Teton bound

[USExplorer]

Welcome to my spring trip log. My journey this spring starts in Las Vegas Nevada, and will end at Grand Teton National Park May 10th, where I will begin work with a park concessionaire. 

Routine maintenance: Having noticed my brakes squeaking, I replaced the one set of pads that was running low in the Walmart parking lot. It is not hard to do, and it will save you a lot of money.

The Vegas area has a great chain of dollar stores called 99 cent only. Lots of discounted bread, fresh produce, and other items not normally found in a dollar store. While the Kroger charges $3.99/lb for grapes, here the same grapes only cost 99 cents a pound. 6 ounces of blackberries, 99 cents. Knockoff Velvetta mac and cheese dinners, the same. 

I spent Friday night in the desert outside Boulder City next to the River Mountains loop trail near the intersection of 93 and 95. Back where only the moon lit the night. After sleeping in late there were bicyclists and joggers passing by regularly on the trail. I drove into the town of Boulder City and visited the Adventist Church outside of town. The members were very friendly, and invited me to their fellowship lunch. We discussed Adventist doctrine for a while but then they turned the subject to my travels, which as usual they found rather interesting. I ate plenty of vegetarian food and talked for a while with a young lady named Claire visiting her family here. She was studying to be a teacher in Walla Walla Washington but hoped someday to travel the world after saving up some money. I told her that if she was willing to take the time she could travel on a very small budget. After chatting for a while, her dad came over to the table and looked at me suspiciously for a moment, but then determined I had no nefarious purposes and wished me well in my journey.

I headed down to the town laundromat and read a book of short stories ("Ford County Stories") by John Grisham that I found very amusing. Before I knew it my clothes were done, and I drove 93 down the long hill to the Hoover Dam, which is only six miles away from town. The new bypass bridge was crowded with tourists, but there was no parking along the bridge and no view from the bridge either. I crossed into Arizona and turned around and drove down the old road, but turned around before the sign that said "No Firearms". The administration sure makes it difficult for gun owners. The closest parking lot for those with guns in their vehicles is at the Hoover Dam Lodge, a good three and a half mile hike in. Even the smallest pocketknives are prohibited on the Dam, so I leave my knife in my truck and put a gallon of water in my backpack and begin hiking down the trail.

A few families trudged down the gentle grade, and I soon passed them. The surrounding country was far from gentle, scarred with ravines and rock outcroppings in numerous colors. The sun shined down weakly through high clouds, and the air temperature was in the mid 80s with very little wind or humidity. The trail passed through half a dozen tunnels bored through the rock and traversed numerous embankments filling up canyons. Eventually it ended up at the dam parking deck, which was completely deserted. The dam itself had a few pedestrians on it. The top of the dam looks remarkably ordinary, although the water of the lake is 150 feet below the road level. The downstream side was a long and very steep concrete slope, dropping 750 feet down to the spillway at the bottom. The new bypass bridge hung over the top of the canyon, far higher than the canyon was wide. Even though I was carrying a large black backpack no security guards bothered me. 

I walked out onto the bypass bridge. Signs strictly prohibited dropping objects from the bridge, but no physical barriers prevented such activity. In fact several people have jumped to their death from this nearly 900 foot high bridge already. Several tourists walked about on the bridge snapping selfies of themselves with the dam in the background. I decided to take Route 93 straight back to the lodge rather than take the curving rail trail. There were no signs or barriers prohibiting pedestrians on the road, so I set out expecting to have a dam cop on my back with lights flashing at any moment. No one bothered me though, and I walked all the way back to the lodge and ate some kippers and crackers. 

The Hoover Dam Lodge was recently renovated but had a very laid back atmosphere. Inside was a casino, bar and general store, the former two frequented exclusively by retirees. Like every casino I've been to, they didn't have any water fountains. Outside I used the free but slow WiFi. RVs were parked both in the lodge parking lot and in a large gravel lot across the road. By 8:30 I decided to move across the highway and parked a short distance from a pickup with someone sleeping in the bed with no camper top. Because the night was so warm (78 degrees), I didn't want to sleep inside my sunbaked vehicle, so I threw the mattress pad on top and relaxed up there reading "Ford County Stories" until I fell asleep. I've gone from hiding my vehicle out of sight in the woods like sleeping was a crime to snoozing on the roof for all to see without a care. This is what the West does to a camper.

The air temperature dropped to 60 or thereabouts by morning, and I was cold much of the night; I need to be more adaptable. I woke up around 8:00 with the sun roasting me, and drove back into Boulder City. The church I stopped off at was one of those non-denominational churches with a middle-aged pastor in casual attire who used animal videos from YouTube to make a point about what I was not clear. Like most such churches they were indifferent to visitors; having visited such churches many times I knew what to expect.

After church I drove down to the library, which is open on Sunday afternoons, a rare treat. An old guy was napping across the bench seat of a tiny pickup truck by the park, bare feet hanging out the passenger side window. I cooked a mac and cheese dinner and ate it and then looked around in vain for any water fountain or public bathroom to fill a bottle and clean the pot. Every spigot had the handle removed. I swear, I will buy a handle of my own and defeat all these people who take the handles off spigots. Acres of brilliantly green lawns, but not a pint of drinking water. 

