mono Lake is, of course,  not a lake but a dead sea and it is the major rookery for Seagulls on the west coast. Still, it is always a shock to see them here, hundreds of miles – by road, at least – from the sea (which is, after all part of their name). But, here they are, chowing down on Alkali Flies and Brine Shrimp. Somehow, they seem both tamer – as in less frenzied – and wilder – as in less dependant on humans – than on the coast. As we watched the Seagulls, I ended up watching the soft waves, lapping the shore, and marveling at how different these waves are from the waves at Virginia Lake, 45 minutes and 3,200 vertical feet away.

By now it was getting close to our 4 o’clock cut off time, so we took a quick peek down the June Lake loop, looking for fall color, and then headed back over the hill. Karen and Chris to Yosemite Valley and Michele and myself to Portola Valley. At 8600 feet, it was already winter at Tuolumne Meadows.

 

 

The 2012 Eclipse

Americana, Current Affairs, Photography, Sierras

Michele and I went to Pyramid Lake, Nevada to see the eclipse. (Photo above grabbed from the web.) Well, more accurately, Michele went to Pyramid Lake to see the eclipse – because the center line of the eclipse path went over the southern part of the lake – and I went because I wanted to see the people watching the eclipse. We met Michele’s sister at the family cabin in Squaw Valley and then drove the long way to Pyramid.

Starting at Squaw in the Sierras, we drove north through pines and aspens to Sierraville where we semi-picniced.

Sierraville is a scenic little town at the western edge of a large valley – surprisingly enough, named Sierra Valley – that grows drier as we drive to Nevada, heading  east and getting deeper into the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevadas. By mid afternoon, we ended up at the north end of Pyramid Lake and saw our first Eclipsers.

From there, we worked our way south to where Michele had figured would be the optimum viewing place. We found the perfect place: great eclipse viewing for Michele and great wacko people viewing for me. And I mean wacko people in the best possible way; anybody willing to drive this far to see what is essentially a non-event, is my kind of person. I learned a long time ago, when I went to my first Cactus and Succulent Society meeting, that people who are interested in the out-of-the-ordinary are the most interesting people of all.

A couple of portraits by Michele.

Then it was back to Reno through the fading light for a beer and sandwich at the Great Basin Brewing Company. All in all, a very nice outing.

 

 

A nostalgia trip to Death Valley 2

California, Camping, Death Valley, Sierras, Uncategorized

We have probably camped just off the Hole in the Wall road almost a dozen times. We can pretty much find all the good camping spots in the dark which is how we got there last night. It is near downtown Death Valley and because it is about 3.5 miles up a unpaved road and behind a rock formation – we are not supposed to camp within 3 miles of a paved road – very quiet with no light pollution. We camped is a nice intimate area that opens into a larger valley.

Because we were so close to our old haunts, we decided to visit a couple of them, starting with Dante’s View just a couple of miles up the paved road. Dante’s View is on the crest of the Black Mountains at about 5,500 feet, overlooking  Badwater, the lowest point in North America at about 280 feet below sealevel.

 

Death Valley is not actually a valley but a graben or basin. A valley is caused by a river eroding the land and a graben is caused by a block of the earth dropping, usually with parallel mountains on each side. In this case, the water that runs into death Valley does not flow out, it evaporates, leaving salts and minerals behind. In February of 2005, after a very unusual, rainy, winter, the valley – OK, graben – actually became a very shallow lake.

Looking down at the salt patterns, sometimes they almost look like clouds.

No trip to our old haunts would be complete without visiting Furnace Creek Inn, where we got married 18 years ago.

We decided to camp off a favorite, easily accessible, road in the north of the Panamint Valley – really another basin or graben to the east – which would put us about an hour closer to home and give us some time to photograph the fall color on Highway 395. But it was starting to cloud up and I was getting concerned that the weather – which had been warm and windless so far –   would turn nasty. When we got to the Panamint, everything was clouded over but it was warm and still.

It is always good to remember that the reason this is a desert is because it does not rain here very often. Even though it was overcast, the chances of rain – at least any meaningful rain – were pretty slim. The big problem would be the wind.

As an aside, just off the Big 4 Mine Road, is a old abandoned car. One abandoned car! A Buick. I have probably passed it ten times. Now there are two and I can’t figure out which is more improbable; somebody dragged another car up the road and dropped it or there were always two cars and I mis-remember. Intellectually, I know that the later must be true, BUT I so distinctly misremember that there was only one car. End aside.