A note on water usage: as becoming the landscape I live in, I am very conservative with water. A shower once a week (on average) uses about ten gallons of water. Use of public restrooms, probably another seven gallons a week (more in city, zero in nature). Drinking and cooking, another five gallons a week. 22 gallons a week, not counting the water in the food I eat; The average American uses about 100 gallons a DAY. 

1941: Vegas contrasts right off the Boulevard; a barren desert lot next to a high rise surrounded by a green palm oasis, a snow-capped mountain wilderness a half hours drive away. 
1942: The ruler-straight Boulder Highway from the Railroad Pass grade, Henderson in the foreground, Vegas downtown on the left in the back. How I could enjoy a stay in a living antithesis to my life principles is a mystery to me. 
1944: Lake Mead from the overlook. The ring is visible on this mid-lake island.
1945: The rail trail, passing through two short tunnels on its way down to the dam. 
1946: The desert looks barren from a distance but up close it is very green and vibrant. Formerly sickly yellowish creosote bushes are now full of bright green leaves and yellow flowers, and the prickly pears are blooming. Wildflowers perfume the air everywhere.

 

[USExplorer]

1947: Lake Mead from the Dam. The anti-boating barrier is visible, and the carbonate deposits are strikingly visible. It is roughly 150 feet from the water level to the top of the deposits.
1948: The Hoover Dam slide. The only barrier to taking this fatal 750 foot slide is a three foot high concrete wall.
1949: The Dam spillway and various control buildings perched on the walls of the canyon. 
1950: The Tillman Bridge. Personally, I think that a bridge composed solely of weathering steel would have better complemented the setting better than the current steel-concrete composite. From this distance it appears a very frail structure. 
1951: And now, the dam. Before 2010 it was not possible to take a picture from this perspective (the spillway, dam, and lake simultaneously visible) without a helicopter.

 

[Gigi]

I so enjoyed your post and pictures! Looking forward to reading about your journey. Safe Travels!

Gigi

 

[USExplorer]

Back in Boulder City again, clean after a three dollar shower at the public pool. The current relative humidity is 5%. A front is coming through, the sky has clouded up and this afternoon was the last of the heat. 66 degrees high tomorrow, versus 85 today. 

I stayed at a free campground on the Arizona side of Lake Mead last night, three miles down a gravel road. Due to the drop in the lake level the vault toilet was located a quarter mile from the new lakeshore. An entire extended family was camped out down at the lake, and they talked and ate around a roaring fire until nearly midnight. I did not join them, instead reading a book in a folding chair on the roof of my SUV.

The rest of today I hiked down the White Rock Canyon, so named because of the chunks of granite washed down during flash floods. The canyon ended at the Colorado River, and a steep trail crossed the riverside hills to the Hot Springs Canyon. The Arizona Hot Springs were a zoo. Dozens of people rested in the shade at the foot of the wash, while entire families more lounged in the numerous hot spring pools at the top of a waterfall. The entire canyon was dammed by sandbags to create the pools. I did not join them either. 

1952: Kingman Wash campsite, by Lake Mead.
1954: The high walls of White Rock Canyon helped shelter hikers from the sun's fierce rays. Still, signs warn against hiking in summer.
1956: The placid, turquoise clear Colorado at the bottom of the wash. Roughly 600 feet in elevation at this point. Lots of kayakers and paddlers and even a few motorboats on the river.
1959: Hot Springs Canyon, the lower rapids, tramped through by hundreds of feet every day.
1960: Nature's hot shower. The ladder accesses the hot spring pools at the top.

 

[Van-Tramp]

Fun read, thanks!

 

[USExplorer]

After leaving the Boulder City Library, I parked for the night at the Railroad Pass Casino in a lot with dozens of RVs and tractor trailers. Such activities are illegal within Henderson city limits, but no one hassled any of us.

Yesterday morning I decided that I wanted to see the rest of Nevada, the 95% of the state that contains 5% of the people. So I cut north through the edge of the Vegas sprawl, drove past Nellis AFB, and found myself back in barren desert along I-15. It was 65 degrees and sunny today. I got some gas at the truck stop and turned north onto Route 93. The road began climbing gently but steadily, and the temperature began dropping. After 30 miles of driving along the wide, flat valley, I saw a lake, and a sign for the Pahranagat NWR. I turned down the neglected asphalt road and stopped at a strange-looking lake. The surface of the lake was churned by the strong valley breezes into little whitecaps, but the water was a strange reddish-brown color. The shore was lined with a white salt crust, and surrounding the lake was soft alkali dust dotted with dead plants. 

Five miles down the road is Alamo, the first town since Las Vegas. The sprawling town is located at the source of the springs that fed a long strip of pastures and marshes terminating in the lake previously described. Ominous cumulus clouds cluttered the northern horizon, many of them draping veils of rain. The wind chill was around 50 degrees. 

Ten miles down the road was the turn-off for the infamous Extraterrestrial Highway. Next gas 150 miles; here is the real Nevada. I turned down it and into the strong wind, climbing out of the water-rich Pahranagat Valley over the pass and dropping into a mile-high desert landscape of wind-blasted plain. The temperature is now 48 degrees, and the wind chill is below freezing much of the time. The blocks of sunlight only accentuate the deep shadows under the looming clouds, and the landscape looks barren and forsaken. The aliens here must be herbivores, because for miles the desert plain is heavily overgrazed. Every mile or so, a road sign warns drivers that this is open range. Some signs have been doodled with; in one, two aliens try to drag a cow into their spaceship; in another, a cow runs from a giant alien probe chasing its butt. The most common modification is bullet holes as passersby try to hit the cows with their firearm of choice. 

40 miles down the highway sits Rachel, a town with a definite human population and unknown alien population, or so says the welcome sign. Rachel is no more than a scattering of trailers across a vast expanse of overgrazed desert, with the exception of the Little Ale Inn, which caters to tourists. On this dismal cold day, traffic is extremely light. I pass Rachel by and hit some wet snow flurries that pelt my windshield and evaporate almost immediately. The highway traverses another barren summit and drops into an alkali valley, with a giant pan glowing white against the dull tan of the desert. As there are no roads out to the pan, I park and walk out. Behind the pan is a low range of mountains with some snow on them.

The wind gets too much and I drive up to the intersection with Route 6 and the ghost settlement of Warm Springs. Along the way are a few trees, a small lake, and water flowing down ditches. There must be a sizable spring up in the settlement. A California couple finishes taking pictures of the abandoned cafe-saloon and drives off, and I explore the place. Up the hill a ways, a trickle of tepid water flows into a large blue plastic pool with half a dozen goldfish swimming around in it. But that is not all. 

There is a giant course of white gravel descending the hill behind the town. I walk up to check it out and find a steaming watercourse rushing down the center. At the source is a hot spring in a rocky hole. Steam bubbles rise regularly to the surface, and the water is scalding hot. The pool is lined with colorful bacteria growths. I follow the course down to a small barbed wire enclosure. Inside is a hot tub cut out of the rock in the same dimensions as an in-ground swimming pool. A rusty ladder descends one side. There are several holes cut into the fence. A sign on the bath house says "Keep Out", and is ignored by everyone. The bathhouse is trashed with graffiti and litter, but the pool is quite clean. 

I drive up to a flat space next to the spring with a commanding view of all approaches and cook dinner. Of the very light traffic passing by, no one stops. It is in the 40s and windy, and beginning to get dark. After dinner, I descend to the hot tub and relax for a while. The water is very warm, scaldingly so at first, but I get used to it and wade out to the deep side of the pool. The rocks underfoot are covered with the white sand that the watercourse is made of. I soon begin to overheat and move to the shallow side to cool off a bit, where I finish reading the book "Born to Run". I do not find it particularly inspirational or dramatic. 

The next morning, the sun is strong, but the air temperature has dropped to the mid 20s, which considering the 5500 foot elevation the spring is at is completely ordinary for mid-March. I drive the 50 miles to the run-down mining town of Tonopah, the county seat of Nye County. Along the way, Route 6 cuts across numerous mountain ranges, topping out at 6500 feet. The valleys are so high though that the mountains look like little more than hills. At 6000 feet, Tonopah is very different from the warm, booming sprawl of Pahrump on the southern end of the county. Gas is $2.43/gallon, but I have to fill up. A check of the weather reveals that a cold snap has put the whole Intermountain West into a deep freeze. Which I should have checked before leaving the low desert. 

I withdrew two grand from my account after quitting my job back in November. That amount is now down to $385. 17 weeks and 7000 miles of adventure for 1615 dollars, not bad. 

1963: Lower Pahranagat Lake. 
1967: ET Highway sign.
1968: Desert road. Do bulldozers have cruise control?
1969: A rapidly disappearing dust devil that I just drove through.
1971: Not a very healthy high desert landscape, BLM needs to limit alien grazing permits.

 

[USExplorer]

1972: Forget Las Vegas, this is Nevada. Along the ET highway.
1973: It could look just a bit more welcoming, right?
1974: The plumes are a mix of rain/snow and dust. The mountains in the background are thousands of feet high, so that gives you a sense of the scale of the pan.
1975: Suddenly a lake.
1977: Stone cattle corral at Warm Springs, looks half finished.

 

[USExplorer]

1978: The hot spring I camped next to. 
1980: Note the steam bubbles rising to the surface.
1982: The pool beckons through a gap in the fencing.
1983: Wild horses on the plains, watching me curiously.

 

[USExplorer]

Ever since the silver rush days, most everyone in Nevada is from somewhere else. I saw a Vermonter at the truck stop driving a Subaru with a Bernie 2016 sticker (surprise, surprise!). The librarian on Tonopah is from Mississippi. I got passed by a New Jerseyan fleeing Vegas on Route 95. I saw several Alaskans in campers and trucks working their way north again for the summer. Unlike in my travels in the Appalachian Mountains, I don't get asked "What in the world brought you here?" Or Warren Ohio, where I could go a week without seeing a non-Ohio license plate. I also don't get spontaneously invited into homes like I did back East, where vehicle dwellers are people down on their luck who need a hand up. Out here, living in a van is just another facet of the individualist mindset.