As I wandered around the – now – two cars, Ed came over, took one look, and said Look, there is a baby rattlesnake. And there – between the two cars, in a place I had just walked by – it was. The first rattlesnake I have ever seen in Death Valley in over 30 years of looking.  Crotalus stephensi – Panamint Rattlesnake – Crotalus is from the Greek for rattle and it was named after somebody named Stephen. This little guy did not rattle or even move and there is only so long you can watch anything that lays there like a rock, so we moved on, looking for a place to throw down our bags.

Or, more accurately, a place to set up some chairs and sit around, gabbing.

Looking around, it was pretty easy to believe we were the only people in the valley, certainly the only people within sight. As the sun went down, the clouds started to clear and the sky put on a show that seemed to be just for us.

The next morning, we were up nice and early, said Goodbye to the Panamint and headed for home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My 70th birthday trip over Mono Pass and down Mono Creek: part 3

California, Camping, Sierras, Travel

(For part1, go here; for part 2, go here)

Tuesday morning, everybody slept in. Except for me, that is. I got up when I woke up at about 7 and watched the sun light up the bright granite faces across the valley from our camp and down into the valley that we would be hiking through in the next couple of days.

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As the sun got higher, it started coming through the trees, highlighting and backlighting patches of flowers and grasses. I wandered around like a kid in a candy shop.

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Our original plan had been to move our camp down valley the first day and then explore from there. But we had an excellent camp and, as we talked about it, explored a little, and looked at our maps alot; staying right where we were became a better idea. We were above 10,000 feet which meant we couldn't have a fire, but the campsite had lots of flat places to sleep, few mosquitoes, and no dreaded deer flies which we were told we would find further down canyon.

The plan became to stay here, take it easy, and wander down to the Fourth Recess Lake – about 1/2 mile away and down 500 feet – for a mid-day lunch.

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After hanging out for a while and exploring a little – very little – around the Fourth Recess, it was time to go back to camp. This was our second day we ended it by doing a little laundry. 

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My 70th birthday trip over Mono Pass and down Mono Creek: part 1

California, Camping, Mono Pass, Photography, Sierras, Travel

Sometime during the last year, I decided to celebrate my 70th birthday with a trans-Sierra hike. I am not sure how, or why, I came up with this scheme, but I did. Now we are back and I am whooped, but I am still glad I came up with the idea. It did turn out to be more logistically difficult and a harder hike, for me, than I originally expected.

Part of the difficulty was that the leaving and arriving trailheads are six to seven hours apart and part of it was that, after going over the pass, the runout on the westside – for me – was still a three day walk. I am still pretty stiff and sore. But, and it is a huge BUT, the trip was very worth it.

When we Googled the fastest way from ,the west trailhead to the east trailhead, Google took us through Yosemite Valley. That just didn't seem right. Through Yosemite Valley on a Saturday, on a free weekend – that just couldn't be the fastest way. When we finally got past the denial stage to the grief stage, we knew we were in trouble. But, when we got to the tunnel view at sunset, we pretty much felt we had lucked out. 

This was the place, after all, immortalized by Ansel Adams.

Tunnel view ansel 

When we got there, the other lucky tourists were all, in the perfect light, taking pictures.

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When, Ansel took his picture, he must have waited hours for the right light. Standing there with a huge 8×10 camera on a sturdy tripod, a light-proof cloth over his head. We just blew through. Drove up, walked to the edge, stuck the camera in roughly the right direction, and then got back into the car and drove away. It seems both slightly cheap in the ease and liberating at the same time. The digital age is a whole new photographic ballgame. So to speak.

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*     *     *     *     *     *     *

 There were five of us on the trip and I started early, Monday, morning, walking the first part of the trial with a friend and, then, alone.

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The trail is gorgeous, leaving Mosquito Flat and slowly working up towards the pass. As we walked, we spread out along the trial and then gathered for lunch just before the final push towards the pass.

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To get an idea of the scale of the area, double click on the pic below. The small dots are members of our group.

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I say final push, I think for everybody else it was a stroll and , for me, it was slow but not that hard. After the pass, we started down – duh! – and met up again at the very high, very barren,  Summit Lake.

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From there we dropped into the Mono Creek drainage. The canyon, or valley – certainly not a canyón – opened up below us. Continued here.