I decided to indulge in a $8.99 pizza and salad buffet at a main street restaurant in Tonopah. The pizza was of fair quality, and I ate my money's worth: nine slices. There were only three varieties. I also ate a big green salad and drank half a gallon of iced tea. Well, you've got to pig out once in a while. 

The Tonopah Library was full of sick people snuffling and coughing. The map shows the Owens Valley over in California as the only place nearby having reasonable daytime temperature, so I say good riddance to Tonopah and hit the highway west. Outside of town on the flat plain is a massive array of mirrors reflecting the sun into a single dazzling point. After miles of high desert monotony, Route 95 splits off from Route 6 at Coaldale Junction, a ghost settlement consisting of a gutted motel, gas station, and convenience store. "No Trespassing, Armed Patrol" is spray-painted on the side of the motel. A steady stream of truck traffic passes on the nearby highways, a few of them using the gravel lot as a rest stop. No one enters the ruins. Windows and doors are removed, as is all plumbing and wiring. A few pieces of smashed or shot-up furniture still remain in the motel rooms. Given the dryness of the desert it is hard to tell how long the facility was abandoned.

I take Route 6 and climb up higher and higher through ugly brown hills, approaching the tail end of the White Mountains. Wild horses graze on the unfenced range, and snort when they notice me approach them. Up in Montgomery Pass, scrubby trees grow a dozen feet high, forming a greenish foreground to the stark granite projections of Boundary Peak, the highest point in Nevada. The highway crosses into California and passes through the decrepit settlement of Benton. Outside the town, the highway continues on a gradual descent into the Chalfant Valley, which is bounded by the high and rugged White Mountains on the one side and low brown hills on the other. Ranches occupy a few portions of the valley, but much of the land is BLM and Forest Service land. There is plenty of water here from the mountains, and some parcels of land are being irrigated for crop production. 

I stop at the agricultural inspection checkpoint outside Benton. The fruit cop asks me where I'm coming from. I say Nevada, and he says where in Nevada. I ask if I'm being detained. He says no, but we have a quarantine on fruit from parts of Nevada. I say Vegas. He says great town, Vegas, have a nice day. I drive off. California is a joke.

The White Mountains decrease in height as Route 6 approaches the Owens Valley. Meanwhile, the snowy and forbidding Sierras approach to form the western wall to the valley, while the White Mountains remain a lesser presence on the eastern horizon. The highway crosses the Owens River slough and ends in the town of Bishop, with a higher elevation than population. Gas is $2.75/gallon here, a price I am displeased to find is average for California. The summer gas price hike is well under way. 

The temperature is in the mid 60s here, though the warmth will disappear when the sun sets. There is also very little wind. Bishop is well-endowed with running creeks, and trees and grass grow quite naturally despite the desert climate. The town is half-asleep now, waiting for the boom of summer hikers and tourists escaping the heat. Still, there is quite a lot of activity in the downtown, bars and restaurants are doing some business, and a storefront church holds a Bible study. Unlike the rest of California, this is an out of the way place; the nearest interstate highway is I-15 in Vegas, 150 miles away. Strangers greet you in passing on the sidewalk. Bishop is not a resort town; the people who live here are normal working folk, without the snobby attitudes of West Coast beach towns. There are plenty of van dwellers, but they hide themselves well, although the cops are not out prowling. 

When I finish checking out the town, I curb camp just outside an RV park. Several other cars are also parked on the street near me. I would camp up in the mountains, but I don't want to deal with temps in the 20's again. The next morning, I hang around town for a few hours, talking desultorily with a few locals and reading a book, waiting for the sun to take away the cold. Once it has sufficiently warmed, I walk down to the public lands information center, where a ranger from Massachusetts (after spending six months in New England, I guessed almost immediately and guessed right) shows me the various hiking areas around town. I take a few pamphlets and decide to check out Lake Sabrina.

Line Street downtown passes west through the tiny Paiute reservation before beginning its climb into the low Sierra foothills as Highway 168. This highway, despite sharing a number with a highway on the western slopes, does not cross the mountain ridge. The road is of very high quality, well graded with long sweeping curves. It soon settles on the edge of a canyon and climbs to the small cabin settlement of Aspendell, which as its name suggests is located in a dell of aspens. The road is gated here, and I park with the other hikers and set off up the shallow canyon. The old single-lane road parallels the new highway a few feet up the steep rubble-covered canyon walls. The new highway ends a mile up and the old highway continues up to the lake, its surface covered in snow in the shady spots. I make the last climb to the dam, and look out on the John Muir Wilderness. A descending hiker lifts his hand in solemn greeting as I walk out on the gravel dam. The lake is frozen and far below the top of the dam. By the boat launch, a very tall sign warns against trespassing on a non-existent private dock.

It is nearly 50 degrees, even up here at 9000 feet. The sun shines warmly and the wind blows lightly. The snow is a blinding white, piled six feet deep in places and non-existent in others. The eastern slopes of the Sierra are thinly vegetated, scattered groves of trees interspersed with low shrubs and aspens in the canyon bottom. Much of the canyon walls are virtually free of vegetation due to incessant rockslides from the formations at the top. Water pours out of a pipe at the base of the dam and forms the creek that will eventually meander through the town of Bishop, far below in the valley. 

Walking down I pass a large family walking up the road. I keep my truck in neutral most of the way down into the valley. Back in town, the temperature is 62 degrees and slowly rising. The library has a highly unreliable internet connection, not strange in such a small remote town. There will probably be religious events associated with Good Friday at a church in town, so I might spend the evening there. 

Where I will go in the next week, I'm not sure yet, but there is no shortage of natural places to see out here. I may even take a second swing at Death Valley National Park. 

1985: Tonopah, the beautiful mining town of, from a hill outside town.
1987: The solar gadget in the desert.
1988: Talk about a cheap motel. Even in its heyday I have a hard time seeing how anyone would actually pay to stay here.
1989: Too bad the prices have been stolen long ago.
1990: A closeup of a suite at the motel. What is amazing is that some yahoo with a diesel 4x4 hasn't pulled down all the buildings already.

 

[USExplorer]

1993: Wild wild horses. 
1995: 7200 feet high in Montgomery Pass, looking through a scrub juniper(?) forest at 13000 foot high Boundary Peak. 
1997: Another view of the Nevada end of the White Mountains. Below them is a flat desert basin...
1998: ...irrigated in parts by the bountiful snow water.
1999: The Sierras are an ever-present background in Bishop, including at this curb campsite a couple blocks from downtown.

 

[USExplorer]

2000: The mountains shine in the golden morning light. The little hump in the very center of the photo is Mount Humphreys, at 13992 feet. The massif to the right is Mount Tom, 13658 feet.
2002: The noon sun bleaches the landscape outside Bishop along Highway 168. 
2003: Scenic remote Aspendell, 8500 feet and 75 souls.
2004: A roaring waterfall, heard clearly half a mile away, pouring down into Bishop Creek through a sheltered rock crevice. 
2005: Bishop Creek, quite placid in places, at the bottom of the valley.

 

[USExplorer]

2007: Lake Sabrina, covered in ice and old snowdrifts. The low lake level has exposed various rock formations. 
2008: OK, OK, I'll keep off your private dock, if I can find it.
2009: The main body of Lake Sabrina, with the John Muir Wilderness behind it. The rugged crests in the background mark the border of King's Canyon National Park. A hiking trail runs alongside the lake on the left side up toward higher alpine lakes and the high Sierra. At 9100 feet, Lake Sabrina is the highest elevation I have achieved so far.
2010: Taking a break from the grand and expansive, here is an ant-like insect walking over a snowdrift as if it were sand. The warm sun is keeping it running.
2012: The old Route 168, now functioning as a catch for any small rocks that tumble down the long scree slope. Owens Valley is in the background.

 

[highdesertranger]

you are in my backyard. I do love that area of NV and CA. I could have pointed you to numerous spots. where are you headed from Bishop? one thing I would like to point out, there are no wild horses in the western hemisphere. they are feral horses. horses weather feral or domesticated seriously overgraze their range. this is just how it is. horses eat just to eat and they will eat everything within their reach. that part of Nevada that you described as overgrazed never had a lot of vegetation and the feral horses don't help. highdesertranger

 

[USExplorer]

@highdesertranger: My current tentative plan is, Alabama Hills, then back up to 168 and Death Valley Road, then back to 168 and cross-country to Silver Peak and the hot springs there, then south 95 to 373 and 127 and Mohave National Preserve. I-40 over to Flagstaff, then up into Utah for National Park blitz during Park Week. If you know of any great places to see in northern Death Valley NP or Mojave I will be glad to know.

I spent last night on the volcanic tableland just north of Bishop. The tableland ends in chalk bluffs along the Owens River, but the entire river region has been appropriated by the city of Los Angeles and closed to camping. About a dozen other vans were camped out on the plateau, which offered a panoramic view of Bishop, the Valley, and the two mountain ranges. Earlier I had made an unsuccessful attempt to access the bristlecone pine forest via Silver Canyon Road, but it was closed for the winter. 

The Paiute Indian Reservation outside Bishop has gas for ten cents cheaper than the rest of town, and there are lines for every pump and endless jockeying for position. I fill up and head south for the main entrance to the bristlecones, passing the Keough Hot Springs Resort along the way. At Big Pine, Route 168 splits off from 395 and heads up a dry brown canyon. At one point the rock walls of the canyon squeeze the paved road down to one lane, but then the road tops out at 7000 feet in a pinyon pine forest. I turn up the paved White Mountain Road and climb 8 more miles through the desert forest to an ridge-top parking lot with a view of the entire Sierra range. The road is gated off here, so I park and begin walking up through the high desert steppe. A small sign says "10,000 feet", another elevation achievement. Up ahead, the rocky slopes are covered with tiny scrub plants and pine trees; these are the famed bristlecone pines. 

On the sheltered slopes, the pines look completely ordinary, growing straight and slender, branches laden with short needles and small cones. The oldest trees, by contrast, are half-dead, stunted, and incredibly gnarled, clinging to the driest and most infertile rocky slopes. Many of them have dead roots exposed by millennia of erosion, and numerous branches which centuries ago lost the battle against the elements, projecting white and stark from the thick trunk. One such old tree is slowly being killed by nature; only one small branch remains green with needles. Dead pines lie everywhere, a thousand years of accumulation. Out here, the wood does not so much rot as just turn to dust and blow away under the cold, dry wind. A certain fat white trunk is marked by a plaque, specifying its last year of growth: 1676. The wood is sun-bleached but completely intact. The growth rings are impossibly narrow, but the plaque states there are over 3700 of them. 

It is 40 degrees up here, and the wind blows gustily. The sun blazes down from the sky, blocked only by the occasional cirrus wisp. On the way up, I had no difficulty breathing the thin air, but out of prudence I did not overexert myself. In the lee of the wind, it feels quite warm. 

The Methuselah tree is the oldest tree in the world. Its location is a secret, hidden in a grove of thousands on the more sheltered northern slope of the canyon. The grove is completely snowed-in, making the five mile trail inaccessible. 

On the way down I pass an overweight middle-aged guy huffing and puffing his way up. He asks me how much farther. I give him my map and continue on back to the parking lot. Driving down in 3rd and 4th gear, the temperature warms up to 70 degrees, and I catch a glimpse of the barren mountains of Death Valley through a canyon. Near the bottom, a jar of grape jelly makes a popping sound; the tamper-proof lid has been reset. 

I pass Death Valley Road, saving it for later, and continue south along the valley, stopping at the Tinemaha Reservoir. A few folks fish at the dam outlet. The lake itself is partially fenced off, with signs warning against tampering with the water supply of the all-important city of Los Angeles. South of the dam, the highway passes through a field of very black volcanic rubble in small piles, contrasting with the very white mountains in the background. 

Independence is the seat of Inyo County, despite not even being incorporated. Its 500 inhabitants live in a small grid surrounding the county courthouse. The library in the courthouse basement looks more like a bookworm's hoard, with hardly a seat available. I sit in the hallway; which is filled with an assortment of old files and discarded furniture. Before I entered, I removed all weapon-like tools, as the signs demanded it. 

2015: The gravel road is perched on a ledge of the chalk bluffs along the Owens River.
2016: Brown rocks, white snow, the Eastern Sierra in a nutshell.
2017: A canyon road in the White Mountains.
2018: Around 8000 feet high in the pinyon forest. The yellow-greenish cedar trees grow down to 4000 feet in some high desert locales. 
2019: I know y'all are probably gagging sick of mountain vistas, but there are many more to come. This one is from 9500 feet high. Bishop is on the right at the bottom of the valley; 30 mile drive, but 10 miles away.

 

[USExplorer]

2020: An inpenetrable wall, stretching to the southern horizon.
2023: My bank account balance and topographic elevation seem to be traveling in opposite directions.
2024: The Discovery Grove. Without the bristlecones, there wouldn't be a living plant taller than a foot in the whole region. (Strangely, the road seems to accentuate the growth of shrubs alongside it.)
2025: Mother Nature twisted them trees till they died.
2026: Note the tree on the right is still living. This is what the oldest trees in the world look like.

 

[USExplorer]

2027: A closeup of a bristlecone. The soil level when the tree germinated was at the center of the photo. 
2028: A healthy old grandpa tree. 
2030: Just a piece of dead wood, right? Just a piece of dead wood which lived a couple millennia and died before the oldest tree in the East germinated.
2032: Property of the City of Los Angeles. 
2033: The Devil's Compost Pile.

 

[highdesertranger]

the road shoulders do in fact lead to the growth of flowers and shrubs. this is because of the greater amount of water due to the run off from the paved surface. highdesertranger

 

[USExplorer]

I spent last night in the Alabama Hills. As soon as the sun dipped below the Sierra crest the air filled with large black mosquitoes. Instinctively knowing their time is very short, they ferociously attacked those of us out walking around on the bouldery hills. Unlike the mosquitoes I am accustomed to, which quietly drop onto your arm or neck, these skeeters loudly whined around my face and easily kept up with me when I was walking. I took cover in my truck after putting up a mosquito net, and the net was quickly covered with a dozen probing mosquitoes. Fortunately, I was in the desert, and after a half hour the mosquitoes packed it in for the long cold night. I went out and gathered some dead brush for a roaring fire. A breeze developed as it grew dark, growing stronger and stronger as the evening progressed. By nine o'clock my fire was roaring like a blowtorch. 

The next morning, the breeze was still powerful, and the air warmed slowly as I drove out along Movie Flats Road. Numerous other campers were parked along the numerous dirt roads and pullouts. A film crew was pulled onto the side of the road, leaving barely enough room to pass. Numerous big-budget movies have been filmed in these hills. I stop at the famous Mobius Arch and take several pictures; the reddish-brown oddly rounded boulders of the Alabama Hills contrast nicely with the gray peaked granite of the Sierras.

Lone Pine is another Valley town, with lots of budget motels for visitors who cannot afford a stay at the pricey mountain lodges farther north. I turn around and begin heading north along 395 again, stopping at the Manzanar Historic Site. Manzanar was a prison camp for Americans of Japanese descent during much of World War II. Much of the once temporary residence of 11,000 people has returned to its natural desert state. The buildings have long ago been dismantled and sold for scrap. The visitor's center shows a documentary movie as well as numerous exhibits of life in the camp and the factors that led to the establishment of such a camp. I'll refrain from making any political comments here.

Never before in my travels have I given any concern with the location of gas stations. East of the Sierras, however, the prudent explorer never leaves a populated place without a full gas tank. 

2035: At least the War Relocation Administration did not put "Welcome to..." on the entrance sign.
2037: I don't use these window screens often, but I sure am glad for them when they are needed.
2039: The southernmost glaciers in North America are located on these Sierra peaks. 
2040: Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the lower 48. The rock formation in the foreground is a popular climbing destination.
2042: The Eye of the Alabama arch. Strange erosion patterns are the dominant feature of the Hills.

 

[USExplorer]

Driving back north from Lone Pine along 395, I stopped at Fort Independence to fill my tank. The price went up 15 cents a gallon in the past day, but gas here is still cheaper than anywhere else in the valley. I also buy a shower in the campground for five bucks. The week-old wet dirty clothes in my plastic laundry bag are rapidly approaching hazardous waste designation, so I drop by a laundromat in Big Pine to get them cleaned. While the clothes are washing, I set off walking down the main street of Big Pine, population 1756.  At the intersection of 395 and 168 stands a sequoia tree planted to commemorate the opening of Route 168 over Westgard Pass, commonly regarded as the eponymous big pine. 

Down by the Shell gas station, an overweight punk kid with stud earrings and wild hair walks up to me and asks me where I'm from. I tell him a little about my travels, and then he says, "Let's sit down here," pointing to a stone bench. I oblige and then ask him, "Why are you so outgoing? Normally kids don't just approach strangers and start talking to them." 
He takes offense; "I'm not a kid, I'm 18."
"The hell you're 18. Do you have any ID?"
"I left it at home."
"Yeah right. Are you running from someone, do you need a ride to Phoenix or someplace?"
"No, I live here in Big Pine. I just wanted to get to know you."

Here we go again. I tell him, "I have to go put my clothes in the dryer." He follows me down to the laundromat and takes a seat near the door. I start the dryer and then sit down on the opposite side of the room. He takes a chair and places it right in front of me and sits down and continues asking various questions about my life. I tell him that no I am not interested in him, or boys in general. He continues asking personal questions, and I laugh and mention the laundromat's security camera, which is capturing everything. He then tells me to come with him. I refuse, and he grabs my arm and playfully tries to pull me along. I tell him to keep his hands to himself, and he says, "If you don't come I'll drag you out of your chair." I tell him "Try it" and before I realize that this is the wrong thing to say to a teenager he grabs my foot and starts pulling me out of my chair. The chair is not connected to anything, and I get dragged across the room before ordering him to stop. 

I stand up and tell him, "Time to get out of here. You have no business in this laundromat."
He whines, "I was just joking."
"It doesn't make a difference. You have to leave."
He laughs, "I have clothes in the washer."
In a flat voice I look him in the eyes and tell him, "You have to realize when I am being serious."
"OK, OK, I'm leaving. Nice day." He walks off down the street. 

I finish the laundry and drive off into the valley pasture outside of town, parking next to a big brush pile and walking back into town along the aqueduct. The pasture is full of sagebrush and cattle. A man idles a new Ford car along the access road, blasting 80s music and drinking from a quart of whiskey. He waves as we pass in opposite directions. I walk past the campground at the corner of 168 and 395 and walk up Main Street. And who did I see but the same kid cross the road toward me again. 

"Fancy meeting you again," I remark sarcastically. He falls in behind me and starts dogging my steps. "Why don't you go on ahead?"
"Make me," he taunts, poking me in the back. 
This f**kin' brat is getting on my nerves, but I remain calm. "You know, your behavior is considered stalking and harassment, and being 18 you are fully responsible for your actions."
"Har-ass-ment; what are you gonna do, call the cops?"
"No, I don't call the police."
"What if I punched you in the f**king gut, will you call the police?" He feints punches, and I suddenly stop.
"I am crossing the street now. If you follow and continue harassing me, I will pepper spray you."
I cross the boulevard and he follows, mocking. When I don't react, he jabs me in the ribs. Being a stupid kid about a foot shorter than me, I let him get away with a lot, but enough is enough. I pull out the pepper spray and give it a shake. "You touch me one more time, and I'll spray you in the face." He pulls his shirt over his face, and I walk away. He follows from a distance. I make to enter a store and he calls out, "Letting you know, I'm going into that store to get a Coke."
"Good. Good riddance." I continue walking down the highway. Fortunately, the kid's ability to spread false rumors about me is severely hampered by the fact that he has no idea who I am or where I'm from.

Darkness falls by the time I arrive back at my truck, which is parked about a mile from the downtown. I wait until the wind dies down before kicking out a firepit in the sand and setting a pile of dry sticks ablaze. The brush pile contains plenty of sizable wood, completely dry and perfect for burning, and I tend the fire until about 10:30. The glare of the moon from somewhere right below the visible horizon bleaches out the stars. The satellite dishes of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory glow white on the horizon, and cows low quietly and shuffle around in the weeds. Peace at last.

I wake up early on Easter, and drive 15 miles up into Bishop, stopping at the Calvary Chapel I visited the Wednesday previous. The members are friendly and welcoming, and I spend some time after the service talking to them. I discuss water politics with a grizzled firefighter named Mike who leads the worship music. For those unfamiliar with the history of this region, in the early 1900s Los Angeles was running low on water. A water manager in the city discovered that water could be run through a gravity fed aquifer from the richly agricultural Owens Valley around the bottom of the Sierras down to the city. In the 1920s, by hook or by crook, Los Angeles purchased 90% of the water rights in the Owens Valley and piped it all into an aqueduct. Local opposition was fierce as everything dried up, and the aqueduct was bombed a few times by armed ranchers and farmers. Then, the Inyo bank collapsed, and the opposition leaders (who were the bank directors) were convicted of fraud. The local economy collapsed, and the heart was torn out of the resistance. Mike looks on the bright side, though: "If all the water wasn't pumped down there, everyone would live up here, and this place would quickly become polluted and unlivable. Still, the big guy always wins over the small guy."

I discuss the destruction of Civil War battlefield sites in the East with a couple of female War enthusiasts planning on making a pilgrimage over the summer. "Where historians see the memories and bones of Federals and Rebels, developers see empty land going to waste."

Based on the tips of locals, I drive down Keough Hot Springs Road a few miles south of Bishop. The hot springs and tubs are on a private resort, but their warm wastewater is open to the public. Groups of backpackers, local families, and adventurers relax in the natural warm pools in a grassy vale. The sun is very warm and I sit on a rock by the stream and start reading "Iron Rooster", an account by Louis Theroux of his travels through China in the 1980s. I find it very interesting, but by 2 pm I am ready to leave the Owens Valley.

Back down to Big Pine, where I turn down 168 and then turn onto Death Valley Road. A sign says "Pavement Ends 25 miles". The pavement here is the color of the gravel around it and is in passable condition. The road climbs over a pass in the Inyo Mountains forested with scrub trees and drops down a long straight slope into the Saline Valley. I see creosotebushes for the first time since Las Vegas. Unbeknownst to me, there is a hot spring many miles down the rough Saline Valley Road. I continue on over another pass and drop down into Eureka Valley. The pavement ends in this flat desert valley, but the road is well maintained. The next range of mountains is composed of bands of multi-colored rock and is entirely free of vegetation. Down the valley is the white pile of the Eureka Sand Dunes, the highest dunes in California.

The road to the dunes is 10 miles long and very badly washboarded in parts. Half a dozen other people were camped out in the dispersed sites around the dunes. The dunes are not large in area but are nearly 700 feet high. Several other people are slogging their way up the dunes, and I do the same, but on the other side. I take off my shoes before climbing. The sand is very loose, warm on the sunny side of the crest and cool on the shady side. After an exhausting climb, I reach the top of the ridge. The highest point is still half a mile away, and a family frolics in the sand on top. Unexplainably, I see small brown beetles scrambling up and down and across the barren dunes, leaving inch-wide tracks all over the place. Supposedly these dunes make booming sounds, but kicking sand downhill only creates what sounds like a quiet fart. I enjoy the view before slogging down the steep slope back to my truck. 

Being 1000 feet lower than Owens Valley and free of the cold influence of the Sierras, the temperature only drops to 50 degrees. The next morning, I drive back along the road and continue down the now paved Death Valley Road, past a private mine inholding in the park (the pavement ending soon after) and then down into the northern part of Death Valley. The road was relatively smooth through the valley, and after many monotonous miles it terminated at the paved Racetrack Valley Road. I took a short detour to Uhebebe Crater. Several tourists braced against the ferocious wind on top while I slogged down the loose gravel slope to the bottom of the crater. I soon climbed back up, a chore but not as difficult as the dunes.

On past Scotty's Castle, which was closed. Down in Death Valley, the temperature was in the mid 80s, and a ferocious wind whipped the dust into the air, eventually persuading me to close my windows. Tired of the dust, I quit the park, driving up over Daylight Pass into the Amargosa Valley. The wind was fierce here, but the air was clear. While the state border officially travels in a straight line through a corner of Death Valley NP, the shot-up "Welcome to Nevada" sign was located at the border of the park. I got gas in the small town of Beatty and then stopped at the tiny local library to access the Internet. They did not have any WiFi, and I had to use a public computer. Beatty itself mainly caters to Death Valley tourists, and is very quiet on this windy day. I stop at the first gas station I see and fill up at $2.49/gallon. 


They are about to turn off the computers, pictures will come later.

 

[USExplorer]

2043: Mobius Arch. It is very rough and weathered.
2044: The thinnest part of the Arch.
2046: On the other side of the Inyo Mountain pass on Death Valley Road is a Joshua tree forest. 
2048: The 700 foot high Eureka Dunes are dwarfed by the Eureka Valley and the desert mountains beyond.
2052: A dune hiker making his way up the dunes. The footprints of other hikers stay visible a long time in this nearly rainless clime.